USA Pro Cycling Challenge, MapMyRIDE, and Millennium Promise Launch USA Pro Virtual Cycling Challenge

Online Challenge Enables Cyclists to Ride Alongside Cadel Evans, Andy & Franck Schleck, and Tom Danielson and Help End Extreme Poverty

DENVER and AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The USA Pro Cycling Challenge, MapMyRIDE and Millennium Promise today announced the USA Pro Virtual Cycling Challenge, an innovative technology-enabled event that offers cycling enthusiasts around the world the chance to "virtually" compete in this summer's USA Pro Cycling Challenge and help end extreme poverty in Africa.    

This novel competition will provide serious and amateur cyclists alike a unique opportunity to support Millennium Promise and its Spokes of Change initiative. For every mile logged during the Virtual Challenge, Millennium Promise Board Chairman Jeff Walker will personally donate $1 to Millennium Promise up to $25,000 in support of the Spokes of Change campaign.  

"We always knew we wanted to partner with MapMyRIDE in preparation for our big race," said CEO of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge Shawn Hunter.  "When we realized we have an opportunity to also integrate Millennium Promise, it became even more exciting."

The USA Pro Virtual Cycling Challenge will run in conjunction with this summer's USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado, taking place from August 22-28.  Participants will be able to virtually ride alongside the top pros and compete in the seven stages of the race by logging their daily rides miles   at MayMyRIDE.com, either manually or via the iMapMyRIDE smartphone app or other GPS device.  Each dollar raised by participants will support Millennium Promise, the Presenting Title Sponsor of the race, and its Spokes of Change campaign to support Community Health Workers throughout the Millennium Villages Project with essential medicines, supplies and training, and bicycles to enhance lives and help end extreme poverty in Africa.

"We are excited to partner with the USA Cycling Challenge and employ our web and mobile technologies in an innovative virtual cycling competition that will benefit Millennium Promise's charitable efforts in Africa," said Robin J. Thurston, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of MapMyFITNESS.  

"Millennium Promise is thrilled to be a part of this innovative partnership, which will tap the incredible energy of cycling enthusiasts around the world to support the pioneering efforts of health workers around rural Africa, and help us all get closer to ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,"  said Millennium Promise CEO John W. McArthur.

Free registration for the Virtual Challenge opens today at MapMyRIDE.com/usapro.    

About the USA Pro Cycling Challenge
The USA Pro Cycling Challenge is expected to be the largest spectator event in Colorado history and one of the largest sporting events to ever take place in the United States.  For seven consecutive days, 136 of the world's top athletes will race across 518 miles through the majestic Rockies, reaching higher altitudes than they've ever had to endure, more than two miles in elevation.  It's the best of the best in professional cycling, competing on a challenging course through some of America's most beautiful scenery, including cities such as Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs.  

Referred to as "America's Race" the inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge will take place August 22-28, 2011.  With more than one million spectators expected at the event, as well as national television exposure on NBC and VERSUS, the USA Pro Cycling Challenge will be one of the largest cycling events in United States history.  

Spectators of this race will see Olympians, World Champions and Tour de France competitors.  Fans worldwide will have access to the competition and riders like never before with the most advanced, interactive online, smartphone and broadcast television experience presented to date in professional cycling.

More information can be found on the website www.USAprocyclingchallenge.com and Twitter page @USAProChallenge.  

About MapMyRIDE.com
MapMyRIDE is the cycling specific website of the MapMyFITNESS suite of websites. Currently headquartered in Austin, Texas, MapMyFITNESS was founded in 2006 and operates a suite of websites and associated mobile applications including MapMyRUN.com, MapMyRIDE.com, MapMyWALK.com, MapMyHIKE.com, MapMyFITNESS.com, MapMyMOUNTAIN.com and MapMyTRI.com. MapMyFITNESS provides more than three million runners, cyclists, walkers and other fitness enthusiasts with access to an innovative geo-mapping application that permits them to track and store their daily running, cycling, walking or hiking routes in an online database, a searchable database of routes across the globe, essential community-based fitness content, online Nutrition Center, training tools and fitness calculators, comprehensive global event listings and a dynamic social network of healthy and active individuals. MapMyFITNESS's iMapMy mobile apps use the built-in GPS technology of the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android to enable users to record and chart their daily fitness activities and routes. For more information about MapMyFITNESS and its offerings, visit http://www.mapmyfitnessinc.com.  

About Millennium Promise:
Millennium Promise is the leading international nonprofit organization solely committed to supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015. In partnership with the Earth Institute at Columbia University and UNDP, Millennium Promise oversees the Millennium Villages Project, which supports integrated social and business development services for more than 500,000 people in rural communities across 10 countries in Africa. By engaging donor nations, corporations and the general public in this effort, our work is premised on the belief that, for the first time in history, our generation has the opportunity to end extreme poverty, hunger and disease disparities. For more information, visit www.millenniumpromise.org or follow on Twitter at @Promise.

SOURCE Millennium Promise