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This year’s award was for projects involving children.
The Bike Wight submission will provide children with a message that cycling is fun, healthy and environmentally sound. It uses a computer game requiring physical activity and participation.
"It is of utmost importance to teach the young generation that cycling can be a useful, environmental friendly and healthy alternative to other modes of transportation," said Shimano Europe PR officer Harald Troost.
"The contest showed that a lot of people and organizations are developing their own projects and ideas to increase cycling use among children. The jury received 73 project proposals from all over Europe, which made it quite difficult for them to come to a decision."
With a school population of 19,500 children, there are real opportunities on the island to increase the level of cycling activity, particularly focused on the home to school journey. Bike Wight will be developed in partnership between schools and the local authority to both increase and sustain cycling to school.
The Bike Wight concept is an educational website on which children will record the distance they actually ride against an animated route map of real cycle routes on the Isle of Wight. The interactive map – when created – will include video footage of a series of routes, and give information on historical, geographical and cultural sites along the route with website links.
The website will feature quizzes for schools. Completion of these quizzes would only take place when a child has physically traveled on a route, as cryptic clues are to be located along the cycle tracks themselves. Rewards and incentives will be given for completing these tasks.
Once the child completes a route, including the educational and fun quiz questions, and has obtained the cryptic clue answer, the child would gain points which allows the customisation of a virtual, on-screen bike.
The SCCA is an annual contest, now in its sixth consecutive year. As always, the judges were Jack Oortwijn of Bike Europe, Carlton Reid of BikeBiz and Michael Bollschweiler of Radmarkt. The chief judge wa Frank Peiffer, MD of Shimano Europe BV.
