A hearty thank you to the more than 11,000 people who rode their bikes to work and logged their trips for this September’s Bike Commute Challenge. We will be announcing our winners at an awards ceremony at Portland City Hall this Thursday, October 8, at 6:15, and posting all results on the Bike Commute Challenge website this Friday.
Meanwhile, enjoy a few pictures from those that competed.
Oregon DEQ Team
Dr. Leigh Ann Chapman of Sellwood Family Medicine: 6 weeks until baby comes and still biking!
Members of the Portland Community College- Sylvania Campus Team
Team Standard
Way to go everyone! we saved a lot of CO2 from going into our atmosphere, and we look and feel great!
I am an occasional rider who allowed myself to get sucked up into the energy of the Sept challenge by my workplace. I finished the month with 100% ridership, and also helped push other riders in my workplace to join.
I found the end to be highly anticlimactic. I was looking forward to some feedback on how we did against the team that challenged us, how we placed overall, how we did as individuals, how our workplace improved from last year, how the overall challenge improved from last year, etc.
I know that kind of feedback is not for everyone, but lots of us love it. As is, I am very disappointed. Participation was a waste of time. Perhaps that info is out there? If so, where? I can’t find it. I will remain an occasional rider. But, I don’t see any point in participating in the challenge again next year.
Good luck.
Hi Mike and all,
All of these stats will be available once we audit our results, and our web developer adds in a couple of buttons. You will be able to view your individual stats by clicking back to your September calendar, your captain will be able to download all the stats for the team, and we will publish all the results from the event on the website this Friday.
How do I export September stats? The BCC site says, “September stats will be available on October 6.” However, when I export I only get October stats. This is true even if I’ve already selected the month of September on the “My Trip Calendar” page. Can you help?
Mike,
The challenge isn’t a waste of time. The point is to get people riding and and having fun. You obviously increased your ridership atleast for a short while, as did others. You fed off of each others enthusiasm, and it sounds like you did have fun. Stats are a nice way to gage how you are doing, but the ultimate goal is to just get out there, and have fun.
Team captains can now access team stats from September by clicking their “Manage Your Team” button and exporting September stats into an excel document.
No Micro$oft Excel required (thanks!)
100.0,21,21,1266,
“Participation was a waste of time.” Really?
I have only started riding within the last year and I had a great time with the bike commute challenge. My team “ROAD RIDERS” were always up for a ride even after work and weekends ( to bad we couldn’t log all those hours ). I have even learned a thing or two about changing tires and doing maintenance on my own bike. I hope to participate again next year and would love to encourage more people from the Roseburg area to do the same. I was given many compliments from my co-workers that have only encouraged me to keep on riding!! Which I have done happily……
Way to go Evelyn and fellow team member I am so very proud of you and appreciate your continued encouragement!
I’m just happy to have my daily commute translate into something that looks so good, at least as a percentage. There’s something about seeing it in print that feels congratulatory, and I find I’m continuing to log miles this month, just because I like seeing “100%.” (It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in school, and I just don’t get numbers like that in my life any longer.)
Mike. You should ride for the sheer joy of getting to work in a more enjoyable manner. If you are “riding for stats”, go try to be in the tour de france or something. If you don’t see the point of doing this next year, i hope you and your negativity don’t. – - DJ
ps…All those stats are available, just talk to your captain. and good luck to YOU
I know everyone wants to same pollutants from being emitted into the air, but c’mon… CO2. That’s the stuff that everything green feeds on. It’s the carbon monoxide and other pollutants that we should worry about. I’m all for helping the environment but let’s not get sucked into what everyone says we should get sucked into just because they say we should get sucked into it.
Oh, and 55% commute rate in Sep. with ~500 miles logged.
See ya at the party tonight.
Jim
Stephanie, will you make available all of the ranking lists that were posted at the event last night?
Wow, how can the challenge be considered a “waste of time.” I got on a bicycle for the first time in about 24 years. I had a 94.4% commute rate (I only missed one work day). It is not October, the challenge is over and I have commuted to work by bike 4 out of 6 work days! This is not a waste of time. I enjoy the time on my bike riding to work and then back at the end of the day. Exercise in any way, shape, or form is NEVER a waste of time! Can’t wait till next year!
Oops! I meant to say, “It is now October . . . ” Bad finger!
All results are now posted at http://bikecommutechallenge.com/results/
Riding a bike is not participation in the Bike Commute Challenge, and participation in the Bike Commute Challenge is not riding a bike.
Participation in the Bike Commute Challenge is signing up on the web site and logging your trips.
While the underlying intent may be to generate interest and encourage more people to ride, they very specifically do it as a competition of statistics. If people go out of their way to provide input data (participate), and the resulting information is not accessible and meaningful to them… well… mightn’t they reasonably consider their participation sort of a waste of time? (Doesn’t mean theyre meanies or that they don’t love to ride.)
Some frustration is understandable. Last year the web site said you could click on a button to see the Top Riders – never materialized. Even after the competition ended and the results were in and the party was over, the 2008 Top Riders list was still not available for months.
This year – even as the 2009 web site was being rolled out – the web site still advertised the non-existent Top Riders button; then that bit was silently removed in September. I had to crank out the miles with no idea where I ever actually stood.
Don’t get me wrong – nobody, and I mean nobody, enjoys the sheer joy of riding and all that more than I do (… nobody), but my participation in the Bike Commute Challenge doesn’t really add to that. If anything, it sorta feels more obligatory and chore like that month.
To those for whom participation in the Bike Commute Challenge is about camaraderie and joy and stuff – well, if you need a program for that, good luck to YOU… er, I mean… more power to you – yay – way to go – party on
Top Riders?