BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — PeopleForBikes started a campaign to fight climate change that includes three individual challenges on its ride-tracking app to encourage bike commuting.
One Ride at a Time and the accompanying bike challenges are designed to incentivize bicyclists, businesses, and policymakers to prioritize commuting on two wheels. This campaign comes on the heels of PeopleForBikes working with policymakers at local, state, and federal levels to prioritize more funding for improved bike infrastructure and incentivize bike commuting through the E-BIKE and Bicycle Commuter acts.
Offering the three challenges on the PFB Ride Spot app, riders can ride to carbon-neutral with either traditional or e-bikes and pledge to replace a few car trips a month with bike rides. Completing any of the challenges that began Wednesday earns a 3x3-inch die-cut sticker from PeopleForBikes.
The Great Climate Bike Challenge asks for individuals to replace one day's worth of car trips each week with bike rides, with the goal being 48 rides. The challenge ends Jan. 1, 2022.
Another challenge, The Ride to Carbon Neutral — Traditional Bike, ends Sept. 22, 2022. The distance goal is 319 miles, which on average, is the amount of riding needed to offset the carbon footprint of manufacturing a traditional bike, according to PFB.
The third challenge is Ride to Carbon Neutral — Electric Bicycle, also ends Sept. 22, 2022, with a goal of 508 miles. Acknowledging that while e-bikes are one of the best tools to lower carbon emissions, manufacturing them has an impact on the climate. PFB says it takes 508 miles of riding an e-bike to offset its manufacturing carbon footprint.
According to PFB, choosing to replace driving a car with riding a bike once a day can reduce personal transportation-related carbon emissions by 67%.
To help the industry, PeopleFor-Bikes recently started its Sustainability Working Group, which works closely with the Outdoor Industry Association. It crowd-sources the best practices and resources to improve manufacturing and distribution of bikes with regards to the climate.
When people have safe places to ride, and reasons to ride, replacing car trips with bike rides is more attainable for everyday riders. PFB says Americans take 1.1 billion trips every day — an average of four trips per resident. Further, 87% (957 million) of daily trips are taken in personal vehicles, and nearly half of those trips are less than three miles. If 10% of the population were to replace one car trip a day with a bike ride, PFB says, overall carbon emissions from transportation would drop 10%.
