• To cover as many kilometres as possible by bike for both private and professional purposes within the local three-week CITY CYCLING campaign period (and beyond).
• To help your team or municipality place well in the overall ranking.
• To help protect the climate and create a liveable environment where bikes are used as “zero-emissions vehicles”.
• To participate in the campaign and cover as many kilometres as possible by bike to help make clear to local decision-makers how many people actually already use their bike and rely on there being good cycling infrastructure, and how important cycling promotion and local climate protection are to cyclists.
• To act as role models for sustainable mobility as local politicians and team captains, and to encourage fellow citizens to form their own teams and get involved in the campaign.
• To lead a healthy lifestyle, experience how cycling can be a flexible mode of transport – and ultimately to have fun!

• Before you can participate in CITY CYCLING, your local municipality (town, city, community, rural district/region) must first register officially for the campaign.
• Anyone who lives, works, belongs to a club or attends school or university in a participating municipality is able to participate in CITY CYCLING.
• Once your municipality has been added to the list of participating municipalities, you can sign up in the cyclist portal, then either join an existing team or form a new one. If you decide to form a new team, you will automatically be designated the team captain and assigned additional user rights in the online cycling log.
• In addition to members of local parliaments, school groups, clubs, companies, organisations, citizens, etc. are also able to form their own teams.
• It is not possible to participate in CITY CYCLING without belonging to a team – after all, climate protection and cycling promotion require teamwork! So you will need to decide which team you wish to join. Alternatively, you can form your own team – two people already counts as a team – or join your municipality’s “open” team. If you are the only active cyclist in a team when the 21-day CITY CYCLING campaign period ends (i.e. the only person to have logged any kilometres), you will automatically be moved to the municipality’s “open” team. Your original team will then be deleted (including any statements entered by the team captain).
• Each cyclist may only belong to one single team and therefore also only have one single online cycling log.
• Exception: if you live and work in two different municipalities and both are participating in the CITY CYCLING campaign, you are able to collect kilometres for both municipalities. You will need to register separately for each municipality in the online cycling log. Please note, however, that kilometres may only be entered once!
• It is possible to record the kilometres cycled by multiple cyclists (e.g. entire families, school classes, etc.) in the same online cycling log – see the next section for details.
• CITY CYCLING takes place in municipalities on 21 consecutive days. It is up to you to decide on which and how many days you actually wish to cycle.
• Team captains should be prepared to make statements (e.g. on why people should participate) and to upload a photo of themselves or of the team. Statements and photos can be uploaded to the team captain’s online cycling log. These will then be published on the municipality’s subpage along with the team name.

• Every kilometre covered by bike for professional or private purposes during the 21-day period can be counted; (cycling) competitions as well as indoor training on stationary bikes (e.g. spinning bikes) cannot be counted here.
• The kilometres cycled can be measured (or estimated) using an odometer or bicycle computer, the CITY CYCLING app or a route planning tool.
  It does not matter where the kilometres were covered – after all, climate protection knows no city or state boundaries.
• You can still form a team when CITY CYCLING is already underway, right up until the last day in the campaign; it is alternatively possible for you to simply join an existing team. You can enter kilometres retroactively as long as they were covered during the three-week campaign period.
• It is not possible to register new cyclists, or to form or switch teams during the seven-day grace period after the local CITY CYCLING campaign has ended.
• It is up to you to decide how detailed you want your kilometre entries to be (each individual trip, a daily total or – at the very least – a grand total at the end of each CITY CYCLING week).
• The kilometres you enter will automatically be credited to your team and municipality. If you are collecting kilometres for a town/city/municipality in a rural district/region (discernible by the addition of “Municipality of X in the rural district of Y”), you will also automatically collect climate-friendly kilometres for the rural district/region.
• The team and municipal results will be published on the website. With the exception of the CYCLE STARS, the results of individual cyclists will not be made public.
• The kilometres cycled should be recorded in the online cycling log as soon as possible, as the results are updated daily to enable a more rapid and accurate comparison with other teams and municipalities. This helps to enhance the campaign’s competition character. Please enter the kilometres you have cycled by the end of each CITY CYCLING week at the latest.
• When large events such as a critical mass are held, it is not possible to merely estimate the number of participants and to enter an estimated total number of kilometres.
  Pedelecs (average engine output of 250 W, support cuts out at 25 km/h) can be used during the CITY CYCLING campaign. This is because they are classified as bicycles in the German Highway Code (StVO) and are in fact even more reliant on good cycling infrastructure – and that is ultimately one of the long-term goals of the CITY CYCLING campaign.

Cyclists with internet access

Keep a record of the kilometres you cycle during the 21-day CITY CYCLING campaign period and enter these in your online cycling log. To access the cyclist portal, you will need to complete a one-off registration on the CITY CYCLING website. Once you have signed up, you can simply log into the cyclist portal in the same way that you would an email account.

PLEASE NOTE: if you participated in CITY CYCLING in the past two years, your user details will still be valid – meaning you do not have to re-register. You will simply need to select a municipality and either join or form a team when you log in for the first time in the new campaign season. You will then be able to view the kilometres you cycled in previous years and compare your results.

