Promoting cycling in winter

We all want to see more people cycling all year round, but how can we encourage more people to cycle during the winter?

Do we need to...

• Educate people about what to wear and how to cycle comfortably?
• Build the habit up over the summer so that cycling in winter is the norm for them?
• Challenge people to try cycling in winter so that they realise that on most days, cycling is actually fine?
• Other ideas and more!

There are plenty of ideas out there, so let's get the conversation started. We are interested in hearing your thoughts on winter cycling...

• What have you done to promote winter cycling in the past?
• What's worked? What hasn't worked?
• What ideas do you have for promoting cycling in winter?

One idea we've had is to do a Team Winter Challenge. This is a John O'Groats to Lands End Challenge which people ride 'virtually', i.e. they log their normal everyday rides on LovetoRide.net and this moves them virtually up the country. On the website they see fun updates along the way and they get a weekly email showing them how much cycling their team mates have done that week.

People can also send messages to their team and get some banter and light hearted encouragement going between their team mates. They can also choose to do the ride as a team relay (all their miles add together to make it easier to complete the John O'Groats distance) instead of doing the ride individually.  (see this video for more info)

Send your thoughts to Thomas@challengeforchange.com or leave a comment below. We'd love to hear your ideas.

Let's get more people cycling in winter!