The Environmental Ride of a Lifetime with the Aotearoa Bike Challenge

The Outlet, The Talk of Queenstown
In this podcast  Amanda Robinson, co-founder of the Lightfoot Initiative, takes us on a  tour of the Aotearoa Bike Challenge. As someone who's traded the automotive thrills of a 'bogan', for the cycling buzz of London's streets and Queenstown's scenic routes, Amanda imparts a wealth of knowledge on the joys and environmental perks of pedaling our way through life.
https://www.lovetoride.net/nz/pages/info?locale=en-GB&page=1_challenge

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Transcript

Brent: 0:09

Welcome to the Outlet. I'm your host, Brent Harbour, and in this podcast I catch up with Amanda Robinson, co -founder and trustee of the Lightfoot Initiative. We dive into the Aotearoa bike challenge, exploring its background, how it works, plus how participants can earn points and win prizes. We also discuss its insights on making streets bike friendly more efficiently and explore the differences of biking in London versus Queenstown.

Brent: 0:45

Hi Amanda, welcome to the Outlet podcast.

Amanda: 0:48

Thanks for having me.

Brent: 0:49

You're very welcome. So we're going to chat about the Altair to our bike challenge, and find out more about it shortly, but first I want to talk about an article you wrote about the difference between your cycling experiences in London and Queenstown.

Amanda: 1:03

I did recently have a few things to say about that, actually, and when I've ruminated on it for the last few days, percolated, let it trickle through my brain what I've realised is it actually just comes down to adrenaline. So my background is that I grew up in a very car-focused family real love. I suppose you could call me a car enthusiast if you were using a polite word, or a bogan if you'd like another type of word, so a lot of the energy went into enjoying things or cars. I think that my experience of moving to I'd always cycled. You know, every kid that lives in Christchurch rides a bicycle, because it's the flatest, most convenient place to bike in the world.

Amanda: 1:41

When I moved to London, though, I found that the adrenaline cycling through London traffic was actually equivalent to everything I used to do. That was potentially a little bit crazy in cars. Now the thing is, is it coming back to Queenstown? The population might be a little bit smaller, just a little bit smaller than London, but actually the level of traffic on the roads is fairly similar, so you do still get that same buzz. What I do experience now, though, is that I also get to take that buzz off the road onto things like trail and downhill riding as well, which has a middle aged person such as myself, even if it's a really simple thing that I'm doing always gives me an awesome hit. So there you go. It's all about the adrenaline drag.

Brent: 2:22

I was going to say too, the scenery would be a lot better between London and Queenstown. I mean, london's a fascinating place, but Queenstown is beautiful, right.

Amanda: 2:30

Well, just a different type of scenery, because I guess you can't be, you know, biking down Oxford Street with all of the amazing sights at the top end at Marble Arch, and yeah, different but the same because it's all about that buzz you get from being there and being in the moment.

Brent: 2:43

Now you are doing the Aotearoa Bike Challenge, so can you please give me some of the background on that?

Amanda: 2:48

Yeah, absolutely so. It originated actually through a company called Love to Ride, who are based in the UK, and they've spread their little tentacles out throughout the world and one of the things they run is the Aotearoa Bike Challenge. It's been running for quite a few years and New Zealand, but the last couple of years in the Queenstown Lakes there's been a bit more of a boost to kind of get the community involved, get workplaces involved, and really it's just about over that month of February making sure that people are cycling for transport, cycling for pleasure, for recreation, and it's tracking the carbon that's saved, just to show what the impact could be if we switch to a bike more often.

Brent: 3:26

So how do people learn points in the challenge in Amanda and what are the benefits of accumulating points?

Amanda: 3:31

Well, that's a great question actually, Brent. So it's really easy to earn points. Literally, when you get on your bike start earning points. The more days you cycle, even if they're shorter trips, they earn points too. There's the facility to be able to encourage others to bike and as an encourager, you get special points for that. The points you get for transport, rather than just recreation, are actually higher. It might even be double the points, and the cool thing is is that the more points you get, the higher up the leaderboard you go, and that positions you better to win some of the amazing prizes that they've got in the challenge, both locally and nationally.

Brent: 4:05

What is the role of workplaces in the challenge?

Amanda: 4:07

Well, we all know that actually we spend a lot of time with those people in our workplaces, and one of the things that we also know is that kind of in every workplace there's usually one or two people that are fairly passionate about cycling, a lot of people that are possibly on the fence or just weekend bikers, and then some that just don't do it at all, and so the benefit of being involved in the challenge as part of a workplace is that it gives those really keen cyclists an opportunity to promote cycling within the workplace, you know, as a form of sustainable transport for that occasional commute. It doesn't have to be every day, and one of the cool things about it is that we know for every experienced cyclist that's riding in the challenge, there's a half of a new cyclist and a half of a occasional cyclist also starts riding. So actually the influence that that one keen cyclist has on their workmates is actually really high of drawing people into cycling and getting them more enthusiastic about it

Brent: 5:07

Everybody loves prizes and free stuff. So what are some of the prizes and how are they awarded?