Recording kilometres for multiple cyclists

It is possible to record the kilometres cycled by individual or multiple cyclists (e.g. school classes, families, etc.) in the online cycling log. To add the kilometres for a group, you will need to adjust the number of cyclists managed through one account in the online cycling log (Settings > Number of cyclists). Once you have done this, you can simply enter the total kilometres covered.

Exception: CYCLE STARS and members of local parliaments are only allowed to enter their own kilometres!

PLEASE NOTE: only cyclists who have recorded kilometres in the online cycling log for one single person can be considered for the most active (individual) cyclists category in the local awards.


Smartphone users

Kilometres can also be entered via the CITY CYCLING app (for Android and iOS systems). In addition to countless other features, the app allows you to enter the kilometres you have cycled manually (meaning you no longer need to log into the CITY CYCLING website) or to record these using the GPS function.

The CITY CYCLING app tracks your exact route and calculates the kilometres you have covered.

A number of different results overviews are available and there is a comment function to communicate with your teams, e.g. to organise tours together or motivate one another.

As part of the MOVEBIS mobility project in cooperation with the Technical University in Dresden (TU Dresden), the kilometre data will be used to analyse bicycle traffic in Germany. This data will be made available to all municipalities participating in CITY CYCLING in the long term and retroactively from 2018 and serve as an additional tool for developing effective bicycle traffic policy – see city-cycling.org/app for more information.


Cyclists with no internet access

Keep a record of the kilometres you cycle during the 21-day campaign period and enter these in the log form (available on city-cycling.org/resources). At the end of each week, forward your completed form to your local campaign coordinator or team captain.

They will then enter the kilometres on their behalf or compile these and forward them to the local coordinator (also every week).

You can enter kilometres up to seven days after the local CITY CYCLING campaign has ended; no entries or changes are possible after this time!

Everyone participating in the CITY CYCLING campaign should use their bicycle for private and professional purposes as often as possible. Cyclists participating in the special CYCLE STAR category should lead by example and only use their bike during the 21-day CITY CYCLING campaign period rather than their car – public transport and travel by train are permitted though. Where possible, CYCLE STARS should be public figures, such as members of local parliaments, (lord) mayors, town councillors, heads of public authorities, etc.

CYCLE STARS meeting all of the requirements will receive a waterproof bicycle bag in the CITY CYCLING design from Ortlieb at the end of the local campaign period. All CYCLE STARS to successfully complete the three-week challenge will also be entered in a prize draw for fantastic cycling prizes, which include a top-of-the-range bicycle from Stevens Bikes (option of a pedelec with a Bosch drive system; according to availability).

Please note that the following rules only apply for CYCLE STARS!

• During the entire 21-day CITY CYCLING campaign period, CYCLE STARS are not permitted to travel by car – this includes as part of car sharing schemes. Public transport and travel by train are allowed though.
• Before the start of the local CITY CYCLING campaign, CYCLE STARS must submit a brief statement outlining their personal motivation for participating in the campaign (expectations, how often they normally use their car; approx. 800 characters are sufficient) and a photo to the municipality, which can then be posted on the municipality’s subpage on the campaign website.
• CYCLE STARS must report on their experiences as (new) daily cyclists on the CITY CYCLING blog at least at the end of each campaign week. Photos and/or videos can also be posted. The final blog entry must be added by the end of the deadline for entering kilometres at the latest.
• CYCLE STARS must enter the kilometres they have cycled during each week of the CITY CYCLING campaign period in their online cycle log – weekly totals are sufficient.
• Where possible, CYCLE STARS should be followed by the (local) press and be available to provide information.
• Local coordinators are not able to participate in the special CYCLE STAR category.
• CYCLE STARS do not need to own and use a car to be able to participate. CYCLE STARS can only be registered via the local coordinator’s CITY CYCLING user account, generally up until the start of the local campaign.

The climate, the environment, and each and every one of us! Every kilometre covered by bicycle instead of by car saves the environment 142 g of CO₂ (according to the German Federal Environment Agency), means less traffic congestion, fewer exhaust fumes and less noise – and leads to more liveable cities and municipalities!

Climate Alliance confers prizes in two categories within each of the five population groups (based on the number of inhabitants):

1. Most active local parliaments (kilometres per parliamentarian in proportion to the total participating parliamentarians)
2. Most active municipalities with the most kilometres cycled (absolute figures
   
   The best newcomer municipalities in these two categories will also be honoured for each population group.

          Special CYCLE STAR category

          Every CYCLE STAR is a winner, hence a prize draw is held for all those to successfully participate in this special category.

On the local level, the participating municipalities are encouraged to award prizes to the best local teams and/or cyclists.

Possible categories include:

• Largest teams: the teams able to motivate the most cyclists to participate
• Most active teams: the teams to have cycled the most kilometres (absolute figures)
• Teams with the most active cyclists: the teams with the most kilometres cycled per participant (average)
• Most active cyclists: the individuals to cycle the most kilometres
   

For information on local awards, kick-off and closing events, cycling tours, etc., please see your municipality’s subpage at city-cycling.org/municipalities. You will also find the contact details for the local coordinators there.

Participation in the CITY CYCLING campaign is voluntary and at participants’ own risk. There is no recourse to legal action.

For more information on data protection, please see city-cycling.org/privacy-policy.