In this year's CITY CYCLING campaign, the 187 active cyclists in 19 teams covered a total of 54,038 kilometers for the city of Idar-Oberstein. "This is a great success and I would like to thank all participants for their great commitment," said Mayor Friedrich Marx at the award ceremony for special achievements as part of the campaign. The distance covered corresponds to around 1.4 times the circumference of the earth.
This is the fourth time that the city of Idar-Oberstein has taken part in the competition initiated by Climate Alliance to promote cycling, climate protection and quality of life. During the three-week campaign period, the total mileage was increased by a whopping 35 percent compared to 2022, when almost 40,000 kilometers were cycled. "That's a great achievement and shows that cycling is very much in vogue," said Marx. He also cycled himself during the joint final ride on the penultimate day of the campaign. A group of twelve went from the town hall to Tiefensteiner Staden, with a detour via Vollmersbachstraße. "We wanted to see the traffic situation for cyclists for ourselves," explained the city's climate protection manager Julia Besand, who is organizing the campaign in Idar-Oberstein. The result was not very pleasing, and there is an urgent need for improvement. This is also provided for in the mobility concept adopted by the city council at the beginning of the year. The implementation of the measures set out in the concept is intended to improve the integration of everyday cycling.
Promoting cycling is also one of the aims of the CITY CYCLING campaign. It is also about climate protection, because every journey made by bike instead of by car is good for the environment. "The kilometers cycled during our campaign saved around 8.7 tons ofCO2," said Julia Besand. She also explained some interesting details from the statistical analysis of the participants. The majority of cyclists were between 46 and 59 years old, and most of the bikes used were relatively new. "This shows that cycling has increased in recent years." It was also pleasing to see that a number of company and administrative teams took part in this year's campaign. This is despite the fact that only a few companies offer their employees the option of company bike leasing.
The achievements of the individuals who were honored with a prize were remarkable. The RSC Blitz team recorded the most kilometers ridden, namely 13,609, and with Stefan Hartmann, the cycling club also provided the best individual rider overall and in the racing bike category. He alone cycled 1,618 kilometers and thus around 3 percent of the total. Heinz Marx from Team Stadtverwaltung covered the most kilometers on an e-bike with 1,275. In the 'normal' bike category, i.e. no racing bike or e-bike, Stefan Fröhlich from the Fritsch Team won with 523 kilometers. Eckhard Cullmann, owner of a goldsmith's workshop, cycled to the store a total of 19 times for the city administration team and thus won in the 'journeys to work' category. Rasmus Loeblein from Team Kentix was the youngest participant to receive a prize, as was the oldest participant, Dieter Meyer from Open Team Idar-Oberstein, who was 80 years old. They all received either tickets for events, sights or Idar-Oberstein gift vouchers from Mayor Marx.
Finally, Julia Besand announced the campaign period for the coming year. The city of Idar-Oberstein will once again be taking part in CITY CYCLING from June 24 to July 14, 2024. And a joint bike tour is also planned again for Friday, July 5, 2024.