Cycle September is back! This month-long challenge is one of the Love to Ride Challenges and is brought to you locally by The Clean Air Council. Individuals and their workplaces compete worldwide to raise the profile of cycling and help get more people on bikes. All you have to do is sign up and log your bike rides for the chance to win prizes! We sat down with previous Love to Ride prize winner, Lauren, to learn more about how she climbed her way to the top.

Lauren is a Civil Designer with Stantec, a community design-focused architectural and engineering firm in the city. She was a prize winner from the first Love to Ride Philly Challenge in 2017 and did it using Indego bikes!

Lauren became an Indego30 member about 3 years ago. Every morning, she would see her co-worker bike past her while she waited for the bus. Seeing her co-worker consistently beat her to work made Lauren a little competitive and planted the seed that by using a bike, she could get there faster and on her schedule.

She took one test ride with Indego before she bought an Indego30 monthly pass. She quickly realized that she loved the convenience (there is a station right by her home and job) and liked how biking helped to reduce stress before work.

Shortly after she signed up for Indego, Lauren heard about the Love to Ride challenge. She was already riding regularly – 2 miles to and from work – and so decided to sign up and compete!

Lauren was instrumental in getting her office in gear for the Love to Ride Challenge. She blasted her workplace with emails that encouraged people to join and participate in the challenge. She works in an office with about 150 employees and was surprised by how people embraced this opportunity. Some of her co-workers saw this as a great chance to start commuting by bike, expressing that they had always wanted to bike to work, but never got around to trying it out.

Aside from getting her co-workers to sign up, Lauren pulled data from the Love to Ride website and sent ‘snapshot’ emails to them. This included updates and stats around how often people were riding and how they were stacking up against the competition. Lauren said that this really helped to drive engagement and make it a fun experience for everyone.

The bulk of Lauren’s points for the Love to Ride Challenge came from ‘encourager points.’ When her co-workers and friends logged their first trip on the website, they would tag Lauren as the person who encouraged them.

Lauren told us that she didn’t really think she was going to be a Love to Ride Challenge prize winner. She was mainly competing for fun; the thought of winning a prize was just a possibility, not the main motivator.

Then one day, her co-worker came up to her and said, “You won a bike.” Lauren thought that they were joking until she saw an email from The Clean Air Council in her inbox and even saw it on the Love to Ride website! She was shocked that she won (wow, those encourager points really did add up!).

She went to Fishtown Bikes-n-Beans to pick out what color bike she wanted and to find the right size frame (you can’t just adjust like an Indego seat?). The mechanic who helped her was very excited for her, which made her more excited! Lauren ended up with a Tribe, fixed gear bike; a perfect low maintenance, urban bike.

Lauren ended up keeping her Indego membership for several months after she won the bike because she enjoyed the flexibility of the one-way commute. Nowadays, she rides her prize-bike everywhere. She maybe thinks about one day getting a bike with gears but for now, this one is perfect. After she won, her co-workers were encouraged to keep logging their rides. She noticed that even more people were interested in signing up for the challenge the next year!

Lauren’s tips for those looking to sign up for Cycle September? “Just sign up and try it out! There is nothing to lose. If you’re not tech-savvy, you can log your trips manually. If you forget to log that day, you can always do it later! Who knows what you will win!”

This year’s Cycle September prizes include tickets to see the Philadelphia Union, awesome bikes & gear, a 7-day Mountain Bike Trip in New Zealand, and more! To participate in this challenge, make a free account at www.lovetoride.net/philly

Don’t own a bike? Sign up for a $10 Indego30 monthly pass so that you can join the fun! Head over to rideindego.com and use code INDELOVE19 through the end of September for your discounted monthly pass!

This post was written by Emily Hooven, the Marketing & Communication Coordinator for Indego bike share.

Bicycle Transit Systems is a Philadelphia-based business that specializes in bike share launch, operations, and management. Comprised of the most experienced bike share operations team in the industry, Bicycle Transit Systems manages all operational elements of Indego, including bike and station maintenance, marketing, and customer service.