Rode a Tough Race – and won!
This year's competition of the Berlin state companies "Wer radelt am meisten?" has been decided. Until the end there was a neck-and-neck race between the defending champion Campus Berlin-Buch/MDC-Mitte and the Berliner Energieagentur. In the end, the 311 cyclists of the science and biotech campus won by a narrow margin with 191,572 kilometers. Many cyclists from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) in Buch and from the MDC in Mitte, the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB), took part in the race.
This year, which was dominated by the corona pandemic and home office, all participants of the 21 institutions from all over Berlin together covered a distance of 1,332,042 kilometers - that is the same as going 33 times around the equator. This is not only an impressive result for health, but also for the environment. The distance corresponds to a saving of 253,088 kg CO2.
Who pedaled the most on the campus?
Some cyclists of the MDC and other companies and institutes on the campus in Berlin-Buch received their certificate on November 4, 2020. Due to the pandemic there will be no award ceremony this year.
On campus, the best cyclists were Günther Pätz from celares GmbH, followed by Jürgen Janke and Jessica Berlin from MDC in second and third place. The MDC three-man team "Shut up Legs" with Rainer Leben, Jessica Berlin and Holger Gerhardt cycled the most. Elias Lowenstein, Lena Immisch, Stephan Dietrich, all three also from the MDC, pedaled hard as the "WADEN SAMPLES" team and made it to second place. "Three in a Minion" with Steffen Lochow from the MDC, Monique Rönick and Mirko Pleitner from Glycotope GmbH came in third.
Berlin-wide there were impressive records: The best three team collected more than 10,000 kilometers, in comparison the best campus team "Shut Up Legs" reached the sixth place with about 7,800 km. The best individual rider in the entire field covered almost 9,000 kilometers.
For all those who took part in the competition, however, it was the participation and the motivation to get on the bike and maybe ride some additional kilometers. Every kilometer with muscle power counted, whether on the bike or the ergometer – including the short trip between Buch S-Bahn station and the Berlin-Buch Campus, for which employees can use rental bikes. Electric bicycles, with which one can move around without pedaling oneself, were not permitted.
Wer radelt am meisten 2020
Some of the 311 cyclists who pedaled hard this year for the Campus Berlin-Buch.
The best driver of Campus Berlin-Buch: Günther Pätz, celares GmbH, here between Dr. Ulrich Scheller, Managing Director of Campus Berlin-Buch GmbH and Professor Heike Grassmann, Administrative Director of the MDC
The best driver of the MDC takes second place within the campus: Jürgen Janke, here between Dr. Ulrich Scheller, Managing Director of Campus Berlin-Buch GmbH and Professor Heike Grassmann, Administrative Director of the MDC.
The best team from Campus Berlin-Buch took sixth place in the entire competition. From left to right: Dr. Ulrich Scheller, Managing Director of Campus Berlin-Buch GmbH; the "Shut Up Legs" Jessica Berlin and Rainer Leben; Professor Heike Grassmann, Administrative Director of the MDC
About the competition
The competition originated from a cycling campaign of the Berlin public transport company Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe with Berliner Stadtreinigung and Berliner Wasserbetriebe and is run by the initiative "mehrwert". From August to September, a total of 2,103 Berlin employees collected their bicycle kilometers. The competition not only promotes environmentally friendly and healthy mobility, but also aims to demonstrate quality of life while saving costs. Preferably, teams of three should be formed to spur each other on and support each other in the mileage.
This text is based on a report by Campus Berlin-Buch.
