The team from Daimler Trucks NA.
(Photo: B-line Sustainable Urban Delivery)

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) wrapped up their 19th annual Bike More Challenge with a big party last night in southeast Portland.

This was the first year the friendly competition was held in May instead of September. The BTA made the move to encourage more people to keep biking through the summer, but it looks like the warm and sunny weather also boosted overall participation. A look at the final numbers shows that about 1,000 more participants were coaxed into the event than in previous years.

This year’s Challenge had 11,741 total riders who biked 1,656,098 miles. That’s up from 10,722 riders and 1,247,886 miles in 2015 and 10,350 riders and 1,212,271 miles in 2014.
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A rainy day for the commute challenge in September 2014.
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland)

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s popular and friendly competition among Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces is shifting to springtime and making some big changes.

It’s now called the “Bike More Challenge” and it starts next month instead of in September.

Other big changes for 2016: The BTA now invites participants to log all bike trips, not just work commutes; the entire contest runs on a new software platform, and you can get extra points for encouraging someone else to sign up.

“You can log your ride to the grocery store, your recreational ride, whatever,” BTA spokeswoman Sarah Newsum said Thursday. “Sometimes the bike commute is a big leap for some people, having to show up for work after biking.”

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Eagerly awaiting awards for the most dedicated bike commuters.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

More than 200 people came to the parking lot of Portland Design Works Wednesday to celebrate the 2015 Bike Commute Challenge — which may also be the last one to be held in September.

In 2016, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance announced, the BTA will move its annual friendly competition to May to coincide with National Bike Month.

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Who doesn’t like trophies?
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s friendly annual competition among workplaces to see who can log the most and longest bike trips and who can recruit the most commuters starts today. And an excellent new academic paper shows exactly why you should be signing up and nudging your co-workers to do the same.

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People wait for awards to
be presented to workplaces with
the most dedicated bike commuters.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Well over a hundred biking fans packed City Hall’s courtyard with their vehicles and stepped inside for beer and pizza Thursday night to celebrate the end of the annual Bike Commute Challenge.

The event run by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance drew 10,350 participants this year from 1,190 workplaces in a friendly competition that saw the most dedicated commuters logging more than 1,000 miles during September. In all, participants logged 1,212,271 miles of bike commuting this year.

“At the same time as you saved money on gas, you saved our communities money on road maintenance,” BTA Deputy Director Steph Noll said.

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BTA staffers Amanda Lee Harrison (yellow cap) and Sarah Newsum offering cookies and encouragement to bike commuters in the rain this morning on the Broadway Bridge.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

We’re more than half way through the Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s Bike Commute Challenge and the organization is pulling out all the stops to encourage riders to sign up and log their trips.[Read more…]

Hawthorne Bridge traffic in September 2013.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

With August’s heat lifting, we’re headed into one of the nicest times of year to be on a bicycle in Portland, and that means it’s time to convince your co-workers to give biking to work a shot.

The region’s annual Bike Commute Challenge is a free, friendly contest between workplaces, ad-hoc teams and/or your own performance the previous year to see whose commuters can bike the most or the farthest on their way to work in September.

If they’d like, participants can use bikes for only part of their trip. Routes can fall anywhere in the state or metro area, including Clark County on the Washington side of the Columbia.

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Seeing City Hall’s courtyard completely lined
with bikes was a treat of its own.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Oregon’s annual Bike Commute Challenge wrapped up Thursday night with cheap beer, free pizza, prize raffles and the results of a month of online trip logging.

Unlike in recent years, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance held its afterparty inside Portland City Hall. It’s a small, beautiful building with an indoor atrium that created a fun multi-level interaction for a couple hundred attendees.

In all, this year’s challenge drew 10,555 riders at 1,290 workplaces, biking a collective 1.2 million miles. (Memo to the “freight community” from the “cyclist community”: that’s a lot of reduced road maintenance. We assume your check’s in the mail?)
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A digital flier by the competitive geeks at Intel.

In Oregon’s epic battle of nerds versus jocks, the nerds are winning.

The gearheads, the nurses and the bureaucrats are on their tail, though.

With six weekdays left in the BTA’s annual Bike Commute Challenge, Intel employees have logged 16,117 miles of biking to lead the contest in total travel, while Nike employees are in second place across the region with 14,529.

Close behind are Daimler Trucks North America (13,880 miles), Oregon Health and Science University (13,679) and the City of Portland (13,348).

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Fall is coming, and in Oregon, unlike in the many places that foolishly declare May to be their official bike month, that means it’s time for the annual Bike Commute Challenge.

A major annual project of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, it’s grown into one of the most popular and successful bike-to-work challenges anywhere, spawning fun rivalries like the Intel-vs-Nike matchup highlighted at right. (More on that in a moment.) In the last two years, the friendly workplace-to-workplace competition has attracted 12,000 Oregonians on about 1,400 teams logging their trips by both frequency and distance.

“Per-capita participation in our program is bigger than in any other program I’m aware of,” BTA Deputy Director Steph Noll said Wednesday.

This year, Noll’s team is making it easier for blue-collar workers to participate by offering cards with radio-frequency chips in selected workplaces.

[Read more…]