The Aotearoa Bike Challenge happens every year as part of the Love to Ride international online community that uses behavior change principles to encouraging cycling and make the world “a cleaner, greener, more awesome place to be.” Data collected by the organisation over many years shows participating in Love to Ride challenges achieves “sustained behaviour change” with 40% of previous non-cyclists starting to ride weekly, 31% of them cycling to work.

This year, the Aotearoa Bike Challenge set a target of one million kilometres for transportation, and smashed the target a whole week early, saving over 180,000kg CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

The challenge lasted the month of February and we are very proud to be able to say that, spread over 347 rides, and including 1,142 commuter kilometres, Resolve Group achieved a grand total of 5,384 kilometres, saving 343 kilograms of CO2 and placing us first in Auckland consultancies with 20-49 staff.

Our Top Riders

Kathleen Munson rode 506ks for ‘fun and fitness’, while Dawn Collyns’s 299ks  were exclusively commuting. Daryl Lim rode 783ks, and Stuart McDougall 725ks, mostly commuting, as did Tim Christensen with 300kms and  Ben Sherriff (below, centre) with 230ks. Tim Mueller (below, left), who lives and works in beautiful  Tāhuna  (Queenstown), clocked up 654ks cycling the many trails around Otago. But it was Jack Jiang (below, right), who says, “I ride because I’m too lazy to walk,” who outshone everyone, with a huge total of 1095 kilometres, a significant number of them with kids! Ka Mau te Wehi!

Tim MuellerBen SherriffJack Jiang

Just before the latest lockdown, a number of Auckland Resolve Group staff got together for a cycle ride as part of the Aotearoa Bike Challenge, a free competition to encourage staff to experience the benefits of cycling. Over 9000 people from 800 organisations participated during February, and over 1 million kilometres were ridden collectively, making it by far the biggest year yet.Aotearoa Bike ChallengeThe combined kilometres cycled by our team helped us come 10th place in Auckland for our size of organisation.

The team were Kathleen and Stuart, who did the full 100km ride and Duncan, Dawn and Tim, who cycled parts of it. Martin didn’t ride but made sure he was there at the end to meet the team at Churly’s and give them a bit of moral support.

Resolve Group are committed to encouraging the use of carbon free transport wherever possible. The Auckland office has a bike and an e-scooter for staff to use around town and is planning to get an electric car this year.