SHASTA BIKE MONTH & CHALLENGE

Sign up for the 2021 Shasta Bike Challenge and win prizes for simply riding your bike!

May is bike month! In honor of this, Shasta County will celebrate the month with the Shasta Bike Challenge, 31 days of riding. Wondering what the Shasta Bike Challenge is exactly? See below for more details! 

2021 Events

• March 22 – April 19: The Great Bike Giveaway!  Tell us your story of where an e-bike would take you and have a chance at winning an e-bike! See below for more details including the link to apply. Solicitud disponible en español abajo.
• April 1 – May 31:  Big Foot Mountain Bike Challenge. Explore amazing local trails on your mountain bike! This event is inspired by riders for riders. New this year is Bigfoot Jr. to encourage the youth to “Get Out and Ride”. Free to participate. Participation and cash prizes!
• May 1-31: Shasta Bike Month and Challenge – sign up or Champion a worksite, school, social group, or family team. Sign up here!
• May 1-31: Scavenger Hunt. Details coming soon!
• April 22:  Celebrate Earth Day with a light, evening ride! Be ready to ride at 6pm, starting at the Sundial Bridge by the Museum Store. Anywhere between 4-10 miles depending on group.
• April 23, 7-9 pm: Whole Earth and Watershed Virtual Film Festival, which includes films with bikes!. Ticket packages include 5 days of video-on-demand viewing following the film festival (April 24 – 28th) as well as raffle tickets for a Yuba E-Cargo Bike! Consider grabbing a take-out dinner at one of Redding’s fabulous restaurants before the show!
• April 24, 8:30 am @ Sundial Bridge: Are you new to cycling, haven’t ridden in a while, or are looking for people to ride with?  Try Shasta Wheelmen’s ‘Get Acquainted Ride.’ Distance 15-20 and mostly flat terrain.
• April 29, 6:30 – 8 pm: Get your bike ready to ride! Looking for tips to fit your helmet, bike, fill your tires and check your brakes?  Check out various bike stations  to learn and get your bike in top riding condition. Must sign up to reserve your spot. Please wear a mask. Workshop held at the Chain Gang Bike Shop. Sign up available here!
• May 5:  National Bike to School Day
• May 19, 5:30 – 7:30 pm: Ride with a Transportation Official, Location TBD
• May 19, 7:00 pm: Ride of Silence. Ride to honor fallen cyclists. Sponsored by Shasta Wheelmen. Location TBD
• May 21:  National Bike to Work Day. Arrange a ‘bike train’ by riding to work with co-workers. See how many workers can get on the train by starting at one central location and riding to other locations/neighborhoods to pick other co-workers up to ride as a group.
• May 26,  11:30-12:30 pm: Ride with a Transportation Official, Location TBD

COVID-19 Precautions: Riding a bike has so many benefits for our physical and mental health. It helps combat stress and anxiety, releases happy chemicals, and strengthens our immune systems.  It’s a great way to get your daily exercise, get out in the fresh air, and feel connected with the world around you. If you’re feeling unwell, stay at home, away from other people, even if you’re only feeling a little unwell. Follow CDC advice on wearing masks and maintaining physical distancing of 6 feet or more.

What is the Shasta Bike Challenge?

The Shasta Bike Challenge is a collaborative effort of the bicycling community to engage new, old, and current cyclists to ride as much as they can whether it is for transportation, exercise, or just for fun! Participants can register as an individual or join a team or workplace for the local challenge through the Love to Ride platform. The challenge is free and all level of riders are welcomed!

The challenge is from May 1st to 31st. All participants are entered into a free drawing for great prizes each day they ride their bicycle to work, on errands, for exercise, or wherever they want to go (up to 31 entries)!

The local  Shasta Bike Challenge is tracked on the National Bike Challenge platform, Love to Ride. The tracking platform allows participants to easily log and track trips with current leader board rankings based on mileage and points. Individuals, workplaces, and teams can compete with each other locally and/or participate for fun.

