March 2021 – March is Bike Month and this year Plan Hillsborough is joining Love to Ride’s Tampa Bay Bike Challenge. The Challenge is a fun, free regional competition for individuals and organizations in the five-county area to get more people riding bikes. It’s not all about who can ride the most miles, but also encouraging as many people as possible to enjoy riding their bike for health, happiness, and fun. The challenge kicked off on March 1 and continues all month long with weekly prize giveaways and friendly competition.
Love to Ride enables members to set goals, track distance, earn badges, share photos and stories, and encourage others to ride, as well as allow workplaces to incentivize their staff to ride and monitor bicycling participation at their offices.
There’s never been a better time to enjoy riding a bike! It’s a good way to ensure you are getting enough daily exercise as well as an easy and safe way to travel from A to B while avoiding traffic. Riding a bike can help:
- Boost your mental health, helping to make you feel happier and more connected to your surroundings and less prone to depression than other forms of transportation
- Reduce stress and anxiety – any form of physical activity is good for reducing stress. Biking can help take your mind off problems and give you a chance to think about things calmly
- Make an impact on your environment – reduce your carbon footprint by keeping the car at home
Get your friends, family, and co-workers ready to ride! Participants earn points for riding their bikes and encouraging family, friends, and co-workers to join in. You’ll find everything you need to get started and register at lovetoride.net/tampabay!
You can take part in three ways:
- As an individual – you’ll compete with others on the individual leaderboards and be entered to win prizes
- With a workplace – your points will contribute to your workplace’s total points to help compete on the workplace leaderboards, and you’ll be entered to win prizes
- With a club/group – clubs are a great way to keep track of how much riding you and your friends can do in year-round, as well as during the Love to Ride Florida challenge. You’ll also be entered to win prizes.
If you haven’t ridden in years, don’t worry! You only have to ride a bike for 10 minutes for your participation to count towards your team’s score. Ride anywhere, anytime during the Challenge (doesn’t have to be a trip to work!).
If you already ride, you already know how enjoyable riding is and how good it makes you feel. So, here’s your chance to get your workmates to experience how easy and enjoyable riding can be.
Get involved, it only takes 30 seconds to register. Go to lovetoride.net/tampabay and click ‘Register’ at the top of the page. Encouragement is at the core of the Challenge and is the best way to earn the most points.
