The Government-supported Cycle to Work Scheme has seen a 9 percent increase in take up during the first quarter of this year compared to 2011, reveals the Cycle to Work Alliance. This lobbying group was formed by Cycle to Work scheme third-party facilitators Cyclescheme, Cycle Solutions, Evans Cycles and Halfords.

From January to March 2012, over 23,400 employees have signed up to the scheme through members of the Alliance.

The resurgence in the numbers of individuals signing up to the scheme follows HMRC’s clarification on the tax implications for participating companies.

The salary-sacrificing Cycle to Work scheme allows some employees to save up to 42 percent off of the cost of new bicycles and associated equipment.

Keith Scott, head of business services at Halfords, said: “The Cycle to Work scheme has seen a resurgence at the beginning of the year. The Olympics and Summer of Cycling in 2012, will give cycling another significant boost.

“We hope that backed by continued Government support there will be even greater interest in the scheme and more people commuting to work by bike.”

A new online community that allows people to share their love of cycling with friends and family will be launched later this month. Love to Ride launches in the UK on 21st May. The site caters for existing riders who would like to see more people cycling, as well as providing on-going encouragement and support for new riders.

Users can invite their friends to join them on ‘virtual bikes rides’ and either race them there, or join together as a team to cycle the distance by combining their real miles. Users can also record their rides on the site and track their cycling progress. They’ll also be able to set goals for how many miles they’d like to cycle, or how many pints of beer, glasses of wine or cakes they’d like to burn off by cycling. They can then challenge their friends to achieve the same goal.

Local authorities are being encouraged to create their own Love to Ride micro-sites.

Tina Kilner, from the Transport Strategy Team at Herefordshire County Council, said: “We will benefit by being able to communicate effectively with a ready, engaged audience, promoting our other cycling initiatives and in turn growing the community.”

Love to Ride has been developed by Challenge for Change – an organisation which specialises in designing behaviour change programmes. Challenge for Change MD Thomas Stokell explained the concept behind the new development:

“We wanted to develop a smart, scalable tool that utilised everything we know about changing people’s behaviour and encouraging more people to ride. Over the last four years we’ve already encouraged more than 22,000 non-cyclists to get back on two wheels. Love to Ride will have a global reach, but a local focus. We want to work with local partners all over the world and enable them to use this smart platform as a way of effectively growing cycling in their area.”

CTC will be the Love to Ride national partner for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Gordon Seabright, CEO of CTC, said: “We are delighted to strengthen and deepen our partnership with Challenge for Change and are very excited to be working on this fantastic new platform as a way of getting more and more people to enjoy the benefits of cycling.”

A White Paper released today sets out plans for an Active Travel strategy that chief petitioner Sustrans calls a “world first”.

New plans to legally oblige Welsh local authorities to provide cycling and walking routes have been described as a “world first” by Sustrans and a “landmark initiative” by a group of health experts.

The proposed Active Travel (Wales) Bill – outlined in a White Paper released today – will make it it a legal requirement for local authorities to plan and deliver routes that link up hospitals, schools and shopping areas with traffic-free routes and cycle lanes.

Lee Waters, national director of Sustrans Cymru, said:

“This is a ground-breaking move by the Welsh government. With the price of petrol going up, and waistlines going out, this new law will make it easier for people to get around actively.”

Sustrans Cymru has been instrumental in persuading the Welsh Government to introduce the Bill.

“Five years ago we submitted a petition to the Assembly calling for an obligation on the Welsh Government to develop and maintain a network of paths for pedestrians and cyclists, mirroring a similar duty to provide roads,” said Waters.

“The call was widely supported by including encouragement from BT, Royal Mail, British Medical Association Cymru, National Union of Teachers Cymru and Age Concern Cymru, the Association of Chief Constables and the Children’s Commissioner for Wales.

