Bike Week 2011 - clocking up miles

A Brompton rider checks for oncoming traffic on London Bridge.

This week is officially Bike Week. I've agreed to participate in an office team doing the London Cycling Challenge 2011 run by TfL, which is not much of a competition - the prizes are tiny - but it is good publicity for cycling, and it does work as an incentive to actually do some cycling, as opposed to feeling good about owning a bike. We don't expect to win anything, but there are some highly competitive teams, to judge by the results being posted. Since miles started to accumulate on Saturday 18 June, the Automobile Association team has recorded a total of 591 miles for just 9 members, perhaps hoping to improve their green credentials, while a group calling themselves the Silly Commuter Racers with 52 dedicated members have clocked up no less than 3569 miles. That's an average of roughly 15 miles per day in both cases, not that excessive. There must be teams who haven't done any cycling yet but TfL only publish the top 10.

Better still, just get that bike out and ride without joining anything.