The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is pleased to announce that it has partnered with Strava to launch a bike challenge called “Your Ride Counts” as part of its World Bicycle Day celebrations on 3 June. Strava is the leading subscription platform at the centre of connected fitness, with more than 100 million community members in over 190 countries.
The challenge will run from 3rd to 30th June and aims to encourage cyclists around the world to join the UCI in celebrating cycling both as a sport and as a means of transport, by using their bikes at least twice a week and opting for a bike instead of a motor vehicle for short journeys.
To participate in the UCI challenge “Your Ride Counts”, please visit the Strava website or the mobile app and click on "Join Challenge".
Strava offers several types of challenges to motivate athletes to push themselves and achieve specific goals, both individual or as a collective. Challenges can last for one day, several days or for an entire month. They may target covering a certain distance, reaching a certain altitude difference, achieving a time target or staying active for a certain number of days.
This collaboration between the UCI and Strava is also part of the Strava Metro project. Strava has the largest volume of data on human-powered transport on the planet, and its Strava Metro project makes it easier for transport planners to identify specific needs for bike lanes and safe areas for active transport, while exploring local trends in activity. Strava offers public authorities and other actors engaged in active mobility free access to anonymised data on the journeys made by its users. The activities recorded during the UCI Strava challenge can therefore help to improve infrastructures for active mobility in participants’ cities and regions.
As part of the collaboration with the UCI, Strava will make such data available free of charge to cities and regions awarded the UCI Bike City label. This label supports and rewards cities and regions which not only host major UCI cycling events but also invest in developing community cycling and related infrastructure and programmes.
UCI President David Lappartient said: "The UCI is delighted about this first partnership with Strava, a major player that provides a key service for millions of active cyclists around the world, whether they use their bikes for sport or for active mobility. By launching a challenge on Strava for World Bicycle Day, the UCI aims to celebrate cycling and to encourage more people to use their bikes instead of motor vehicles for short journeys, and to help promote the Strava Metro project, which is an invaluable tool for the planning of cycling infrastructure."
Brian Bell, Vice President of Global Communications and Social Impact at Strava said: “The way in which we commute to and from our various destinations has changed significantly in recent years. Strava is proud to be the platform to help local governments and city planners to improve cycling infrastructure in communities around the world by providing free, anonymised and aggregated data through Strava Metro. With the launch of the UCI's World Bicycle Day challenge on Strava, we hope even more people around the world will be encouraged to celebrate the joy of cycling not just on one day, but all year."
About the UCI
Founded in 1900 in Paris (France), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is the worldwide governing body for cycling. It develops and oversees cycling in all its forms, for all people: as a competitive sport, a healthy recreational activity, a means of transport, and also just for fun. The UCI manages and promotes the ten cycling disciplines: road, track, mountain bike, BMX Racing, BMX Freestyle, cyclo-cross, trials, indoor cycling, cycling esports and gravel. Five of these are featured on the Olympic Games programme (road, track, mountain bike, BMX Racing and BMX Freestyle), two in the Paralympic Games (road and track) and four in the Youth Olympic Games (road, mountain bike, BMX Racing and BMX Freestyle). For more information: www.uci.org.
About Strava
Strava is the leading subscription platform at the centre of connected fitness, with more than 100 million community members in over 190 countries. The platform offers a holistic view of your active lifestyle, no matter where you live, which sport you love and/or what device you use. Everyone belongs on Strava when they are pursuing an active life. Join the community, find motivation and discover new experiences with a Strava subscription.
Our favourite stats:
More than 8 billion activities shared on Strava
Community members in over 190 countries
40 million activities uploaded per week
Over 30 million Segments
Over 3,000 professional athletes on Strava
Almost 10 billion Kudos given last year
Over 10 million photos and videos shared per week
Over 2,000 partner organisations making their communities better with Strava Metro
400+ employees around the world, with six offices across the globe: the headquarters in San Francisco, California (USA), plus Berlin (Germany), Bristol (Great Britain)Chamonix (France), Denver, Colorado (USA) and Dublin, (Ireland).
About Strava Metro
The Strava Metro dataset is one of the largest collections of human-powered transport information.
Strava Metro provides cities with free access to aggregate, de-identified mobility insights to enable smarter urban planning and infrastructure decisions.
Active transportation is the key to making our cities healthier, happier places that are more productive and sustainable.
Metro works with urban planners, city governments and safe-infrastructure advocates to understand mobility patterns, identify opportunities for investment and evaluate the impact of infrastructure changes – all completely free of charge.
1,500+ communities making commuting better with Strava Metro.