Bike Building Challenges: An Origin Story
Although I serve as a Build/Give Specialist now, my first experience with Wish for Wheels was as a client. That’s when I fell in love with everything this organization stands for and does.
Ten years ago, the company I was working for was planning a three-day conference. In preparation for the conference, I was tasked with organizing an all-company challenge. I thought it would be incredible if we could incorporate an element of giving back to the community into the challenge, so I began searching for opportunities and, soon, I discovered Wish for Wheels.
I reached out to Founder Brad Appel and explained our vision for the challenge. Our plan was to break everyone into groups based on their positions within the company, mixing up friends and usual teams so individuals would collaborate with people they didn’t normally work with. To add a layer of difficulty, we devised several unique challenges for building the bikes. For example:
Blindfold Challenge: Some team members would be blindfolded, while the others gave instructions on how to build the bike. We were going to choose teams intentionally so that, for example, a lower-tenure employee was giving instructions to the CEO.
Tied Together Challenge: Pairs of participants would be tied together, giving them only two hands between them to grab and assemble parts.
Trivia Challenge: Teams had to answer questions about our company and the industry to earn bike parts. Once they collected all the parts, they would proceed with the blindfold and one-handed bike builds.
To add another layer of excitement and camaraderie, the challenge concluded with one team member riding the completed bike through an obstacle course to the finish line. It was a race to see which team could build and deliver the most bikes.
When I initially shared these ideas with Brad, he thought we were a bit crazy (in a good way!). Together we refined our ideas and concepts to create an incredibly successful team building activity for nearly 150 people. We built dozens of bikes for 2nd graders and crafted a memorable challenge for our company’s conference.
Wish for Wheels has since adopted these fun challenges for other clients’ bike builds, making them more engaging and enjoyable for everyone. Give one or all of these challenges a try today—or better yet, come up with your own twist or exciting new challenge for a great cause!
