BOULDER, CO (BRAIN)—When Bikes Belong teamed with Humana to bring 1,000 bikes to the Democratic and Republican national conventions the advocacy group had two goals:
-To show convention delegates, media, volunteers and residents the convenience of bicycling for short trips.
-To highlight bicycling on a national stage and generate positive media coverage to inspire more people to ride.
On both fronts, the Freewheelin bike sharing effort was tremendously successful. During eight days of Freewheelin at the two conventions, people from all 50 states and 37 countries:
-Took 7,523 rides
-Pedaled 41,724 miles
-Burned 1,293,429 calories
-Reduced their carbon footprint by 14.6 metric tons
-Reported no accidents or injuries
Freewheelin was a mainstream media event, with stories appearing on CNN, ABC World News Tonight, and the CBS Evening News, in major newspapers such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Daily News, as well as in Time and Newsweek.
So far Bikes Belong has tallied:
-2,304 clips in print, on television and radio, and online
-Nearly 180 million media impressions
-An equivalent of $10 million in advertising
These widespread and positive stories helped promote bicycling as easy, convenient, healthy, safe and fun to a larger and wider audience than Bikes Belong has reached before.
