Shift Up Podcast: How the #30DaysofBiking challenge can be a golden ticket for bicycle retailers

April is a big month for the bike industry. Not only can we look forward to finer weather (and hopefully more customers), but it also marks the start of the global 30 Days of Biking campaign.

This week’s guest is Patrick Stephenson, a leader of the eight year old campaign who has lead the social media charge with his own 30 day story. Originally put out as a joke on the back of a 30 days of Yoga campaign, 300 people signed up for the year one charge within the first month of tossing ideas around. We got interviewed on TV and it got crazy.

“Let’s bike every day in April and share our adventures online around the hashtag #30daysofbiking. It got a lot of people onto it,” explains Stephenson.

Now partnered with World Bicycle Relief, among others, 30 Days of Biking now serves as a movement for good, with fundraising involved in many cases.

Stephenson adds of what is now a non-profit organisation: “To me this has been an amazing journey, I even met my wife because of 30 Days of Biking. The way it grows and how new organisations come on board and amazing stories come out of it telling how people have changed their lives through biking.

“What people are signing on for is to pledge to ride every day in April, whatever the journey may be. We’ve added on a World Bicycle Relief component to raise money for Joy for Riders in rural Africa. We donate robust Buffalo bicycles to transform a two hour walk into a half hour bike ride. That’s life changing and we also teach people how to fix the bikes to create new business for the locals.”

Stephenson is shooting to raise $30,000 this year, double last year’s target. Riders can pledge their support here.

To hear more about the goals for 2018, as well as how those in the bike biz can benefit from the movement, tune in here:

To catch prior episodes of the Shift Up Podcast see our back catalogue here.