pdlamb

Dolphins riding bicycles? That's worthy of a front page article!

robow

Color me cynical as well. By far most of the "I'm riding to promote awareness of________" are simply a way to help fund their fun. If you want my funds, then spend time doing something you didn't want to do in the first place, like digging a foundation for a "habitat for humanity" home. I just got hit up by a couple who are touring all over our state educating others on Agro education, exuding to me the great time they're having staying in hotels and speaking to the occasional classroom while boasting how it's not costing them a dime. Ha

mantelclock

Every charity that I know of needs money much more than 'awareness'. If you can afford to take three months off from work to cycle across a continent, you should just donate three months of your pay to your favorite charity.

Happy Feet

You first

It's funny how in our cynical slacker world, if some one sets out to do something positive they have to pass a very high standard of judgement by others. Yet, if one wants to do nothing and stand on the sideline, no measure is applied at all.

While I agree it is easy to become jaded by what we think we see around us, I try to remain optimistic or at least open minded about such things, if only because of the end result of cynicism within myself. Those other riders may come and go but when I become disenchanted with the potential for good, or am unable to see it in the world because I only see the bad, or no longer try to do good because I think it's a waste, no one has been hurt but myself.

I think this guy had it right:

"Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism..." Max Ehrmann

mrv 

+1 ~ THAT sums up what I was thinking! I've done a couple MS rides. First few times I badgered people enough to cover the $250 minimum I was supposed to raise. The next couple of times I was in for about half of that. I used the Face Book to drop not subtle hints to donate. I attempted to make a bit of a game of it.
- take a photo of a nearby town or landmark.
- post the photo and ask for guesses as to the town name.
- the first correct guess, I'd buy that person a coffee.
- end the post with the link to donate to the MS ride.

I got no donations that way. But I did get to buy a couple of friends good coffee! That was worth more than the charity ride.....

robow

I will be taking part in a large foundation charity ride in June and to be able to participate, you must "raise" $200. Why should others fund my pleasant weekend that I truly expect to enjoy? So I cut a check to the ADA and will enjoy myself knowing that I've contributed fully rather than hitting up other people to pledge so much per mile for 100+ miles that I would have gladly ridden for free. Different points of view I guess.

indyfabz

This actually brings up one aspect that many people might not appreciate. I used to be heavily involved in the second largest MS ride in the country, which is a two-day event. I got to be pretty close with one of the top people in the local chapter. She explained to me that, while they appreciate that people doing things like cross-country rides are raising funds for the cause, they can also be a drain on resources when they ask for things like help with arranging publicity at various stops along the route and assistance with lodging. Despite a couple of high profile cases of excessive spending on administration, local chapters are not awash in resources and manpower. My friend explained that it's not as rare for people to do their own rides in support of some cause as it used to be, and thus not as "newsworthy."

veganbikes

I don't trust most charities and non-profits some of them are outright scamming you or promoting products that actual help give you what they are fighting against (the cancer charity industry is rife with that unfortunately) and some just have way to much overhead for no good reason.

Food Not Bombs takes donated food and cooks it and feeds it to any and all who want it. The chapters don't really have much overhead if any at all in most cases and just do it as volunteer work. They are quite effective at what they do and anyone can do it (though knowing how to cook or at least prep food is important).

I am all for riding but just go and ride and be honest about what you are doing. Don't claim you are ending Bivouac's disease, you are just riding your bike for fun and maybe occasionally mentioning that fake disease I just made up. If you are riding to go from city to city doing something productive beyond fundraising I could more support that. Like if you built a home every 50 miles on your trip or something like that.

hilltowner

More times than I can exactly recall I've been asked why was I riding my bike (usually during a 1000 mi. ride) was it for charity? Riding your bike for two weeks straight isn't something the average person thinks is "fun." They often think you must be doing it for some other reason.

veganbikes

True but average people are boring. I like us weirdos. Riding for a while is way better than much of the crap people do.

hilltowner

+1

BlarneyHammer

Long response, because this is a topic near and dear to me.

I first got into bike touring (and long-distance athletics in general) by joining a thing at my university called Texas 4,000. Basically, a bunch of UT students ride bikes from Austin to Anchorage and raise money for the American Cancer Society. We slept in churches, high school gyms, camped out, whatever was free or as cheap as possible, because the less we spent on the ride, the more we could give to our cause. Along the way, we did "cancer awareness" presentations in the communities we visited, and also visited children's hospitals in the few big cities we passed through.

My year we raised about $300,000, but about $75,000 went towards the cost of the ride. We were each required to raise $4,000 on our own. My family is small and not rich, so I wound up selling my car and used half the money to fulfill the last of my quota. Some of my teammates had large wealthy families and easily doubled their quota. Nowadays, I think Texas 4,000 raises over $500,000/year, and I would imagine the overheads are still about the same.

Fast forward nine years, I still love bike touring. When you roll into town on a bike in the middle of nowhere, people ask what on earth you're doing. If you can say you're raising money for charity and turn their attention to a good cause, why not? So I still do. I'm still not a good fundraiser, and by now, my family is uninterested in writing a check to a charity because I'm going for a bike ride again. And when I get into town, I'm already asking around for a place to set up my tent, so I'm hesitant to also ask for money, even if it's not for me. I'm lucky if I can raise $500 in one summer. Makes me wonder how others raise tens of thousands. What words do they say that I don't?

