Rules of participation

To cover as many kilometres as possible by bike for both private and professional purposes in order to promote cycling, help protect the climate and improve the quality of life in municipalities – and ultimately have fun!

CITY CYCLING takes place on 21 consecutive days between 1 May and 30 September 2021.  Your municipality sets the dates for the local campaign.

Anyone who lives, works, belongs to a local club or attends school or university in a participating municipality.

• Your municipality (i.e. town, city, municipality, rural district/region) first needs to register for CITY CYCLING. The local coordinators are responsible for preparing and running the campaign – please contact them first should you have any questions.
• Once your municipality has registered, you can sign up on city-cycling.org/cyclistportal, 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.
• To participate in CITY CYCLING you must belong to a team – after all, climate protection and cycling promotion require teamwork! Teams of just two people are allowed though. Alternatively, each municipality has an “open” team that you are able to join. If you are the only active cyclist in a team when the seven-day grace period for entering kilometres after the campaign ends, you will automatically be moved to the municipality’s “open” team.
• Everything classified as a bicycle in the German Highway Code (StVO) is permitted – this includes pedelecs with an engine output of up to 250 W.

• Enter every kilometre you cover by bike during the 21-day campaign period online in your cycle log or track your routes directly via the CITY CYCLING app. If you do not have internet access, simply submit your kilometre log to your local coordinator at the end of each week. (Cycling) competitions as well as indoor training on stationary bikes cannot be counted here.
• It does not matter where the kilometres were covered – after all, climate protection knows no city or state boundaries.
• It is possible to record the kilometres cycled by multiple cyclists (e.g. entire families, school classes, etc.) in the same online cycling log. IMPORTANT: be sure to indicate the exact number of people for whom you are entering kilometres!
• It is up to you to decide how detailed you want to 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).
• You can join or form a team up until the very last day of the 21-day campaign period. Kilometres can be entered retroactively as long as they were covered during the 21-day period.
• There is a seven-day grace period after the local campaign period ends for cyclists to finalise their kilometre logs. No new entries or changes are possible after this time!
• Whether a company or school, public authority or sports club, cyclists can now create subteams (e.g. for individual departments or classes) and compete against each other within the main team. The kilometres cycled count towards the subteam as well as the main team. The subteams’ results can be compared under “My team” after logging in. The main teams join together again to compete in the overall competition, hence the subteams’ results are not displayed on the municipality’s subpage.
• Each cyclist can only belong to one single team in each municipality and can therefore also only have one single user account. However, if you live in one municipality and work in another and both are participating in the CITY CYCLING campaign, then you’re able to collect kilometres for both municipalities. Simply register separately for each municipality (so in this case, you’ll need two separate user accounts). Each kilometre may only be entered for one municipality though!

A journey is a route that starts in one place and ends in another, regardless of the number of stops you make along the way.

Here’s an example:

Your cycle to work is one journey, even if you stop to drop your kid off at daycare or to get something from the bakery along the way or make any minor detours. Your cycle home at the end of the day is then another journey – also regardless of the number of stops you make.

Cycling to the shops is also just one journey, no matter how many shops you cycle to; cycling home again is another.

Do you use several modes of transport to get to work? So, do you first cycle to the local railway station, then take the train to the railway station near your place of work and cycle to the office from there? Then this is also just one journey, as your destination is the office and the railway stations are merely stops along the way. Of course, you can only enter the kilometres in your cycle log that you really covered by bike. Sections of your journey covered by train do not count towards your kilometre total.

• Climate Alliance awards prizes to the most active local parliaments and the municipalities with the most kilometres in five population groups. The best newcomer municipalities in both categories are also honoured for each population group. On the local level, the participating municipalities are encouraged to also award prizes to the best local teams and/or cyclists.
• The results of all participating municipalities and teams will be published on city-cycling.org/results or the municipality’s subpage respectively.
  
  The full rules of participation are available at city-cycling.org/rules-details.

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.