Gdansk residents have retained the city’s title as European Cycling Challenge champions by amassing an incredible 825,000km in May. The total beats all previous records for the number of kilometres cycled residents of a city during a month, while neighbours Gdynia also recorded an impressive total putting the residents of Tri-city close to a combined 1 million kilometres cycled in May.

Over 4,000 Gdansk cyclists registered to take part in the competition which is designed to encourage residents of European cities to get on their bikes and ride. Having registered and installed the application on your mobile device, the software kept a record of all the journeys participants made on their bicycles. In finishing first again in 2016, Gdansk beat the likes of Rome, Budapest, Prague and Glasgow as well as other Polish cities like Warsaw, Poznan, Lodz and Wroclaw.

A closer look at the results show some rather impressive numbers for the city. For instance, such was the dominance of Gdansk that the next three cities in the table (Rome, Warsaw and Wroclaw) would have to pool their efforts to beat Gdansk. When the results of Gdansk and Gdynia are counted together the result of the Swedish town of Umea would need to be added to Rome, Warsaw and Wroclaw for the combined result to be overcome.

With just over 4,200 active registered users in Gdansk, the result means that on average each participant cycled nearly 200km during May. Gdynia had over 800 registered and active participants who cycled over 111,000km, averaging over 130km each during the month.

‘In the general category we were ahead of much larger cities, including Wrocław, Warsaw, Rome and Dublin. In the category for ‘Best Cycling City’ (measured by kilometres per 1,000 inhabitants) Gdańsk achieved a sensational score of 1,788 km (last year the figure was 978 km), beating the Swedish town of Umea (1433 km) and the Lithuanian town of Telšiai (1269 km)’ said Remigiusz Kitliński, the mayor of Gdansk’s spokesperson for cycling communication. ’Despite the fact that right from the start of this edition, we were riding in a league of our own, leaving other European cities far behind, the level of competition in Gdansk was amazing. More than 130 companies competed for the best position in the table, and individual participants fought for the first ‘hundred’ spots in the overall individual table.

This article was based on one by Michal Sielski published on the trojmiasto.pl website