soze

Race start: 9pm, Nov 17
registration/sign-up starts 8:30pm

Cranksgiving! Finally, a charity race where ALL the $$ goes to direct action. Homeless Action Committee are the ONLY organization I see out on the streets doing work night after night, so it's only right that they get our support. You WILL NEED a lock and a bag for this one.

As always, we shall be ending at my favorite little corner bar with cheap eats and plentiful beer.

Ride any uni or bike or trike you like; as long as it's got wheels and pedals and is you-powered, it's all good. You will not be turned away for excess spandex or your lack of white belts.

Entry fee gets you a neato handmade spoke card and a shot at being the baddest ass in the Capital Region.

Pre-registration via email to soze@fork-bomb.com is encouraged for planning purposes. Dear god help me make a better guess at how many of these damn cards I gotta make.

PS - please don't get me arrested.

eXCeSS

sweet

douglas1

this should be interesting, the next day I have a century planned

soze

I also want to note that this Cranksgiving race will probably have the most intensive, aggressive data management of any alleycat ever held before. I spent a few hours writing the Excel backend for it last night.

crissfyah

big up on holding a charity alleycat! that's that *****.

BTW, NYC has its 9th annual CRANKSGIVING alleycat the same day!

douglas1

https://www.donnyquixote.blogspot.com/

Now- whenever asked I always tell people that Cranksgiving was not my idea. It was first done by a messenger named Tone in NYC more than a decade ago. Coincidentally I just got this email today (It's funny because I think the first few paragraphs are a form letter because I got exactly the same thing last year)-DQ:


Greetings DQ,
My name is Tone. I use to work as a bike messenger in New York City for several years. In NYC back in 1999 I started up the charity cycle race called Cranksgiving, and I organized it for the past eight years there.

This past June my wife and I moved from New York to York, Pennsylvania. A friend of mine is continuing the Cranksgiving tradition in NYC, and next weekend I am about to run Cranksgiving for my ninth year in a row in the new town I am living in now.

While getting stuff ready for my Cranksgiving this year I came across some web sites and noticed how Cranksgiving has spread even more than I thought. Obviously you guys in Des Moines have been running it there at least since last year. I just wanted to send you guys my support and thank you for spreading the good-will cycling spirit! I always thought it would be cool to have Cranksgiving spread to become a national cycling holiday where charitable efforts are done on a grass-roots local level, and it looks like that has been coming true.

Just to share some cool stuff, here are a number of links to Cranksgiving related web pages/sites you might be interested in checking out:

1) The flyer I designed for this year's Cranksgiving I am organizing in York, PA...

2) The flyer my friend Ken made for this year's Cranksgiving he is organizing back in NYC...

3) A web page with this year's Cranksgiving being held in Albany, NY...

4) The flyer for this year's Cranksgiving in Los Angeles, where two messenger friends I first met in Vienna, Austria by the names of Douglas & Melissa, are organizing Cranksgiving for the seventh year in a row in LA...

5) 2004 Cranksgiving LA race report...

6) Various older flyers from Cranksgiving in LA: #1 and #2 and #3

7) A web site I created to present what Cranksgiving was like when I organized it from 1999-2006 in NYC. It has flyer images, photos, manifests, spoke cards, etc...

8) A web page featuring Cranksgiving in Des Moines, Iowa from 2006 along with a 2007 flyer.
(Clearly, you know about this link, but I was also compiling this list of Cranksgiving links for myself, so please excuse its appearance.)

9) A photo gallery of the 2006 photos from the Cranksgiving in St. Louis last year...

By the way, you might be interested to also know Cranksgiving took place in Chicago last year too. An old messenger friend and neighbor of mine from NYC by the name of Brean moved back out to Chicago almost two years ago. He is not the type for long distance calls or e-mails, but out of the blue I got a call from him during my Cranksgiving awards ceremony. He was calling from the Cranksgiving he was running in Chicago! Like I said, he is not one for long distance communications, so I do not even know if he is organizing another Cranksgiving in Chicago this year.

Cranksgiving also took place at least once in Madison, Wisconsin back in 2002 I believe. That one was started up by a messenger I new from Freiberg, Germany! Cranksgiving has also occurred at least once that I know of in Eugene, Oregon too!

Like I said earlier, it is terrific to see so many cyclists getting together in a fun social capacity to collectively put their efforts into helping others.

Keep up the great work, best wishes, and ride safe,
Tone

soze

Yep, I got a similar e-mail, too. Pretty cool that he's still keeping track of his baby!

Steiner's is sponsoring this race, btw, so there will be some cool stuffs to motivate you all.

bward1028

there's also one in hudson sunday...

soze

BTW, the Albany Cranksgiving was a blast. We had ten riders donate 170lbs of food to Homeless Action Committee, and made sure they were going to have a great Thanksgiving dinner. It was pretty cool seeing everyone come out and do good while having an excuse to ride a bike.

soze

Got a letter today from Homeless Action Committee. Pretty cool!