‘I can honestly say that the challenge has changed my life. I expect to live longer, for a start. The challenge gave me the push to cycle to work every day; I am now fitter than I have been for at least 30 years.’
Workplace Challenge helped Edward Vandyk go from cycling to work once a week to cycling everyday in order to work his way up the leader boards.
Edward Vandyk from the New Forest District Council joined the Workplace Challenge in January 2014 having heard about it from his colleagues. The Council had promoted the Challenge widely to their employees and won the award for the organisation with the most people signed up for the 8 week activity log at the beginning of the year. At the point of joining the Challenge Edward was cycling to work once or twice a week. The leader boards appealed to Edward’s competitive streak and before long he was cycling everyday in order to work his way up the leader boards. He liked the fact that there was a range of leader boards covering his workplace, the county and nationally and also counting activity points, CO2 and distance travelled. He found the leader boards were also a source of motivation for his colleagues and encouraged them to keep logging their activities.
His hour long commute takes him through the beautiful New Forest and he says he can’t understand why more people don’t cycle to work. He has found a cycle-friendly route that avoids national speed limit roads, which makes the commute even more pleasant. Edward came third in Hampshire in the #TeamEngland Workplace Challenge leader board and is currently battling it out for the top spot on the national CO2 leader board