Melanie Short Marketing Manager Sport Bay of Plenty

The Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge, in its second year running, has proven a big hit with businesses all around the Bay. Taking over from a similar Bikewise event held in previous years, Sport Bay of Plenty identified a gap which was reinforced by people in the community saying having the challenge to get out and cycle is all they need to ‘get on their bikes'.

Tour de Bay is very straight forward – teams of three cycle as many kilometres as possible each week, competing in either social or competitive grades against other corporates around the region.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: WBOP Perioperative Pedalers.

What does it mean for these people? It is very simple – a ‘reason' or ‘excuse' to get out and about and ride. And when there are other people waiting for you, or relying on you – it's even more of an incentive.

There are many different forms of riding on offer during the month – road, mountain bike, BMX-ing, and even stationery bikes were acceptable – we devised a clever formula to work out how many kilometres were travelled based on time on the bike. We really didn't mind when or how the teams cycled – and it proved to be a winner.

In the first year of Tour de Bay, 90 teams across the region participated. This year – 140 teams got involved. Also this year, 75 companies got behind the challenge and together they cycled more than 100,000km in February.

That's an outstanding achievement and we would like to congratulate everyone who participated. We hope they keep cycling for the rest of the year.

Here's why:

• Cycling only three hours per week cuts your risk of heart disease and stroke by 50 per cent.
• The fastest speed ever recorded on a bicycle was attained by American Olympic cyclist and Ironman triathlon competitor John Howard, when he reached 152.2 m/h in 1985. That is fast.
• Bicycles save more than 238 million gallons of gas per year by replacing trips made in cars.
• If you wanted to, you could fit anywhere between six and 20 bicycles in a standard carpark space in a paved lot.
• A 2000 survey by commuters in Copenhagen, Denmark, concluded people who commute by bicycle are so healthy they're 39 per cent less likely to die (of any cause), than those who don't ride bicycles.
• There are twice as many bicycles in the world as there are motor vehicles. There are about one billion bicycles being used right now.
• On a bicycle, you can travel three times faster than you can walk, for the same amount of energy.

For full Tour de Bay results, and new places to ride, visit our website: www.sportbop.co.nz/tourdebay and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/playinthebay

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: WBOP See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: WBOP Forkin, Tyred & Cranky.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: EBOP.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: EBOP Knight Riders.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: EBOP Physio 2 Go.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: CBOP Timberlands Trikes.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team: CBOP Timberlands 2.

Tour de Bay Corporate Bike Challenge team:CBOP Integral Ltd.