November’s Ride In the Rain Challenge starts today

Screenshot from the Ride In the Rain website.

Washington Bikes' annual Ride In the Rain Challenge starts today. So sign up online today, and invite your friends and co-workers to join you.

November is typically the rainiest month of the year in Seattle, which makes in my opinion makes it an even better month for a biking challenge than May's Bike To Work Month. Because if you can make it through November biking every (or nearly every) day, then you have just proven to yourself that you can bike year-round.

And hey, it's beautiful out, so you can get a running start to the month this year, which is nice.

Some people find online challenges to be good motivation to start or keep up a biking habit. Basically, you just log your bike trips on the Ride In the Rain website, and it tracks it all and enters you to win prizes. If your team wants to be competitive, there is a leaderboard. And if you do it with a group, you can all encourage each other to keep it up.

In the end, though, the real value from a November challenge (whether you log it online or not) is that you break out of old ruts and form a new habit. If you do something for four weeks straight no matter the weather, it sort of becomes your new normal. Rather than hiding from the weather, you force yourself to find solutions.

If you are looking for help getting ready for rainy months, check out this classic Seattle Bike Blog post and this column by Aviva Stephens.