“The resulting Legislative Competence Order request narrowly missed out on becoming law because of delays in Whitehall. However, when the referendum last year bestowed new law-making powers on the Assembly, there was a new opportunity to push through this legislative duty. We were delighted that it formed part of the Government’s Legislative Programme announced in July last year.”

The White Paper released today sets out how the Welsh Assembly will implement the plans and this has been welcomed by Welsh health experts. In an open letter, leading figures in public health describe the plan as a “landmark initiative which could transform the health of our nation.”

The open letter was signed by Dr. Richard Lewis, Welsh Secretary, BMA Cymru Wales; Dr Jane Layzell, Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Public Health Wales; John Wyn Owen CB, of the National Heart Forum; Dafydd Thomas of Lles Cymru Wellbeing Wales; and Dr Simon Williams, Head of Sport, Health and Exercise Science at the University of Glamorgan.

The letter said:

“Providing people with the opportunity to walk or cycle instead of using the car for short journeys is as important for our nation’s health as it is for our transport system. At the moment one out of every five of the journeys made by car are less than two miles. These are journeys our parents and grandparents would have made on foot or by bicycle. Today’s modern lifestyles, busy road conditions, and the layout of our towns and cities have seen the levels of ‘active travel’ falling year on year as car use has become dominant.

“Physical inactivity and sedentary living are among the leading causes of chronic disease, ill-health and death in Wales. Obesity amongst children and adults inWales has increased to an extraordinarily high level and, as a consequence, we are beginning to experience an epidemic of type 2 diabetes and other conditions related to this weight gain and sedentary living. These conditions have an enormous personal and financial cost but they are largely preventable if people change their behaviour and take every opportunity they can to be physically active.

“As health experts we strongly support the Welsh Government’s ambition to help more people become active as part of their everyday routine. As well as helping save lives, this would also save the nation money – figures from the World Health Organisation show that every £1 invested in making walking and cycling easier can bring benefits of £9 in reduced congestion and costs to the NHS.”

A Barclays-sponsored competition to find stunning bicycle-related images of London wraps-up in a week. Get in quick if you wish to enter: 500 entries have been received to date, including this one on the left. Click to make it bigger, it’s worth the bandwidth.

‘London by Bike’, supported by Barclays, is looking for shots that capture the adventure, inspiration and beauty of cycling in London. The winning entries will receive a £1,500 of cycling equipment, a 5-star hotel stay and a visit to Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park. The best two shots will be displayed in 300 Barclays branches in London and South East.
 
The competition will be judged by an expert panel, including street photographer Nick Turpin, who said:

“I think cycling opens up the city in such a beautiful way, you get to see little pockets of undiscovered London. Barclays ‘London by Bike’ is all about finding a picture that is more than a shot of a bike on the street that will be immortalised as postcards available across London. Entrants should use their camera to really elevate everyday cycling in London into something special.”
 

Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays UK Retail and Business Banking, said:

“As official sponsors of Barclays Cycle Hire and Barclays Cycle Superhighways we are committed to improving how people get around London. With London fast becoming a cycling city, the ‘London by Bike’ photography competition is the perfect way to celebrate our continued support for cycling in the capital.”

Top executives at five of cycling’s organisations penned a joint letter to The Times, urging central Government to do more for cycling. The Times has been running a high-profile #cyclesafe campaign.

CALL FOR ACTION ON SAFER CYCLING

The Times’ “Cities Fit for Cycling” campaign and the tens of thousands of people who have signed up to it shows the strength of public support for improved cycling conditions on Britain’s roads.

Its launch prompted supportive MPs to call for a 3-hour parliamentary debate on cycling, which provided a truly remarkable display of cross-party unity about what needs doing to encourage more and safer cycling.

Now what is needed is a plan to deliver these aims. This must tackle the risks and fears which deter people from cycling: high-speed traffic, irresponsible driving, hostile roads and junctions, and lorries. It will also need to include provision of dedicated space for cycling on main roads, cycle parking, cycle training and other targeted promotional activities, to encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to take up cycling for day-to-day journeys.

