Nearly 12,000 journeys and almost 72,000 km cycled by participants - these are the figures for this year’s 5th edition of the ‘Bike to University’ campaign at the University of Gdańsk. Students, doctoral students and staff at the University of Gdańsk who took part in the campaign collectively saved nearly 5,800 litres of fuel, and thanks to their choice of two-wheeled transport, an estimated 13,500 kg less carbon dioxide was emitted into the atmosphere!
On Thursday 15 October, a ceremony was held to mark the conclusion of the “Bike to University” campaign, which ran from 13 April to the end of September this year, and to present awards to the individuals and groups who recorded the highest number of journeys from their homes to the University of Gdańsk and back.
This year, 119 people took part in the competition. A total of 11,777 journeys were recorded, of which 10,543 were made by bicycle, 736 were completed by electric bike, and 498 were recorded by electric scooter. Among those using this mode of transport was the winner of the individual competition among staff. In total, participants in the campaign covered 71,854 km this year, of which by bicycle the distance amounted to 63,434 km, 6,680 km were covered by electric bicycle, and 1,740 km were travelled by electric scooter. It can therefore be said that they have circumnavigated the globe almost 1.8 times.
As well as its sporting dimension, the competition also has health benefits - it promotes physical activity. Nor should we forget the environmental aspect: when comparing the total distance covered by participants in this year’s campaign on two-wheeled vehicles with that covered by car travel, it is worth noting that taking part in the campaign resulted in a reduction of 13,500 kg of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere! 5,748 litres of fuel were saved, which also represents an economic saving of 40,000 zł - this is how much the campaign participants saved in their wallets by choosing to commute from home to university and back on ‘two-wheeled’ vehicles.
Among this year’s participants, 70 people can boast of having completed at least 70 journeys, whilst 51 people completed a minimum of 120 journeys. In both cases, participants were rewarded for their efforts with gifts consisting of University of Gdańsk promotional items.
This year, the top three in terms of the highest number of journeys were:
In the staff category:
- Eliza Gościniak (246 journeys by electric bike, 3,068 km)
- Ewa Eron (242 journeys by bike, 1,210 km)
- Katarzyna Marcińska (240 journeys by bike, 1,680 km)
In the students and doctoral students’ category:
- Wiktoria Klasa (216 journeys by bike, 864 km, securing victory for the second year running)
- Wojciech Rusinek (211 journeys by bike, 422 km)
- Yelyzaveta Chepchurenko (198 journeys by electric bike, 1,310 km)
In the team competition, in accordance with the rules, prizes were awarded to the participants of the two teams with the highest number of rides, selected from among the eight teams entered in the competition.
The winning team was ‘BUGi’ (comprising staff from the University of Gdańsk), consisting of: Ewa Eron, Eliza Gościniak, Agnieszka Kuciewicz and Zbigniew Ruszczyk. This team achieved a total of 832 rides. Second place in this category went to the ‘BioTechRiders’ team, with a total of 798 journeys, comprising staff from the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG and MUG, consisting of: Ewa Kogut, Maria Pega, Karolina Skibowska and Paweł Chwaszczyński.
The prizes (gift cards and gift sets featuring University of Gdańsk merchandise) were presented to the winners by the Vice-Rector for Student Affairs at the University of Gdańsk, dr hab. Urszula Patocka-Sigłowy, prof. UG.
We warmly congratulate the winners - and all participants in this year’s campaign!
The ‘Bike to University’ campaign has been run by the University of Gdańsk and Gdańsk University of Technology for four years, and the next, 6th edition is already set to take place next spring!
