Trek Bicycle has announced today that it will serve as the title-sponsor for this year’s Urban Assault Ride in Madison, WI, scheduled for August 24th. Trek will also participate as a presenting sponsor at the seven other Urban Assault Ride events throughout the U.S.
Urban Assault founder Josh Kravetz is pleased with the partnership. “Trek is an ideal sponsor because they share our ideals and goals. Like us, they want to make the world a more bike-friendly place and show riders that it can be just as easy to grab your bike lock as your car keys when you’re running errands or going to work. Using a bike for transportation is the easiest way to improve the country’s lack of fitness, combat increasing traffic problems, and help fight global warming. And of course… it’s fun.”
Sponsorship of the event dovetails nicely with one of the key goals of Trek’s 1 World 2 Wheels program: increasing the number of U.S. trips taken by bicycle from one percent to five percent by 2017. With nearly 40% of all car trips under two miles, it's an achievable goal. Kravetz agrees. “Participants in past Urban Assault events have told me that after experiencing how easy it is to bike around town, they are using their bikes more for transportation.”
The Urban Assault Ride is a funky bike scavenger hunt that sends two-person teams riding to checkpoints around town to complete crazy obstacle courses at each stop. Mental muscle is just as important as bike skills as teams of two choose their own course to checkpoints around the city. Obstacles are a surprise until participants arrive at the checkpoint and in the past have included bike jousting, adult big wheel races, flying down an inflatable slip and slide, and much more. This pedal-powered urban adventure is an event that anyone can do.
The Madison’s Urban Assault Ride is scheduled to cover a distance of about 25 miles and should take two to three hours to complete. It will be based at Olin Park and the ride will be followed by a huge after party with Capital Brewery beer, live music, and plenty of two-wheeled shenanigans. Madison was chosen as a host city because of its bike-friendly community and an extensive cycling infrastructure.
The Madison event benefits DreamBikes – a group that promotes bike advocacy—as well as the Wisconsin Association for Blind Athletes. The Urban Assault Ride’s “green focus” extends beyond bike advocacy: the entire production is powered by solar energy; a bio-diesel truck delivers the gear to each city; and almost all event waste is composted or recycled. In addition, Urban Assault partners exclusively with companies that have sustainable business practices and promote bike advocacy. In addition to Trek, Urban Assault partners include New Belgium Brewing Company (which is title sponsor at six of the eight race series), Keen Footwear, Clif Bar, Sweet Leaf Tea, Swobo, Timbuk2, Rudy Project, and other local sustainability-focused partners.
Other bike-friendly cities selected to host this year’s event are Seattle (May 18), Portland (May 25), Austin (June 22), Fort Collins (July 20), Denver (July 27), Minneapolis (September 21), and Chicago (September 28).
Find out more at www.urbanassaultride.com.
Skip Navigation