As I'm sure everyone here knows, you get a lot of time to think while on tour, so I wondered why there isn't a site that combines a blog, photo sharing, maps of your progress, crowdfunding for charity, and has an app so you can write journals offline. I was using something like six different sites and apps to do all this. So I went to a library, checked out some books, learned five programming languages, and made a website for touring cyclists: PackJournal.com

Basically, you pick your favorite charity from our list, you can keep up to 25% for yourself (if you do, donors are told before they donate), and the rest goes to the charity. Free to sign up, anyone can use it. And you can post journals, photos, see maps of where you took your photos and wrote your journals, and there's an app so you can write journals in your phone when you don't have a signal, then upload them later.

So even if I'm not good at raising money for charity, maybe I've created a tool that helps someone else raise money for charity. If so, I'll feel like I made a positive difference. Currently, I'm losing money keeping the site online, but I'm holding out on the hope that it makes a difference one day. That and I love bike touring, and it's a small way of giving to the bike touring community.

I can see the disconnect - how exactly does riding my bike change the number of malignant cells in someone's body? It doesn't. Nor does it build houses for the homeless, feed the hungry, etc. When I saw sick kids in the hospital, it made me realize that while people fawn over the fact that I was riding a bike to Alaska, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But if you were going to do the ride whether anyone donates or not, and if you can use the attention you receive and direct it to a worthy cause that needs help, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Rowan

A very thoughtful response in more ways than just to this thread.

Squeezebox

My thought is to find a few good solid charities to donate to, and forget the cyclist middle man. The solid charities are well know. There's no reason to raise awareness for the American Cancer Society, for example. Everyone knows it exists.

rhm

I'm cynical. Charity is a good thing, of course, a very good thing; but it's also a magnet for not-so-good things, including real mischief, suspicion of mischief, and paranoia. I'm reminded of the charity the late great Ronnie Lane started for MS:

Good Boys: Ronnie Lane Articles

My own cynicism does not rise to the level of paranoia, but I try not to have anything to do with charity bike rides etc.

Happy Feet

Great thoughts.

Sometimes being involved in such an activity is as beneficial and/or life changing to the participant as to the public or cause they originally represent.

I am doing a ride to raise awareness about dementia and some may ask why that would be necessary, seeing as we know it exists already, but a personal experience made me feel it was worthwhile or at least something I wanted to put effort into doing.

I work in health care with an aging population and almost all the residents I meet with have some form of dementia. We (staff) are very aware of its effects and strategies for dealing with the disease but often see family members struggle to cope with the transition their loved ones go through.

Recently I've also had a close friend of over 30 years contract an fairly aggressive form of early onset dementia and have watched both his family and others in our social circle try to come to terms with those changes. The effects can be varied and sometimes troubling and, without understanding, can lead family to become angry or frustrated, friends to avoid contact and the person effected to withdraw socially. In this case we have been a little lucky so far to have someone (me) who understood what was happening and who could help to act as an educator/sounding board for the family/social circle.

With understanding the person with dementia stands a far better chance of remaining engaged within their family and community for far longer and receiving more appropriate and beneficial responses to their behavior. The information is out there already in the form of several programs created by the Alzheimer Society of Canada (one example) and in particular as a good entrance program called dementiafriends.ca

For my upcoming trip I decided that with every conversation I have before and along the route, at work, on FB, among friends and in social circles, on diving trips, on my personal website etc... I will also mention dementia and that program in particular to try to get more people to see how a.) Someone they know will probably get dementia and b.) there is something very basic they can do to help them.

Will it make a difference? I have no way of knowing but it is something within my grasp to pull off so I will.

I don't try to raise money because I don't want any perceived conflict of interest and like blarneyhammer I am not good at it, although I have already turned down several attempts at donation. People who know me trust me and are supportive of my cycling goals both in a personal and altruistic sense.

If you have a moment, look at this website and watch the short video. It is only 1:36 minutes long and if you do, that will be one more person who knows a little more about dementia.
I am a drop in the bucket, grass roots sort of guy and don't mind counting successes one by one

Dementia Friends Canada

pamaguahiker 

Interesting topic. I get cynical as well. I agree with @jefvk to a point but I have seen this type of charity system abused as well. Case in point below.

This interesting fact happened to me in the 90s when I was very active in MS rides all over. One year, I raised quite a good sum and did everything by the book with the sponsorship sheets and everything. I turned everything in, did the ride and had fun...no complaints. The next year, they raised the amount of money we should raise in order to do the ride again. No problem, right? I did great the year before! So I started contacting people again...here's what I got. "Oh, I already paid money towards you to ride this year". What MS did was, took all my sponsorship names, entered them into a data base and did mass phone calls and mailings. I was able to see one of the mailings that my family received. It said, "Last year, you contributed to "insert my name" for his ride for MS. This year, we are hoping to raise more money for MS again and hope you consider donating once more. You can send your donation in with the attached form"...yada yada yada...bottom line. Tons of my former donators contributed because my name was mentioned and they thought it went under my name for the donations towards my amount to raise. Nope. So they expect you to come up with more people to donate and expand their data bases.

Shortly after that...I quit doing the rides. I considered collecting and just turning in a lump sum when I showed up without the names. But that's not really fair to people donating and leaves too much room for people to say you were keeping the funds. It was easier to just ride by myself again and donate where I want if I feel like it.

If someone comes up with a cool project that visibly rewards donators for their time invested. I support them. I had a friend who went designed a bike jersey, got some bike jersey designs that were quite cool actually, and did a pre-order for the jerseys. After he paid the price for the jersey's that he ordered whole sale. He used the rest for his bike ride. That's just marketing. But crowdfunding isn't something I like to support in general. I have had a family member do crowdfunding and I never gave a dime.