Cruiser Charity ride? help

[HotRodJen]

Alrighty some input would be greatly appreciated from people who might have put together a charity ride before .

Some of us east coasters have mentioned doing a charity ride this year i looked into the MS rides and a lot of them are 75 plus miles $300 to pledge etc .. i ride bicycles a lot but there all 1 speed coaster brake bikes and i know i personally and a lot of my friends can not do 75 miles .
SOOOO i thought why not just do our own charity ride it would be in nj nice and flat threw the beach towns its nice and flat kind of has a grade when u travel north but you don't feel it really. was thinking a 20 mile/ 25 mile ride at $20/25 a person. we would stop at one of the local business to eat or something . i would love to be able to do this and get a decent group out to do it and it of course doesn't have to all pertain to just cruiser bicycles the more money we can raise for a good cause the better

But ... theres always a but..
What about the legal side of it , do i need permission from the towns, do i need to get insurance, have the riders sign ride at your own risk type of forms, can the charity i pick out cover the insurance? etc

 

[necessaryevil]

We've done some cruise-ins and bike raffles for charity, got one coming up in May actually. Never really looked into any insurance or things like that, we usually hold them at one of the local parks, the rangers are pretty cool about it. If the route you plan to take is city or state property, just call them and give them a heads up on the date you're gonna ride, that's all I would do. If the charity you want to do is a big nationwide organization ( autism, cancer, ms, things like that) it's easier to just donate the money to them anonomously, no paper trail for taxes. If it's something local give them a call, if you're willing to raise money for them, I would hope that they would help you with the ride or at least participate in it. That's about all I can think of, good luck.

 

[StephenH]

My suggestion would be to either organize a cruiser ride and don't try to make it a charity ride, or try to come up with other local charity rides where you'll fit in better.

Here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there are probably about 30 different charitry rides a year. Most of these, you pay your $30 or whatever, ride the ride, get a tee-shirt. And the ride organizers furnish drinks and snacks on the route, etc. On most of these rides, they have varying routes, anywhere from 15 to 63 miles, sometimes 100 miles. Anyway, there are a lot of rides where a cruiser fits right in, and I've done that a lot. Now, it may be different in your area, but some more research might locate some other existing rides that would appreciate your participation. I'll drive 60 or 80 miles for some of these rides.

Failing that, I'd just skip the charity part and organize the ride as a cruiser ride. Keep in mind that charging money and donating to a charity in conjunction with it probably decreases ridership, not increases it. Most people around here go to these things for fun, not to get rid of excess money. And I have seen people say "Why should I pay my $30 to ride a street I can ride for free anyway?" There are a couple of organizations here in the DFW area doing similar rides (including a Tweed Ride, a Santa Ride, a Denim Ride upcoming, historical site tours, etc.)

The tee-shirt charity rides around here are for the most part run by the charities, or by organizations supporting the charities, and presumably, they have whatever liability insurance they need.

On the goverment aspect, you'd just have to check and see. If a bunch of people just show up and ride, generally, nothing is required. If you're signing people up for it, you might need a parade permit or who knows what, and you'd just have to check the different places you'd pass through. If it's small towns, nobody will usually care, and in large areas, you're liable to be hiring police to man intersections for a ride of any size anyway, so you'll still have the government involved.

If you make it specifically a "cruiser ride", that limits participation- kind of check interest before deciding on that. On the local charity rides, they're always open to anyone with money. On the cruiser-type rides, they're not usually limited to cruisers, just the theme and the group and all sets a pace that is conducive to cruisers. But you'll have kids on fixies and old guys on cruisers (and vice versa) and everything in between.

 

[StephenH]

See this listing of existing rides, for example:
http://www.suburbancyclists.org/calendar.htm

 

[aka_locojoe]

A couple of simple charity things our bike club has done...

A charity ride for a fellow member who had cancer. We just rode from point A to point B and at point B had a can setting out where people could drop in cash. The can was then given to him.

Our club also donates to a Bikes For Tots charity. This is done at one of our weekly Pub Pedals before Christmas. I just announce a specific date and at that Pub Pedal I put a can out and people drop in their cash. We then designate someone to go buy bicycles with the donations and then give the bikes to the Bikes For Tots organization.

 

[Chainsaw]

I've worked with several charities over the years, various charities and all kinds of events, but they all have a few things that becomes a real pain. Very few people will actually help you but if the event is a success, they all will take the credit for it, Not a success and it's solely your fault!
In Michigan the government agencieslikes to flood your endeavors with tons of unneccessary paperwork and a bunch of reasons to charge you for anything that they actually do (and in many cases don't do!). Liability insurances are almost always required for any group events and in most sporting type events you need to have a medic or someone similar at the event. Expect to have massive headaches and be spending more time and money than you ever would have dreamed of!

I would suggest getting with a group that already does a charity ride and see if you could help and represent them by setting up a comfortable "cruise" loop. They already got the numbers for their multi mile rides but it would bring in more moneys if a slow cruise was an option. Atleast this may give you a little more of an idea of how things operate in your area.

Even on our regular rides, every once in a while we get some cop or city worker trying to figure out a way to suck the fun out of our ride. I don't understand how a rails to trails can have hundreds of people of all different ages, riding styles and mental capacities riding down them with out any hassles, but get a group of Freakbikes all cruising at the same speed, fairly organized, and well mannered and BOOM! They see us as an organization that needs proper documents and insurances to ride as a group!

The bottomline is ... Find a bike club that already does a charity ride and see if they'd be willing to let your group join them and handle a smaller slower paced cruise.

Good luck and keep us posted on how things develope. I'm definitelt interested in stuff like this!
Chainy