Skip to content

News Center | Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology

Search

Search form

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • News Home
  • Campus Map
  • Directory
  • Offices

News Center

Menu
Close
  • Calendar
  • Categories
    • Business and Economic Development
    • Campus and Community
    • Earth and Environment
    • Health and Medicine
    • Science and Technology
    • Society and Culture
    • Feature Stories
  • Media Contacts
  • Experts
    • Find an Expert
    • Featured Expert
  • Daily Digest
  • The Whistle
    • Home
    • Classifieds
    • Archives
  • Social Media
  • Subscribe
  • You are here:
  • GT Home
  • Georgia Tech NewsCenter
  • Home
  • Georgia Tech Wins Atlanta Bike Challenge
Campus and Community

Georgia Tech Wins Atlanta Bike Challenge

By Kristen Bailey and Katrina Heitz | December 2, 2019 • Atlanta, GA

Atlanta Bike Challenge 2019: GTRI's Thighs
Click image to enlarge

Members of the GTRI’s Thighs team (L-R): Jett Marks, Kit Plummer, Jason Bryan, Joshua Forester, Abby Perry, Josh Wells, and John Rose. Photo courtesy of Joshua Forester.

Download Image

Each October, Georgia Commute Options sponsors the Atlanta Bike Challenge, a chance for cyclists of all levels to hit the road on two wheels and encourage others to do the same. The challenge allows riders to form teams and compete against other workplaces for who can log the most miles and get new cyclists to join.

This year, a slew of Tech employees did just that. Overall, Georgia Tech placed first out of 67 organizations with 500+ staff, and first overall out of nearly 300 organizations that participated in the Challenge.

In total, Tech employees biked 22,300 miles, with more than 9,300 of them serving as part of a commute. The collective efforts prevented more than 7,400 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

“Encouraging others to ride cannot be limited to the Challenge, as increasing the number of people who ride not only reduces congestion on our campus roads and improves the quality of air we breathe, but also helps to make the roads safer for all of us,” said Becky James, instructor at the Campus Recreation Center who helped captain the challenge for Georgia Tech.

A group from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) took home first place among teams from Georgia Tech. The members of team “GTRI’s Thighs” biked 5,166 of Georgia Tech’s total miles.

Jett Marks, a research scientist in GTRI’s CIPHER lab, was among the leaders on that team. When Marks joined GTRI in 2015, he was elated to find others who shared his love for biking — for fun, for a commute, or both. He had participated in the Atlanta Bike Challenge in the past and became a catalyst in getting others within GTRI to participate.

The Challenge “game-ifies” cycling by awarding points for daily riding, number of miles, and encouraging others to join. For Marks, encouraging others to take up cycling comes naturally.
“Outside of riding a bicycle, I’ve not found any other single act that brings so much positivity in so many ways,” he said. “Riding a bike obviously trains our physical muscles, and it also trains our smile muscles.”

Joshua Forester, who also works in the CIPHER lab, was the top rider overall for Georgia Tech, and a member of GTRI’s Thighs. Forester bikes for commuting and fun, and recently completed a bike race in Fiji. He blogged about the experience of this year’s Challenge and some of the activities that took place that month, including a trip from Georgia to Alabama along the Silver Comet Trail. Forester had a goal of being a top 10 rider during the challenge, and he biked nearly 900 miles in 10 days to meet that goal.

“I had to work through knee pain, some mild tennis elbow, a family emergency, rain and lightning storms, extreme fatigue from the exercise and sleeplessness, sickness, and vertebrae bruising from storing my headlight battery pack (which is itself padded) in my center jersey pocket and not realizing what was causing it until the final day,” he wrote. “Some much-needed rest was in order.”

Though the Challenge is over, Georgia Tech offers many resources for cyclists year-round. Some of those available from Parking and Transportation Services include a SmartPark permit (for occasional vehicular parking), helmet sales, and bike/scooter safety classes (in conjunction with the Georgia Tech Police Department and Bike GT). Georgia Commute Options offers ridematching, commuter rewards, and guaranteed ride home programs. Many buildings are equipped with showers, and the new Dalney Parking Deck has Tech’s first bike storage room outside of campus housing. See locations at map.gatech.edu, and learn more at bike.hwb.gatech.edu.

Related Links

  • Parking and Transportation: Bicycling Resources

Contact Information

Kristen Bailey

Institute Communications

Categories

Campus and Community

News Categories

  • Business and Economic Development
  • Campus and Community
  • Earth and Environment
  • Health and Medicine
  • Science and Technology
  • Society and Culture

Featured Videos

After losing her sight due to reginitis pigmentosa at the age of 15, Aditi Shah earned two degrees in India before coming to Georgia Tech. She will leave Atlanta with a master's in computer science with a focus in cybersecurity and a goal to inspire the blind women in India to pursue their dreams.

A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and The Ohio State University has developed a material that uses magnetic fields to transform into a variety of shapes. The material could enable a range of new applications from antennas that change frequencies on the fly to gripper arms for delicate or heavy objects.

Georgia Tech hosts the 2019 US Swimming Championships.

Georgia Tech Resources

  • Offices & Departments
  • News Center
  • Campus Calendar
  • Special Events
  • GreenBuzz
  • Institute Communications
  • Visitor Resources
  • Campus Visits
  • Directions to Campus
  • Visitor Parking Information
  • GTvisitor Wireless Network Information
  • Georgia Tech Global Learning Center
  • Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center
  • Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech
  • Ferst Center for the Arts
  • Robert C. Williams Paper Museum

Colleges, Instructional Sites & Research

  • Colleges
  • College of Computing
  • College of Design
  • College of Engineering
  • College of Sciences
  • Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
  • Scheller College of Business
  • Instructional Sites
  • Georgia Tech-Lorraine
  • Georgia Tech-Savannah
  • Georgia Tech-Shenzhen
  • Georgia Tech Online
  • Professional Education
  • The Language Institute
  • Global Footprint
  • Global Engagement
  • Research
  • Georgia Tech Research Institute
  • Research at Georgia Tech
  • Executive Vice President for Research

Student & Parent Resources

  • Student Resources
  • Apply
  • BuzzPort
  • Buzzcard
  • Career Center
  • Co-ops & Internships
  • Commencement
  • Library
  • Student Life
  • Student Entrepreneurship
  • Study Abroad
  • T-Square
  • Parent Resources
  • Parent and Family Programs
  • Dean of Students
  • Scholarships & Financial Aid

Employee, Alumni, & Other Resources

  • Employees
  • Administration and Finance
  • Advising & Teaching
  • Faculty Affairs
  • Faculty Hiring
  • Human Resources
  • Office of the Provost
  • TechWorks
  • Alumni
  • Alumni Association
  • Alumni Career Services
  • Giving Back to Tech
  • Outreach
  • Startup Companies
  • Economic Development
  • Industry Engagement
  • Government & Community Partners
  • Professional Education
Map of News Center | Georgia Institute of Technology

Georgia Institute of Technology
North Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30332
Phone: (404) 894-2000

  • Contact Us
  • Site Feedback
  • Tech Lingo
  • Emergency Information
  • Legal & Privacy Information
  • Human Trafficking Notice
  • Accessibility
  • Accountability
  • Accreditation
  • Employment
Georgia Tech

© Georgia Institute of Technology