Work cycling challenge

I’ve managed to find myself on the work Sports + Social committee, and now need to find something to put forward for us to do.

I obviously like biking and would like to suggest something biking related. They currently are running a September biking challenge with prizes for greatest distance and most rides for the month, but I think a more inclusive challenge would be preferable.

Employees live throughout the uk, so ideally something which doesn’t involve getting together as a group.

briefly looked at Wandrer, maybe something along those lines?

I put up the 100day challenge. Taken up by a few.

Gave a 50 and 25 day option where folk do exercise every second day or twice a week. Made a Team for encouragement. Once set up it ran itself.

The bike hub team at the business park where we are based, set up a ‘group’ on LovetoRide.

Various challenges etc. Might be useful.

https://www.lovetoride.net/uk/pages/current-challenge

What about just a nice group wide to a goal.

All speeds welcome etc cafe at the furtherst point.

Or

Lunchtime radius.

Cycle 15minutes outward, take a photo, ride back. All at commuter pace.

Keener can ride longer.

Draw the cjrcles on a map. Boom a practical commuting radius. For each office.

I did LEJOG last week as a challenge/social/charity event for work. I physically rode the route on my own over 8 days and we had four watt bikes installed in meeting rooms at our offices 2+1+1 and everyone in the office took it in turns to ride on Zwift. For every mile they completed my work are donating £1 to charity.
I managed to get sponsored by Travis Perkins, Milwaukee plus a few other companies and also raised some money via sponsorship on just giving including some donations along the way.
We split the office riding into half an hour slots for 8 days and filled every one which was incredible. Plus for every half an hour slot completed they got an entry into a raffle where they could win a hotel stay and meal or a meal. I even managed to sell off the left over protein/energy powders and sweets that were donated which added an extra £120 yesterday morning.

The office was buzzing apparently and everyone really enjoyed it. It got people talking that never normally would and apparently there’s no better way to get to know someone than sat next to them sweating for half an hour.

last check we’re up to about £5000

Andy

Lands end to John o’groats done in work time with work providing the hotel accomodation?

@andy. Impressive effort, big thumbs up on that

I was going to put a thread up about this towards the end of the week. I know its short notice but it’s Organ Donation & Transplant Week the week of 23 Sep, and Lancs Teaching Hospitals are running the annual Race for Recipients, the idea being for teams to race to log 7000km from 0600 on Sat 21 Sep to 2359 on Sun 29th (one km for each person on the organ transplant waiting list) and encouraging participants and their friends and family to talk about their organ donation wishes, and record these on the register. This is always a bit NHS secondary care heavy so it would be good if we could widen participation with teams from beyond the health service.

Race for Recipients details and sign up here: http://www.raceforrecipients.com

Organ Donor Register here: https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/register-your-decision

Some of our work team on a previous event:

(DOI – am a clinical lead for organ donation)

Most interesting photo taken on a bike ride?

Everyone gets one submission voted on by participants (can’t vote for your own). 

Only rule is you have to have cycled to the spot where you took the photo (bike in frame as ‘proof’)…

Our work has the Ride 100 miles in Sept Strava challenge we can join to win a prize. Leave the organisation to someone else.

We used to do a thing where you simply logged distance or time. Then there were teams and leaderboards.

Prizes for various bits. Not just distance related but about teamwork, events etc.

If you are spread out I like the photo idea as it’s not just fitness and could be interesting.

Most interesting photo taken on a bike ride?

This.

Set some photo challenges which have to have a bike in.

Things like ‘water’, ‘you can’t ride there mate’ and ‘mid ride break stop’…

Thanks, great ideas there! Prob go for the photo one with a list of unusual things to get pics of.

I wouldnt try to put anyone to the challenge of big long runs the type of which you are capable. Short ‘just getting out there’ would be a better place to start from.

What’s your aim?  If it’s to make sporty people feel better about part of the organisation then go for a challenge with numbers times etc.  if you want to motivate ordinary people then the photo in your lunch hour on your bike is far better.  We did this (not specifically bikes: bike/walk/run) with home workers to encourage more movement!

If you do want something with “distance” or numbers involved then during covid we broke a marathon down into 5k segments and had people run 5k and virtually handover on teams to their next particant.  If you had enough people to make multiple teams and do it in parallel that could be a fun challenge – especially if you can “rig” the teams so they are closely matched.  You could use bikes for some/all legs or to give slow people a chance.   BUT it only really works from a team perspective if you have everyone involved (even if there’s someone who really can’t but can be the team manager warning/coordinating/updating everyone else).

someone will probably be along to say “why do you have to do this stuff at work – I just go to earn money”!

We do Love to Ride Cycle September at work. There is a subscription but we’ve got employees all over the UK. You just log rides and they add up to a total. Somehow we even managed to beat Walmart last year at some point!

Most interesting photo taken on a bike ride?

Everyone gets one submission voted on by participants (can’t vote for your own).

Only rule is you have to have cycled to the spot where you took the photo (bike in frame as ‘proof’)…

Definitely something like this, as any distance/days type challenges will just be an excuse for all the Lance Armstrongs at your work to to go full-pro-kit and annihilate everyone else. At least, that’s always how it goes with these things at my work.

That was kind of my thinking, come up with a “non-competitive competition” so distances/elevation/speed/time based challenges are off the table.

Other such challenges could include:

-Draw a picture using your GPS trail?

-Most interesting item found and brought home on a ride (without stealing stuff)?

-Tallest/prettiest/oldest church visited

-Best mid-ride meal (photo evidence required)

The other thing you could do if you have a group with people who do like a more involved activity is a bit of Geocaching, stash a box somewhere roughly equidistant from the participants for them to find and drop off a little something for the others to find and add to. that might be a bit much effort thought TBF…