Century Cycles proudly reported that more than 4,000 students hit the bikes to ride some 50,000 miles and burn nearly a million calories in the 6th Annual Bike to School Challenge (BTS), which took place from May 6-24 of this year. In all Northeast Ohio students biked 57,627 miles and set a new record.
Northeast Ohio students biked 57,627 miles for record-setting 2013 Century Cycles’ Bike to School Challenge
ROCKY RIVER, Ohio – The biggest bike-to-school program in the nation grew even bigger this year. Century Cycles’ Bike to School Challenge (www.centurycycles.com/for/BTS) concluded on May 24 with celebrations of the students’ record-setting bicycling accomplishments, the inspiration they’re providing in Northeast Ohio and around the world, and the fun they had on two wheels for three weeks.
From May 6 through May 24, over 4,000 students at five schools in Cleveland’s suburbs took the three-week bicycling challenge. Using daily bike counts and student surveys to gauge participation, organizers report that the students:
• Biked 57,627 miles – the equivalent of biking around the circumference of the Earth 2¼ times;
• Took 17,573 round-trip bicycle rides to school;
• Averaged 1,172 bicyclists to school per day, or 29% of the total enrollment of all five schools;
• Burned 979,659 calories – or 6,997 cans of Coca-Cola;
• Prevented 63,398 pounds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from entering the environment;
• Saved their parents $10,125.68 on gasoline, based on the current Ohio average gas price of $3.76/gallon and an average vehicle fuel economy of 21.4 MPG.
• Participation overall was up 11% over 2012, making Bike to School Challenge’s sixth year its best year ever.
• Bike to School Challenge students have biked 221,797 miles to school since the program began in 2008.
Almost every school in the award-winning program experienced a record year this year, but none more so than Bay Middle School, which set all-new high marks in every category tracked:
• 538 students biked each day of the challenge on average, a whopping 66% of Bay Middle’s enrollment of 820 students and up 13% over last year’s average of 474.
• 27% of Bay Middle School Students (226 of them) biked all 15 school days of the challenge – rain or shine (or sub-freezing temperatures).
• 634 students biked on May 8 (77% of the school), the highest ride day in the history of the challenge and coincidentally National Bike to School Day.
“Bike to School Challenge is a model of what we should be doing across the country,” said Chris Speyer, Chief Operating Officer of Accell North America, the parent company of Raleigh Bicycles in Seattle, Washington. “At Raleigh Bicycles, we believe in investing in schools and communities that show a commitment to youth bicycling.”
Toward that end, Raleigh Bicycles and Century Cycles awarded 16 Raleigh bicycles to students as prizes, and Raleigh gave cash awards of $3,000 to the schools and $4,000 to the cities for bicycling improvements.
“I have never seen a bike-to-school program that generates the level of participation and excitement that this one does. It is a credit to the tremendous amount of commitment and work by the schools, its local bike shop Century Cycles and the entire community to engage and inspire the students. Raleigh Bicycles is extraordinarily proud to be part of Bike to School Challenge,” said Speyer.
Founded in 2008, Century Cycles’ Bike to School Challenge communicates to students the impact that bicycling instead of driving can have on their health and the environment, and they are incentivized with daily and grand prizes to bicycle as much as possible to school for three weeks. Students carry cards that are stamped for each bike-ride to school and can be entered into the grand prize drawing that concludes the challenge.
“We organize it for three weeks because we want to establish bicycling as a habit,” said Scott Cowan, owner of Century Cycles bicycle stores in Rocky River, Medina and Peninsula, Ohio, the challenge’s organizer and main sponsor. “We are gratified to see far more bicycling year-round in these communities because of Bike to School Challenge.”
“The entire community is really proud of you,” Mayor Deborah Sutherland told Bay Village students at their school-wide celebrations. “Your efforts are making Bay a hub for the bicycling community.”
For more information about Bike To School Challenge, go to www.centurycycles.com/to/BTS or follow the program at www.facebook.com/BikeToSchoolChallenge or on Twitter (@BTSChallenge).