The platform can be used for free year-round to track lifetime statistics, but the stats start over in May to keep track of competition rankings.

How to Win

• Joining a club/group is different from joining a workplace. Workplaces are the only ones earning points during the May Bike Month Challenge and are competing against other workplaces of similar sizes to win a bike rack to put at your workplace. At the end of the challenge, the top workplace in each size category will be entered into a drawing to win the bike rack. Clubs and groups can also win prizes, but are being tracked by the number of miles the members log. The club/group with the most miles logged will also win a bike rack to put at a Shasta County business/organization of choice.
• Simply being a part of the Love to Ride platform and logging rides during the month of May will enter you into drawings to win weekly prizes and final prizes. The more rides you log (of at least 10 minutes/1 mile), the more times your name is entered into the drawings (up to 31 times)!
• You can be a part of a workplace AND a club/group because they are not competing against each other.

All participants that live in Shasta County help our community rank up in miles and points for the National Bike Challenge where we compete against many other communities across the nation. In 2019, Shasta County  ranked #2 Nationally at the end of May for its population size, and 4^th overall in the National Bike Challenge, beating out much larger communities. In 2018, Shasta County ranked #2 overall Nationally. Every mile and every day of riding helped Shasta County inch closer to be the top contender in the National Bike Challenge and be recognized as the top cycling community in the Nation during Bike Month. Ride on!

Steps to Register

Step-by-step instructions available here!

The Great Bike Giveaway

March 22 – April 19, 2021 Shasta County residents are invited to apply to win a Pedego e-bike! The Shasta Bike Challenge Workgroup is looking for one person who is in need of transportation and wants to share their story. During Bike Month in May, this lucky winner will share where their e-bike took him/her throughout the month. Applications are available here and winner will be announced at the end of April.

If you do not have internet access and need a paper application, please call 530-225-5352.

Solicitud en español aquí!

The Great Bike Giveaway Rules: Contest ends at midnight on April 19, 2021. Paper applications must be postmarked by April 19, 2021. All eligible applications will be judged by the Bike Month Workgroup. Only one application allowed per person. No purchase necessary to apply. Top applicant will be awarded one e-bike, one helmet, and one lock for truthfully describing his/her need for a bike to be used as transportation. Number of contestants and top applicant will be notified and posted on the shastabikechallenge.org website on or by April 30, 2021. E-bike, helmet, and lock valued at $3300. Ineligible applicants include Healthy Shasta staff and their immediate family, Shasta Bike Month Workgroup members and their immediate family, non-Shasta County residents, and people under 16 years of age.

Bike Challenge Survey 2020

Thank you to everyone who completed the Shasta Bike Challenge survey.

Compared to the 2019 bike challenge, we had a 5% increase in participation and a 21% increase in mileage. We also had a 55% increase of participants who rode every day in May. Our community responded very well to the bike challenge despite Covid-19. Our survey of our participants (30% of those who participated took the survey) found that because of the bike challenge, 57% of our participants bought bike supplies, 27% replaced some driving trips with bike trips, 21% paid for a tune up or bike repair, and 13% bought a bike (33 individuals). As a result of stay at home orders during the bike challenge, 81% biked more for exercise, 72% biked more for mental health, 15% biked more for transportation, 14% biked more for errands, while only 8% could not bike as much as they wanted, 3% felt uncomfortable biking, and 2.5% biked less.

Check out the full survey results: SBC Survey Results 2020

Looking for someone to ride with?

Check out one of these local organizations who would love to ride with you.
Shasta Wheelmen
Shasta Living Streets
Redding Trail Alliance
Local Recreation Opportunities

Not sure where to ride? We got you covered. Check out the Local Map Listings for a list of local trails.
Looking for a Mountain Bike trail to ride with a full map description? Check out the BigFoot Mountain Bike Challenge routes and maps.

“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.”