A North Battleford man encouraged people to burn fat and not fuel this summer and take pictures of the beautiful places the cycled. (Facebook/Erik Engelbrecht)

By Tyler Marr

A POSITIVE CHANGE

North Battleford man’s biking challenge pedals positive change in community

Oct 3, 2019 | 5:00 PM

Erik Engelbrecht is an emergency room physician in North Battleford and started cycling about two years ago to help improve his health.

Coupled with his role as a medical professional, Engelbrecht wanted to find a way to spur more people in the community to take up cycling as a means to promote an active lifestyle.

He decided to turn to Facebook and use social media as a way to spread the message and hopefully paint the Battlefords in a more positive light.

Engelbrecht decided to start the Battlefords Bike and Photo Challenge and asked people to burn fat and not fuel over the summer. At the same time, he asked people to take pictures of the nice places they cycle in the Battlefords and share it with the Facebook group.

What he thought would just be a fun thing to do among his group of friends quickly caught on and hundreds of images of people cycling in the area poured in over the summer.

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“It has been an extremely positive experience. A lot of people who haven’t cycled in a long time started cycling again and they have reaped the benefits of cycling,” he said. “It became a whole community of positive change. We see beautiful images of the Battlefords and beautiful images of people being active and changing their life to a more healthy lifestyle and cycling safe.”

As part of the challenge, Engelbrecht gave away T-shirts every two weeks to the best image shared with the group. Later, the Discovery Co-op came on board and gave him a deal on two bikes to giveaway along with some helmets.

The entire endeavour will culminate at the Ride for Refuge this weekend on Finlayson Island. Saturday at 9:30 a.m. where dozens of cyclists will gather between the bridges for the worldwide fundraiser that looks to collect money for people without a place to go.

“It is a nice social bike ride in the morning and then a meal afterwards,” he said, adding the trails are quite nice this time of year. “It is just a nice final place to take some images and cycle together.”

Engelbrecht hopes to continue the challenge into the winter as a way to keep people motived to hit the pedals despite the mercury falling.

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tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr