Philly Cranksgiving 2012

The Second Annual Philly Cranksgiving Ride is coming to Philadelphia Sunday, November 18. Part bike race, part charity food drive Cranksgiving requires riders to navigate to a series of predetermined supermarkets and buying an item of food from a list. With all of the proceeds donated to Philabundance. This year Gary and CJ took sometime out from their hectic planning schedule to answer a few questions about this years plans.

Last year with temperatures in the 60's, what secret ritual do you have planned to ensure similar weather?

    CJ: Maybe if we get everything done super last-minute like last year, everything will work out! Of course, we'll try to get everything done earlier, and it'll be 40 degrees out. Just our luck. Short answer: we're rollin' the dice.

    Gary: Last minute planning seemed to be the trick.  We're doing a lot more work ahead of schedule this year, but I'm sure we'll be rushing to do something last minute.  Hopefully we'll be lucky again this year!

    For people who want to ride instead of race is there a time limit to complete the route?

    CJ: We'll probably cap it at 2-3 hours, or have some sort of "If you want to be considered for prizes, your manifest must be in by...". It's kinda tough because a slower rider may end up being Most Charitable, so that's something we kinda have to figure out. But, we definitely don't want to discourage anyone from riding and having fun, especially because food is food and every item helps out Philabundance.

    Gary: Last year we had a prize for most charitable and it was very well received (With the winner donating 10 Additional Items!).  This year, we're trying to place more emphasis on prizes for charitability.  2-3 hours seems about right for time limit, but if you show up a few minutes after the limit with an entire thanksgiving feast, we might be able to work something out.

    How many miles can participants expect to ride?

    CJ: We're shooting for 15-20 miles total. We definitely want a laid-back vibe with a ride that most people should be able to do in a couple of hours, but still give the option for a short, fast 'race' should people choose to ride hard.

    What are you doing this year to promote Cranksgiving Philadelphia?

    CJ: For starters, Gary set us up with a spiffy new website! In addition, we already have a Facebook event up with more people "Attending" than last year's event. We've got a couple of sponsors already and I'm trying to bug Gary into drafting flyers and other promo stuff that we can put in bike shops as well as on the web. We are hoping that earlier (and better) promotion will get us many more riders than last year. In addition, word-of-mouth from last year's participants should help us get Cranksgiving Philly bigger and better each year.

    Gary: Word of mouth is playing a pretty big role again this year.  We made sure to set up promotional material (with the website www.CranksgivingPhilly.com and FaceBook event page) early to make sure we get the word out there.  That, in combination with people who were excited about it last year, has already given us a good idea that about the potential increase in participants.  We'll be amping up promotion the closer it gets to the event, so expect flyers, Facebook updates, tweets, highway billboards, skywriting... ok maybe not the last two...   All in all, after last year, we're really excited to see what this year's event holds.