ByCycling app lets employers reward employees for miles ridden

Netherlands-based company creates a new cycling app that lets companies track how many miles staff have cycled, and reward them accordingly.

A Spanish company based in the Netherlands has recently released a new social exercising app, hoping to capitalize off the huge cycling culture in Holland. Called ByCycling, it’s been two years in the making and is currently on iOS with an Android version in the pipeline.

It’s an incentive app, mainly aimed at middle to large companies wanting to promote a healthier lifestyle among staff. The idea is users who want to partake download the app, join the company’s group (or departmental sub-group) then the software keeps track of users’ miles in a leaderboard.

Then management who are keen to get staff pedaling more can award various incentives for hitting milestones, be that cash, extra holidays – whatever each individual company wants to use as carrots.

Jose Diaz, CEO and co-founded explained: “We found that the two best motivators for people to even consider cycling to work are financial incentives and the social aspect of the initiative.”

The app’s most inventive feature is that it doesn’t require users to pull out their phones and start/stop with each ride. It can tell using the phone’s sensors when the user is cycling, so the miles are calculated in the background. A user just needs to make sure they’ve brought their phone on their ride and the miles add up. The employer must sign up with ByCycling to track staff’s performance and reward them accordingly.

With environmental concerns ever present, all ideas that promote cycling and make it both safer and easier are a good thing indeed. The Eco Helmet will hopefully make carrying head protection more convenient, and the See.Sense smart light could really save lives after a crash. Would your company benefit from a scheme such as ByCycling, and should the onus of health and fitness be on employer or the employee?