In recent weeks, our organisations have been working with representatives of local authorities, motoring organisations, freight and road safety groups and others to outline such a plan. This has now been submitted to Transport Secretary Justine Greening MP.

However, the last two decades have taught us that policy documents setting out the many benefits of cycling are not enough. We seek commitment from the highest levels of Government to deliver a transformational increase in cycle use, and to secure the cross-departmental, cross-party and cross-organisational backing for the sustained investment this will require. If The Times’ campaign can achieve this, it will have left a real lasting legacy.

PHILLIP DARNTON
Executive Director, the Bicycle Association of Great Britain

IAN DRAKE
Chief Executive, British Cycling

GORDON SEABRIGHT
Executive Director, CTC, the national cyclists’ organisation

ANDRE CURTIS
Chair, Cyclenation

CARL PITTAM
England Director, Sustrans

A video describing the functions, and benefits, of the Bike Hub cycle satnav app has been uploaded to YouTube. The eight-minute video stresses that cyclists can easily find quiet – or quick – routes using the Android or iPhone versions of the app.

The Bike Hub app uses clever routing algorithms from Cyclestreets to work out the best routes for cyclists, either A to B in towns or A to A for circular cycle tours.

The video describes a ‘search and rescue’ function of the app: the ability to quickly locate, and be navigated, to bike shops.

The app is free and was paid by the Bike Hub levy.

The Big Pedal, a 3 week event staged by Sustrans, is a bike-to-school event. It’s funded by Bike Hub. The 2012 Big Pedal has just finished and was bigger than the two previous annual stagings of the event. Schools compete to log bike journeys to school; journeys that may otherwise have been undertaken in cars.

Over the course of the three week competition – 5-26th March – a total of 890,304 journeys were clocked on the Big Pedal counter. The total for Big Pedal 2011 was 606,919 journeys.

The winning small primary school was Leswalt School of Stranraer; the winning large primary school was Oakhurst Community Primary School of Swindon; the winning secondary school was Aboyne Academy of Aberdeenshire).

959 schools took part in the event: 898 primaries and 61 secondaries. The total combined roll of all these schools is 311,776 pupils, all of whom would have been exposed to the bike-to-school message.

890,304 total journeys were logged, of which 760,050 were pupils arriving at school on either bikes or scooters.

In participating schools, an average of 21 percent of pupils cycled in during the three weeks of the events. This rose to 25 percent on the final day of the competition.

Sustrans said the bike-to-school journeys took the place of 1,520,100 car journeys, saving 59,021 gallons of fuel, a saving of £368,484.

If cycling levels during the Big Pedal were maintained for the whole of the year there would be petrol cost saving of £2,947,878.

Sustrans said the event had generated 80 pieces of media coverage reaching a circulation of 8 million people with a PR value of £63,247.

Each year, Lonely Planet compiles a top ten list of destinations. For 2012, the guidebook specialist includes Taiwan in its ‘best in travel’ compilation. Yes, it’s for its “jaw-dropping landscape” and “museums simply bursting with treasures” but they’re not new so why is 2012 the time to visit? Because of Taiwan’s world-class bike paths, that’s why.

According to Lonely Planet, Taiwan is worth a visit because the country is…

“…best seen on two wheels and in recent years the authorities have embraced the biking market with surprising enthusiasm, vision and (most importantly) funding. This year sees the linking of thousands of kilometres of paths, including two round-the-island routes, and a host of other cycling friendly infrastructure projects.”

That’s quite some praise for an island off the Chinese mainland that’s famous for making bikes, but not riding them. Taiwan has long been known as the ‘Bicycle Kingdom’ but that’s because it’s where most of the Western world’s bicycles were once built.

Much of the low-end production has since moved to China and elsewhere in Asia but Taiwan remains a key destination for bicycle industry executives because mid- to high-end production of bikes and parts is still carried out on the island, or is controlled by Taiwanese companies.

