Bike Challenge participation doubles

This summer, Wisconsin cyclists rode nearly 2.6 million miles - more than twice the mileage they logged in the inaugural Wisconsin Bike Challenge last year. Between May 1 and August 31, more than 6,300 individual riders collectively reported riding in excess of 2,585,800

miles.

"That is the equivalent of 104 trips around the world," wrote Kevin Hardman, executive director of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, in a blog post announcing the results. He further noted statewide participation increased 40 percent and total mileage jumped 115 percent over the same period last year.

Todd Vickers of Marquette University in Milwaukee was the overall challenge champion by riding some 6,900 miles in the four-month period. He was followed close behind by Matthew Litherland of Trek Bicycle Corp. with 6,734 miles logged. Litherland's Trek Varsity won

the state and national team competition.

Riders in Appleton and Oshkosh-Neenah took first and third respectively for the most miles logged in the state. Madison cyclists took second. Milwaukee-area riders ranked ninth.

The top 10 Wisconsin workplaces participating in the bicycling challenge included Trek (No. 1) and Kimberly-Clark Corp. (No. 2), Northwest Mutual (No. 3), University of Wisconsin-Madison (No. 4) down to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (No. 8), City of Milwaukee (No. 9) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (No. 10).

(Of the 674 teams of Wisconsin riders, Team Silent Sports finished 92nd overall. Leading the team was reader and retiree Paul Keuler with 3,826 miles and Mike Patenaude, the magazine editor's father, with 2,466 miles.)

The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin started the statewide challenge last year. The contest went national this year as the Kimberly-Clark Get Up & Ride Challenge.

In the national challenge, Wisconsin cyclists finished a distant second to riders in Vermont. Iowa, the only other upper Midwest state in the top 10, came in sixth.

Wisconsin was the only state with more than one community in the top 10 cycling communities: Appleton (No. 2), Madison (No. 4), Oshkosh-Neenah (No. 5) and Watertown-Ft. Atkinson (No. 7). Houghton, Mich., finished No. 7 and Iowa City, Iowa, rounded out the

top 10.

Trek and Kimberly-Clark earned bragging rights as top two cycling workplaces in the country, and three other Wisconsin-based workplaces (Oshkosh Corp., Northwestern Mutual and the University of Wisconsin-Madison) ranked No. 7, 8 and 9 in the U.S.

All biking miles were logged at endomondo.com/campaign/national and the full results can be seen there.