Abley wins Aotearoa Bike Challenge 2023

Our Christchurch team is really proud to have once again been crowned the winner of our category (20-49 employees) in the annual Aotearoa Bike Challenge.

We started strong with a delicious bike to work breakfast on 1st February (thanks to our Social Club), then had to work hard to catch up to Calibre – it was a very tight race! We seemed to have lots of rainy days during February but that didn’t seem to deter our cyclists, who rode a total of 7,214kms for the month, including 583 commuter trips, saving around 815kg CO_2. That is equivalent to driving 3,075kms in a standard petrol car, for example driving from Darwin to Adelaide in Australia (using 265gCO2e per km, as per  Ministry for the Environment).

For the first time, Abley participated in the Tour de Coffee Culture, which involved biking to 16 Coffee Culture cafes in one day, from Lyttleton to Rangiora. Our team of Ann-Marie Head, Chris Blackmore, Fraser Dixon, Lizzie Garside, Jared White, Jeanette Ward (plus some friends and family) participated, with most lasting the whole tour, fueled by caffeine of course!  

Our annual bike to lunch event helped us finish strong at the end of the month, with our Abley bikes used by the people who don’t usually bike.

Well done to Steve Carruthers for finishing 11th on the Aotearoa leaderboard for most rides with kids, Fraser Dixon for being our top encourager and highest points scorer, and to Chris Blackmore who topped our workplace with 862km cycled during the month. Also special mention to Jeanette Ward who completed the two-day Coast to Coast during February, which really helped to boost our distance points.