Houston on Wheels

Last spring one of our consultants came up with an idea that Houston Inc. should participate to Kilometrikisa-competition. So we formed a team called HoW (Houston on Wheels) and soon the six most eager consultants raised for the challenge.

Chain reaction campaign

Kilometrikisa is a playful cycling competition to motivate companies and other institutions to:

• use two wheels over four wheels
• burn calories instead of gas

“The employer promises to donate one euro to Finnish Red Cross for each 25km of cycling done.”

Our Employer was thrilled. Who wouldn’t want their employees to exercise and generally feel better! So to motivate us even more, Houston Inc. joined the Ketjureaktio-campaign (“chain reaction campaign”). It is an addition to Kilometrikisa and means that the employer promises to donate one euro to Finnish Red Cross for each 25km of cycling done.

And so the journey began.

From 10.5.2011 to 30.9.2011 we used bicycles as our main transportation mean as much as possible. But it was a bumpy journey. None of us were so-called cycle enthusiasts and we mainly owned regular city bicycles. During the challenge there were periods that we logged a lot of kilometers and periods that we logged almost none. But at the end we were content with the results.

“A nice result for first-timers but this leaves a lot to improve in the coming years!”

The total result of the whole Kilometrikisa was a staggering 17145300 kilometers of cycling! Out of that Houston on Wheels team did 2374 kilometers with 395,67 km per consultant on average. That also means that we saved 166 litres of gas, produced 415 kilograms less Co2 and earned 95 euros to give to Finnish Red Cross.

A nice result for first-timers but this leaves a lot to improve in the coming years! At least couple of points to consider how to get better results:

• motivate each other more!
• create a feeling of competition within the team by maybe offering a small price for the best
• publish the status of the team to the rest of the company during the competition
• get more people involved

Houston on Wheels team enjoyed this challenge and will definitely do better next year. Maybe you would like to challenge us? Or maybe you want to challenge us in what we do best – coding?

On behalf of the cycling team,

Esko Pylsy