And now, thanks to bicycle advocacy efforts, by companies such as Giant and Merida, Taiwan is becoming a Bicycle Kingdom for real. Protected networks of bike paths are being built and riding a circuit of the country is becoming a rite of passage for many Taiwan residents.

But the network is by no means complete and what has been built is used patchily, a demonstration that cycle-only networks have to be designed as a whole, not in bits. No matter how good the infrastructure, if a wide, safe bike path doesn’t connect to other wide, safe bike paths, it can be minimally used, undermining the reason for building the infrastructure in the first place.

Visitors to the Taipei International Cycle Show, held every March in the Nangang Exhibition Halls, get free tickets on the MRT light rail system but few international visitors seem to use these tickets. Instead, they jump into taxis, and complain about prices when the taxis inevitably get stuck in Taipei’s famous traffic jams.

Even fewer of the international visitors ever venture out on bikes. Most assume Taipei has no cycle paths because the highway network is so densely packed with cars and scooters.

In fact, a five minute bike ride from the Nangang Exhibibition Halls, on backroads, and you’re on the Keelong River bicycle path, which links in to Taipei’s other riverside bike path network.

This bike route is hard to see from the elevated highways or even the adjoining road as it’s hidden by flood defence walls. But once you descend to the river network, the cycling is easy. There are lane markings, sign-posts in English, kilometre markers, and ramps for ease of access for cyclists. Where there are steps, these have often been given mini-ramps to enable bicycles to be wheeled up or down.

The bike paths are, in fact, two lane roads, and it’s possible to cycle for many miles on these flood access ‘roads’.

The bike paths wind through downtown, over and under Taipei’s many bridges.

With elevated roadways soaring above your head, and routes for pedestrians sometimes separated with low-walls not just paint, the bike paths by the rivers in Taipei are model examples of segregation done well.

But, on weekday mornings, when you’d expect such superlative bike paths to be full of bicycle commuters, there are almost none. ‘Build and they will come’ only seems to work at the weekends in Taipei: that’s when the bike paths are used by locals.

The riverside bike paths aren’t in recreation-only areas, they skirt down-town, but because the links to the river paths have not been put in place, there are few cyclists in evidence.

MOTOR MYOPIA
Taiwan has a bullet train service and city light rail transit systems, but the country is still very much motor dependent. For a population of 23 million people, Taiwan has 5.7 million cars and 14 million motorcycles. There are just 1 million bicycles.

Taiwan is a small, sweet potato shaped island, 394 kilometres (245 miles) long and 144 kilometres (89.5 miles) wide at its broadest point. It’s possible to drive from one end of the island to the other in a day, a fact which meant ‘The Road in the Air’ (2007) the country’s first ‘road movie’, if it were to portray a multi-day trip, usual for road movies, had to be enacted with bicycles rather than a car.

While cars are now emitting less noxious gases by both design and by an Environmental Protection Agency ‘clean air’ law, scooters often escape sanctions and many of the older, cheaper ones are powered by very dirty two-stroke engines. According to the Taiwan Country Analysis Brief of 2005 by the US Energy Information Administration, Taipei has “the most obvious air pollution, primarily caused by the motorbikes and scooters used by millions of the city’s residents.”

Taiwan was late building its motorways – the first was only constructed in 1978 – but it has made up for this in prodigious growth ever since.

The construction was paid for by strong economic growth. The post WWII ‘Taiwan Miracle’ saw Taiwan become a major manufacturer of goods shipped to the West. Taiwan is one of the ‘Four Asian Dragons’ – the others are Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong – which became economic powerhouses.

Despite a recessionary blip thanks to the global financial crisis of 2007 and beyond, economic growth in Taiwan topped 10 percent in 2010, the highest rate in almost 30 years.

With a successful economy comes calls for “improved roads” to reduce congestion.

Many of Taiwan’s existing motorways – especially through cities – are double-deckers. No. 1 Freeway in Taipei is a 20 km elevated bridge built in 1997 on top of the original motorway.

New motorways are now proposed that will damage sensitive wildlife areas and are meeting vocal opposition.

Some major new roads have escaped assessment by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Agency by being a few metres less than 5km long, although campaigners say other stretches will be built later, and also under 5km.

Anti-roads groups such as the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance question why billions of dollars are spent on short stretches of road which will despoil mangrove swamps and lead to yet more traffic congestion.

On the plus side, for cyclists, many of the elevated roads are built over access roads operated by Taiwan’s Water Resources Bureau and these can be converted to cycle use (although cycling under elevated sections of road is far from pleasant).

CYCLING VOICES
Grassroots cycle advocacy is in it infancy in Taiwan. Most of the advocacy efforts to date have been led by semi-commercial organisations such as Giant’s Cycling Lifestyle Foundation. City councils have taken part in ‘Car Free Days’ but when mayors have been wheeled out on bikes to highlight the promotions they tend to be pictured not to Dutch style roadsters but next to sport bikes (usually from Giant or Merida, naturally) and the mayors are made to wear Lycra jerseys (usually from Giant or Merida, naturally).

The Green Party in Taiwan – not yet a political force to be reckoned with – is usually pro-bicycle and has sometimes called for cash for cycling infrastructure and for changes in traffic law to make bicycles vehicles, as is the case in most Western countries.

On the ground, opposition to car- and scooter-dependency tends to be small and low key. Taipei has a Critical Mass style group called, rather sweetly, Bike Smiling. It’s rare for Bike Smiling to get more than ten or 20 riders on its monthly rides.

One of the key reasons why it can be difficult to make room for bicycles on Taiwan’s roads is the problem of on-street parking. This is a problem globally, of course, but in a country where most people live in apartments and don’t own garages to store their motorised vehicles, the street is where cars and scooters are parked.

Bike Smiling, the Green Party and other bicycle advocates lobby to reduce on-street parking to make more room for cycle lanes but, when protected bike lanes are built, city authorities tend to take space away from pedestrians not cars and scooters.

INVESTMENT
Taiwan is green. Green as in the colour: viewed from on high in Google Earth, Taiwan is almost all trees. But zoom in and the grey bits are the large coastal cities such as Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. Taiwanese cities are choked with fumes from the infernal combustion engine.

Although it’s still in thrall to the car – with more and more motorways believed to be the answer to congestion – the Taiwanese Government is also investing in bicycle infrastructure to encourage more people to get on to their bikes.

This investment comes from the Sports Council. Cycling in Taiwan, on the whole, is seen as a recreation and a sport not yet a form of mainstream urban transport, but this is slowly changing.

Some high-profile individuals cycle to work in Taipei, such as Ho Chen Tan, the former chairman of Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest service company. Others, such as academics, hi-tech workers and ex-pats, are also biking to work, some of them attracted to cycle commuting by the new city bike schemes, such as You-Bike in Taipei.

The former name of Taiwan is Formosa, which means ‘beautiful island’. In parts, the island is no longer beautiful. Factories and urban sprawl have taken over. But much of the country is still wilderness and, even in the deepest asphalt jungle, there are nature hotspots (some are literally hot, Taiwan has volcanic spas). Many of these nature areas are today accessible by bicycle and by foot rather than by car. For instance, in Taipei, there are recreational cycle paths along both sides of the valleys of the Danshui, Keelung, and Xindian rivers. Some stretches of the river routes are as wide as standard two-lane roads and were originally built as access roads as part of the city’s flood defences. Converted to cycle use they now form a backbone for a growing cycle network.

The riverside routes are dotted with bike rental businesses, each with hundreds of bikes for hire. On the scenic river cycle route to the Guandu Buddhist temple, 15 miles from downtown and perfectly way-marked, there is a road for cars, and then an elevated two-way bike route next to a wooden-plank footway segregated from cyclists with a knee-level concrete wall.

