York versus Cambridge in battle of the cycling cities

Cycling City York is launching a city-wide challenge in an effort to increase the number of citizens taking to two wheels.

The York Cycle Challenge taking place between March 14 and April 3 is a competition which aims to get as many people as possible across to cycle for at least ten minutes during the challenge period.

All kinds of organisations from private companies to schools to the public sector are being asked to pledge their support by entering teams and persuading people to take part. And to spice up proceedings and add an element of civic competition, York will be going head-to-head with Cambridge to see which city can attract the most new cyclists to take part in the challenge.

Graham Titchener, programme manager for Cycling City York, explained: “We’ve run a number of very successful cycling challenges in individual workplaces, but the York Cycle Challenge will be on a much bigger scale and will involve people of all age groups and levels of cycling ability at organisations across the city.

“The more people at your organisation cycle, the greater the chance of success for your team. At a local level, teams from businesses, schools, colleges and other organisations will be competing against one another for prizes but there’s the added excitement of York as a whole taking on Cambridge to see which city performs best in the challenge.

"This is a really fun opportunity to be part of something huge, and we hope to see as many organisations as possible logging on to the website and registering teams.”

Organisations in York can compete in any one of six different categories, depending on their size. The idea is that participants cycle at a time to suit them and will log details of their rides on the dedicated York Cycle Challenge website, which will enable teams to track their progress.

For more information and to register your business or organisation, visit: www.yorkcyclechallenge.org.uk