- Global Bike to Work Day Challenge next Thursday, May 11 with Strava – Last year, the first-ever Strava Challenge to ride to work saw a total of 79,879 cycling commutes uploaded to Strava across 180 countries. As a result, more than 514 tons of carbon emissions were offset that day. Strava Metro aggregates the millions of human-powered commutes uploaded to Strava every week, with every activity marked commute getting tallied anonymously. Then partnered with urban planners the Strava data is used to improve city infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. As it stands, 160 million people already live in cities where Strava Metro partners with local organizations and government agencies to make commuting better. So join in next week. Join Strava’s Bike to Work Day challenge. Then, log in to Strava. Ride your bike to work. And share your commuting data to make your city better for fellow cyclists. Blog.Strava.comCheck out plenty more places to ride after the break…
Advocacy
- The Tour d’Afrique Foundation issues Bicentennial Challenge to donate bikes to Africa – In celebration of the 200 years of the bicycle, TDA Global Cycling is launching the #200for200 Summer Cycling Challenge with a goal to raise $200,000 and give the gift of 1,000 new bicycles in Africa. For every cyclist or team that rides 200km, raises $200, and challenges 2 friends to do the same from 12 Jun-12 Sep, TDA will donate another bike in Africa – giving the gift of transportation and connecting students to schools, patients to health care and entrepreneurs to economic opportunity. Find out more & join in at: 200for200.bike.
Where to ride
- Join the 140mi Cervélo Belgian Waffle Ride May 21; register until May 18 – One of the most unique rides in the US, the 6th annual Belgian Waffle Ride will take on 140 miles of mixed surface suffering and 13,000ft of climbing heading out of San Diego and into the hills. If that’s too much for you, there is a shorter option as well – the Belgian Wafer Ride. Online registration for event closes a few days ahead of the ride. Registration fees go to raise money supporting the Challenged Athletes Foundation, whose mission is to provide opportunities and support to people with physical challenges so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics. Festivities start a day before the ride with an Expo on Saturday, also featuring a Tour of California Stage 7 viewing party and plenty of other entertainment. Full details of the weekend around the bike at: BelgianWaffleRide.bike.
Contest
- Scicon’s World Bike Packing Championship is back. Pick the fastest to win a bike bag – The 3rd annual Scicon WBPC is back and 6 professional mechanics from 6 pro road teams are going head-to-head to see who can clock the fastest time packing their bikes. Which team packs fastest: Bahrain-Merida, AG2R La Mondiale, ORICA-Scott, Quick-Step Floors, Trek-Segafredo or BORA-Hansgrohe? Guess who will win & you’ll be elligebl to win an AeroComfort 3.0 TSA bike travel bag. Enter at: SciconBags.com/WBPC.
Industry news
- An update on women’s La Ridley platform – Just as a quick update… We wrote up a piece about the new La Ridley website on Tuesday that introduced a blog-style platform to share behind-the-scenes stories in the pro peloton, how-to articles, and good places to ride – all with a bent towards high performing women cyclists. Of course soon after they launched the site, someone decided to swap domain servers, and the site was soon offline. That’s something we know too well, and just wanted to update that everything there is back online, with some unique articles worth a read from a different perspective on women’s cycling that we don’t often see. LaRidley.com
- Ryde’s low-power ride tracking app goes ad-free – For everyone who has used Ryde to log their riding and compete with friends, many told the Modeo who developed it that the ads were annoying. And they get it, ads suck. But Ryde costs money to run, right?. Well Modeo realized they weren’t making much in ad revenue anyway. Ryde is operating at a loss in the end, but they’ve just received a generous contribution from the MassCommute bike challenge thanks to their work in developing ride metric tracking and integration with Bike Month tracking challenges, so are able to ditch the ads. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a look. Modeo.co/Ryde
