Achievement Unlocked: The Canadian Kilometer Achiever Program

By Fred Chagnon

It’s a new year, and a time for new goals for many of us. Has your new year of cycling begun? Have you taken advantage of the unseasonably warm temperatures, or do you look forward to braving all the elements regardless? Did you resolve to ride more this year, whether to improve your fitness, reduce your carbon footprint, or simply for the pure pleasure of riding? What’s your goal for this year: 1,000 km; 2,500; 5,000; more? Wouldn’t it be nice to reward yourself at the end of a year of accomplishments with something tangible? This is exactly what the Canadian Kilometer Achiever Program (www.ckap.ca) sets out to do.

Fred Chagnon, Forest City Cycling Challenge, 2022 (Photo by Kevin Rodger)

Founded in 1975, CKAP is a membership-based incentive program where members submit a yearly log of kilometers cycled, and earn badges, certificates and trophies based on their distance achievements. The original vision behind the club’s inception was simply to motivate individuals to ride more. Whether that was to decide to run errands on a bike instead of in a car, or to take up cycling as a recreational fitness activity, CKAP exists to reward its members for putting kilometers down on the pedals.

Joining the program incurs a one-time fee of $30, and the membership is for life. Simply being a member gives you a profile on the CKAP page that contains a running history of your year-over-year progress, basically a virtual trophy room of sorts. Members become eligible for yearly awards by crossing milestones starting at 1,000 km (bronze badge), all the way up to 10,000 km (gold medal). While these rewards must be purchased if earned, purchasing them is not compulsory. Purchasing the rewards is a choice the member gets to make after they’ve achieved a milestone. This is in stark contrast to the popular Conqueror medal challenges in which the athlete is charged up-front for the medals, at which point they are held hostage until the goal is achieved. So, while some CKAP members will opt to reward themselves each year for their achievement, others may prefer to forego the yearly rewards and instead hold out for the more prestigious plaque that commemorates 25,000 accumulated kilometers over the member’s lifetime with the program. Whether that’s achieved in a few years or a decade or more, it’s a milestone worth shooting for.

An example of one long-time rider’s tally on the Canadian Kilometer Achiever Program website

The program also contains a category for special needs riders, with suitably modified achievement milestones. It does not, however, recognize kilometers achieved on indoor virtual platforms such as Zwift or Peloton; neither does it accept distances accumulated on e-bikes.

We live in a world dominated by digital platforms that provide us with virtual challenges yielding virtual rewards, many of which are small in scale. Challenges on Garmin Connect typically only last a month and disappear into ephemera once they’re completed. Strava sprints only challenge you based on a single ride, and many aren’t motivated to race, but to simply ride. But stringing together many short-term challenges to help you reach a long-term goal takes a lot of discipline. CKAP’s incentive program is structured to reward you long-term for the incremental contributions you make over the course of a year, a decade, on your lifetime. 

So, as we embark on a new year of cycling, if you’ve maintained a log of your riding (something the previously mentioned digital platforms are certainly handy for), consider tallying those results and sending them in to CKAP. Maybe you earned something this past year, and if so, great job! And even if you didn’t, it’s a deposit in the bank toward that elusive 25,000 plaque. Keep it up!

Whatever your motivation, keep on riding. See you out on the roads and trails!