Almost 500 cyclists across Warwickshire came out for Bike Month 2023 in June and collectively saved 2993 Kg of Carbon compared with the same journeys made by car.

As part of its partnership with the Love to Ride cycling app, Warwickshire County Council encouraged residents to take part in the Bike Month Challenge during May 2023. Residents rose to the challenge, getting on their bikes which resulted in:

• 468 riders in Warwickshire.
• 33 individual workplaces taking part.
• 5552 trips made by bike, of which 34% were for a specific purpose like shopping, commuting to work or errands, rather than for exercise reasons
• 84,017 miles ridden by bike, which is close to four times around the circumference of the planet.  

In the workplace leaderboards, the following organisations got the top spots:

• 2000+ Staff – The University of Warwick
• 500 -1999 staff – Dassault Systemes UK Ltd – Coventry Office
• 200 – 499 staff – Ricardo UK Ltd (UK) –  MTC
• 50 – 199 staff – Nuffield Health(UK) – Warwickshire
• 20 – 49 staff – Ivyline LTD
• 7 – 19 staff – BAADER UK Ltd
• 1 – 6 staff – Way Ahead Science Tutoring

Love to Ride forms part of the Council’s commitment to encouraging residents to make the switch to active travel as extensive evidence shows that replacing short car journeys with cycling helps to improve mental and physical health, as well as delivering wide-reaching benefits to the environment.

Cllr Jan Matecki, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Transport and Planning, said: “The benefits of active travel, particularly travelling by bike, are huge – both for the individual and for our wider environment.

“For many of us, it might seem difficult, and perhaps daunting, to know where to start as travelling by car, even for short journeys, has become so engrained in our daily lives.

“We are committed to supporting residents to realise that they can start their active travel adventure by switching just one car journey every week to an active alternative such as cycling.  We hope that this partnership with Love to Ride will continue to offer residents a fun and engaging way to get into cycling and encourage their friends, family and colleagues to get on their bikes too.”