Amanda: 5:10

Definitely based on the points. So the more frequently you bike, the more points you gather, and what they have is we've got two prize pools actually. So there's the national one, which has things like e-bikes, so some quite big prizes, some overseas trips, cycling kit, things like that. Locally, what we have are a lot of actual prizes that are just relevant to those people living in Queenstown lakes, so different experiences like you can win day passes at Kalendo bike park. We've got lots of vouchers for some of the independent shops and some of the bigger shops in Queenstown, and then we've also got a lot of really amazing cycle kit locally that can be won just by the pool of people operating and cycling in the Queenstown Lakes District.

Brent: 5:52

That is so cool. Now back to your article too. You said that the build infrastructure and they will come approach as a nice ideal, but it's costly and you think there's a quicker way to make streets bike friendly.

Amanda: 6:04

Right, Absolutely field of dreams. We know that if we make it they'll turn up there, but the reality is money's tight everywhere at the moment and one of the easiest ways to make the streets friendlier for bikes is to just get as many bikes as possible on there, so the more that people can and and I understand that not everybody is confident and wants to be battling the traffic and getting the adrenaline buzz I mentioned earlier in this discussion that actually you could just choose to go for a bike on, you know, the streets, on the trails on a weekend when things are a little bit quieter and you know one of the best things that can happen is parents taking their kids out for a ride on safe streets at different times of the day, just to get the kids used to operating in that kind of environment so that they grow up to be confident cyclists.

Brent: 6:48

Growing up, we were always on our bikes in the street. That's all we did. We disappear, and then we'd come back when it was dinner time, right?

Amanda: 6:55

Absolutely. You know, I was young in the 80s and sort of going into the early 90s and it was still like that then. And what's really cool is that we can see in some suburbs in Queenstown and definitely over on Wanaka, that there are some suburbs that are better geared for that and, you know, when they're built the right way, we can see that the kids are actually out there on the bikes. But what we want to see is people starting to use them for transport, not just cruising around the streets, but actually for going to school, for going and doing. You know, the occasional bits and pieces of shopping, things like that. It's all possible.

Brent: 7:27

Now, do you remember your first bike Amanda?

Amanda: 7:29

I actually do my father, who's a mechanic. He actually built my first bike for me when I was about six. Oh, really, I know, we were as a lot of people were. In the 80s, we were quite tight on funds and my dad salvaged parts off lots of different bikes to build me my first bike, which is pretty cool. That's a nice memory for me.

Brent: 7:47

My older brother got a chopper, which is very, very popular. Chopper's are cool, they're just the coolest thing, with the gear shift in the middle and everything, and I thought, oh, that's great, I'll get one of those as well. Anyway, unfortunately, farmers at the time had run out of those bikes, so I ended up with a raleigh 20.

Amanda: 8:02

Oh no, but you know what they're all collectors items these days. You should have held on to.

Brent: 8:06

I know it was so good for doubling people when I went to school and things like that, but it wasn't as cool as the chopper.

Amanda: 8:12

You know what? I think you were in a Kiwi kid until you were dubbed somewhere and got your heel caught in the spokes in the back of someone's wheel. So I think we've all got those scars. You know, that's something that kids should be experiencing today, you know.

Brent: 8:24

It's a rite of passage, absolutely. If people want to find out some more information on the Aotearoa Bike Challenge, where online should they go? Amanda?

Amanda: 8:31

Right, there's a couple of options, so the the best one is Love to Ride, the Love to Ride site, which is simply accessed at aotearoa. bike, and then, if you go forward, slash Queenstown Lakes. That takes you to our localised site. And then the other option is jumping on the lightfoot page, and we've got all of the events laid out in full detail on there, because there's a massive calendar of things happening across the month that people can engage in, and so that's just lightfoot. org. nz. Forward slash, abc 2024.

Brent: 9:02

That sounds great. Well, I'm going to go to Mum and Dad's place and see if I can find the Raleigh 20 buried under a shed somewhere.

Amanda: 9:08

If you do, can you ask me a picture please? I need to see it.

Brent: 9:11

And hey, all the very best for your bike riding and thanks for having a chat today.

Amanda: 9:16

Awesome, always great to talk, Brent. See you soon.

Brent: 9:27

Thanks for listening to the Outlet, your local interview podcast for Queenstown. Now, if you do have a story or an interview you think should be featured on the Outlet podcast, please get in touch by using the contact button on your Queenstown app. The outlet is produced and published by the Queenstown app and supported with funding from the New Zealand Public Interest Journalism Fund. All episodes of the Outlet are available on the podcast button on your Queenstown app and wherever you get your podcasts.