President Ma of Taiwan opened this year’s Taipei Cycle show and is sometimes pictured upon a bicycle. He’s been helped to this position by a bike boss, King Liu, founder of Giant of Taiwan (the pair are pictured here). King Liu has the ear of Government ministers and he has helped to get cycling on the national radar.

Giant is the world’s biggest maker of mid- to high-end bicycles.

Now 80, King Liu only ‘discovered’ cycling when he was 73, yet in seven years he’s had a transforming impact on the cycling culture of Taiwan. In 2009, he paid for a delegation of Taiwanese industrial and political leaders to make a fact-finding bike tour of the Netherlands.

Taipei has a smaller equivalent of London’s Barclays Cycle Hire scheme but U-Bike (also known as YouBike) isn’t funded by a bank, it’s run by an offshoot of Giant.

Giant also funds the Cycling Lifestyle Foundation, a lobbying group run by King Liu’s daughter, Vicky Yang.

This group is influential, but Rome wasn’t built in a day:

“The Government takes the solutions that we propose very seriously,” said Yang.

“However, we understand that seriousness does not necessarily mean prompt or immediate actions, so we are still working with the Government on our propositions. Our passion won’t fade.”

The Cycling Lifestyle Foundation started life as a sporting organisation. It now works on cycle commuting issues, too.

“After 18 years of promoting cycling as a recreational sport, our next step is to encourage cyclists to bike to work,” said Yang.

“We need to work with the Government in creating a cycling friendly infrastructure.”

For Rory McMullan, project director of Integrated Transport Planning of China and a former marketing consultant at Giant’s Taiwan HQ, the growth in cycling infrastructure in Taiwan is impressive:

“The status of cycling has grown enormously in the last ten years. An array of committed and talented people working in Government, planning consultancies, universities and environmental groups have worked to raise environmental awareness.”

He added: “Bicycle clubs have flourished, cycling has become a fashionable way to get fit, and excellent quality bicycle lanes are located around all the big cities, making family leisure cycling a popular family weekend pursuit.”

But for David Poo, the ex-director general of Taipei City Transport (he planned the MRT, Taipei’s light rail system), cycling within Taiwanese cities is not at anywhere near the same level of sophistication as the recreational routes. He has always cycled to work (he’s now chairman of transport company Mega Trans International) and is sanguine about the potential for cycle commuting in Taipei.

For instance, space isn’t taken from cars, it’s taken from pedestrians: “My experience in Taipei traffic and in other Taiwan cities is that commuting bicycle riders tend to be forced onto pedestrian sidewalks, when they exist.”

He believes there was no historical lack of multi-modal planning but that plans weren’t carried through to completion:

“It is very important to have coordinated planning for public transport and cycling facilities, including bike parking lots. Cycling is probably the most effective ‘last mile’ solution for mass transit systems. I was responsible for the initial functional plans for the Taipei Rapid Transit (MRT) system, some 30 years ago, and we planned for large bicycle parking lots at most of the MRT stations.

“We gave top priority to bus stops, locating these spaces closest to the MRT station entrances; the next priority was for bicycle parking, then motorcycle parking, and last was for car parking, if any. However, when the stations were built in the late 1990s, the cycling environment had not improved; the recommended bicycle paths were not built, and motorcycle parking overflowed into the bike parking spaces.”

Nevertheless, getting to work by bike is no longer unusual. “There are many, many more commuting cyclists today than there were 10 years ago,” agrees Poo.

He doesn’t believe enough money has yet been allocated to urban cycling: “The majority of cycling investments have gone toward constructing leisure cycling paths. So far, comparatively little investment has gone into bicycle commuting facilities, or public bicycle systems. These are areas that I am working on through local government transport departments and environmental protection departments, and we are hoping to see better results in the next year.”

