Each February, we ran the Aotearoa Bike Challenge in New Zealand and 2022 was another hugely successful campaign. Occurring amidst some of the most rigid COVID 19 movement restrictions in New Zealand, loads of people continued to ride with us during February!
32,992 people registered to join in the fun and altogether the challenge clocked up 3,999,778 kilometres. Over a third of registrations were from people new to the challenge as we continue to grow the reach and audience for this month-long biking event. Almost one quarter of riders were new to riding entirely, which is great to see as we aim to get more people on bikes.
We were proud to deliver this program alongside a coalition of progressive government partners and committed corporations. One of this year’s exciting new partnerships was with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), a government agency dedicated to mobilising New Zealanders to be world leaders in clean and clever energy use. Their Gen Less campaign encourages Kiwi’s and businesses across the country to make choices that are greener and more sustainable. We launched the Gen Less Bike More O’Meter as part of the 2022 Aotearoa Bike Challenge and encouraged people to switch their car ride for a bike ride instead.
A goal of 1 million kilometres ridden for transportation over the month of February was set, and we reached this goal with 3 days to go! Over 1,166,799 kilometres were logged for transport which is almost a third of all the kilometres logged. This resulted in an immediate carbon saving of 211,291 kilograms, and a significantly higher long-term saving from all the New Zealanders that were encouraged to take up riding for transportation as a result of the Love to Ride program.
We always use behaviour change principles as our operating framework and we made sure to communicate that commuting wasn’t the only way to contribute transport kms to the challenge, and contribute the Gen Less Bike More O’Meter.
As with all our challenges, we encouraged people to consider swapping their car for a bike for those short trips to the store, to visit friends, and get from A to B. We used our email communications and web prompts, segmented by ability, barriers, and confidence level, to get people thinking about hopping on the bike when they need to duck out for those short journeys. With tips and tricks for all levels, as well as some awesome incentives we helped riders saddle up instead of buckle up, and choose to bike over taking the car! The result? 262,131 trips were recorded with almost half of these, 134,192 being trips for transport! Yay! Success!
One of the pillars of motivating people to go that extra mile, is to stoke the fires of healthy competition and there were some tight battlegrounds amongst both small and big business. This year 2,877 workplaces across New Zealand took part. That’s almost 500 more than last year!
Another widely successful Aotearoa Bike Challenge! The stage has been set for an even bigger 2023!
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