CSU Atmospheric Cyclists win Bike to Work Challenge

The CSU Atmospheric Cyclists, a team composed of Department of Atmospheric Science and Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) members, won this year’s Bike to Work Challenge, sponsored by the City of Loveland. The challenge was open to all workplaces along the Front Range and included teams in Colorado Springs.

“The CSU Atmospheric Cyclists led from the start and never let up,” said challenge founder David Droege. “They had terrific participation and just kept the pedals spinning through the entire eight weeks.”

Droege, a systems engineer at Keysight Technologies, founded the informal competition between Colorado companies in 2017 to encourage more people to bike to work. This year’s competition, which ran from April 30 until Bike to Work Day on June 27, involved 197 participants who commuted a total of 35,124 miles, nearly doubling last year’s number of participants and more than doubling last year’s total mileage.

“That distance is equal to 1.4 times around the circumference of Earth,” said Droege.

The team of 41 Atmospheric Cyclists, organized by CIRA researcher Kyle Hilburn, logged 7,367 miles and 809 commute days, which was estimated to have saved 295 gallons of gas. Atmospheric scientist Paul DeMott logged the most miles for the team with 510. Annette Foster rode the longest commute at 24.5 miles round-trip, and Hilburn had the most overall rides on the team, 40.

Read the Source article, “CSU Atmospheric Cyclists win Bike to Work Challenge.”

Photo at top: Team Captain Kyle Hilburn holds the Bike to Work Challenge trophy that was presented to the Atmospheric Cyclists Aug. 8 by challenge founder David Droege (back row, fifth from left) and City of Loveland representatives Katie Guthrie and Shelley Aschenbrenner.