Mattapoisett showed off its pedal power as the town picked up first place among South Coast communities participating in this year’s National Bike Challenge.

For the past three years, the South Coast Bikeway Alliance, a group that advocates for pedestrian and bicycle-friendly roads and paths on the South Coast, has participated in the National Bike Challenge. The challenge is simple: See who can log the most bicycle miles from May 1 to Sept. 30. The South Coast team ended its challenge on Labor Day and hosted an awards ceremony on Saturday at the Dartmouth YMCA.

This year, riders from 12 cities and towns participated in the challenge.

The top male finisher in Mattapoisett was Gary Johnson with 4,703 miles logged, and the top female finisher was Deborah Sharpe with 1,040 miles logged. In Marion, Kirk Coykendall led the men with 1,411 miles, and Paula Meere led the women with 200 miles.

Johnson pulled Mattapoisett to victory from halfway across the world, as he spent most of the challenge period riding in Norway, and only missed two days of riding.

He faced tough mountainous terrain while riding in Norway from June 1 to Aug. 29. Johnson said his favorite challenge was biking the Trollstigen, a steep mountain road with sharp turns, but he said the route offered amazing views of the mountains.

“It’s the most popular tourist attraction [in Norway], but I’ve never ridden it,” Johnson said.

In Marion, Coykendall managed to finish in first place despite having to end his challenge run on the last day of July due to an illness. Prior to that, he was averaging between 400 and 500 miles a month. He said he has been an avid bicyclist since the 1980s and enjoys bicycling to stay in shape.

Coykendall added that raising awareness for the need of more pedestrian and bicycle trails is important to him and one of the reasons he participated in the challenge. He said he was involved in the Marion Pathways Committee and helped plan a new bicycle path to run through the town.

Overall, the South Coast Bikeway Alliance was the first place winner in Massachusetts, and finished 17th out of 1,871 national teams. The team’s 139 participants rode 70,270 miles and burned more than three million calories.