As well as carrots for cyclists, he wants to see sticks used against motor users:

“Private car and motorcycle users should pay more for the external pollution and congestion cost they incur.”

And, for Poo, it will be necessary for cities to get tough on the subsidised road storage for motor users: “We must reduce roadside car and motorcycle parking to make more room for safer dedicated cycling paths.”

Naturally, it needs brave political leaders to even suggest removing parking spaces. However, one group of residents more open to change – and which cities want to attract – are those who work in the high-tech sector.

Hsin-Wen Chang, head of the Department of Transportation Technology and Management at the National Chiao Tung University in Taipei, believes catering to this sector can transform Taiwanese cities:

“Local government is making great efforts to create an environment that will attract high-tech employees. The recreation environment is a key factor in attracting such employees.”
Creating bike paths – recreational at first – attracts many in the high-tech economy, says Chang.

Hsinchu Scientific Industrial Park – Asia’s ‘Silicon Valley – employs 130,000 people and generates $35 billion in annual sales. Improving nearby leisure amenities to attract even more companies is something the Taipei authorities take seriously.

“Starting in 2002, the city government has built a 17km-long bike lane along the coastline, which was completed at the end of 2005, involving an investment of $18 million over three consecutive years,” said Chang.

“On behalf of Hsinchu county government, I investigated and planned 300 kilometres of bikeway by in 2008. Both central and local governments have been trying to stimulate the development of recreational cycling.

“The National Development Plan 2008 and the Tourist Double Plan also stressed the importance of building a national bikeway system. Approximately $130 million of investment will be invested in bikeways in the future.”

But what will convert recreational cyclists into every day, commuter cyclists?

“This is a big big question,” admitted Chang. “I have been doing research on this for many years. Creating and expanding public bike schemes is a key solution.”
But, like David Poo, Chang believes parking for cars and scooters is the biggest issue to tackle.

“If we can eliminate much of the road side parking, we will have more space for cycling paths,” she said.

The Big Pedal will see more than 1 million journeys being logged.

Pupils, teachers and parents cycle or scoot to school to complete each of the 15 Big Pedal stages, which is a bit like the daily stages of cycling’s big annual event, the Tour de France.

The more people that cycle or scoot to school, the faster the school completes each stage.

The eventual Big Pedal winner is the school that completes the whole race in the quickest overall time.

The Big Pedal has a Twitter feed and a website, and you can watch their video on YouTube The Big Pedal 2012

Funded by Bike Hub & delivered by Sustrans, The Big Pedal is a three-week project to get kids on bikes, and excited about riding to school.

Kids, parents and teachers across the UK will be getting on their bikes for the journey to school this March as part of Sustrans’ Big Pedal. There are prizes up for grabs for the schools that involve most people.

The Big Pedal is the UK’s biggest school cycling competition to get kids active and raise money for the charity Sustrans.

Nearly half of all children want to be able to get to school by bike but only four per cent do, said a statement from Sustrans.

Carl Pittam, Sustrans Director of English Regions, said:

“Last year’s Big Pedal saw children from more than 800 schools across the UK making nearly a million journeys by bike.

“This year’s race will see even more families discovering just how easy it is to do the school run on two wheels. Children that cycle to school regularly are more active and more alert and better learners.”

The race is funded by Bike Hub, the UK cycle levy scheme. Phillip Darnton, executive director of the Bicycle Association, said:

“The future of cycling depends on every generation of kids learning and wanting to cycle.

“The cycle industry through its Bike Hub levy is delighted to fund this event for another year. 2012 is a very special year; the Big Pedal marks the start of the Summer of Cycling – a new campaign bringing together everyone who cycles and encouraging them to introduce one new-comer to cycling during the year.

“That’s why the Big Pedal is aiming for 1000 schools to sign up and one million journeys to be made.”

The Big Pedal will be the roll-out event for the Summer of Cycling, an umbrella project backed by all the major cycling organisations and created by the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group.