Aotearoa Bike Challenge wins over Queenstown

February saw a swag of Whakatipu workplaces cranking the kms

During the month of February thousands of individuals and businesses across New Zealand enjoyed the benefits of bike riding. They also tracked these rides to gain points toward the annual Aotearoa Bike Challenge. 23,766 people took part in 2022 and altogether we pedalled 3,999,778 kilometres and saved 211,291 kgs of CO2! Here in Queenstown it was great to see some of our largest employers in the saddle including QLDC, Wakatipu High School, RealNZ and Anderson Lloyd. In fact, Wakatipu High School finished up 22nd in the country for the workplace size (50 – 199 staff), and pulled up second in the Education – School Industry sector. Punching above its weight, as usual…

So what’s the ABC all about?

Each February individuals and workplaces compete nationally to earn the most points by riding and encouraging others to do the same. You can ride anywhere, anytime during from February – just a 10 minute ride is enough to take part.

People can take part in three different ways, as individuals, with a workplace or with a club/group. Points are gained by riding and encouraging others to ride. If competing as part of a workplace, your workplace points will be the sum of all points earned by every employee taking part at your company on Love to Ride. Strava users can easily connect their account to their Love To Ride profile, and all rides logged in Strava will automatically appear.

You don’t have to be a bike commuter to take part – all types of rides count towards your team’s score!

Why only log rides in February?

Well actually, you can log rides all year-round via a Love to Ride profile. The national challenge happens in February because it’s the the perfect time of year to get out biking or trial new ways of commuting. The weather is warm, the days are long and people are still riding high off their New Year’s resolutions.

But the Love to Ride website is available year-round to keep logging rides, tracking your progress and setting goals all year round. Workplaces that want to encourage more active travel, or hit some carbon reduction goals can use the Love to Ride scoreboard to see their progress against health and wellbeing or sustainability targets. You can also set up your riding crew as a “Club/Group” and individuals can join as many of these as they like. We’re always keen to add Lightfooters to our Group so join us here when you sign up

Want to hear from a Lightfooter ?

Lightfoot want to spark smart changes to how Queenstown moves. We value community and believe that connected people live, work and play better together. Also behind our work is the belief that many small steps create big change.

If you’d like a Lightfooter to present all the benefits of active travel to your workplace, please get in touch. We can also assist with setting up your workplace with a Love to Ride account and have tons of creative suggestions to get people moving.

The Lightfoot Initiative centralised our local effort in the Aotearoa Bike Challenge.