Planning an organized ride

The Chamber of Commerce asked me if we were interested in planning a ride for the 4th of July festivities. They'll take care of things like advertising, so this is a pretty good opportunity for us. Half the proceeds will go to the Community Fireworks show, and half to FLATS (the trail project that will connect the city to the state park...4 mile paved trail vs. 9 miles of highway!)

We've finally settled on a name: The Hilliest FLATS Ride. (FLATS stands for Forest Lake Area Trail System...the park is Thousand Hills State Park. So the name FLATS was itself a bit of a pun.)

Other names we considered that were kind of cute:
Hot & Hilly
FLAT as a Pancake (a blatant lie)

Initially they gave me the impression they were going to take care of more than what they are now agreeing to do, which is frustrating, but still, it's being advertised as part of their 4th of July activities, so that's a huge burden off our shoulders.

We've planned 3 other bike rides. The first one was stormed out. The next was in spring and it was unseasonably cool. We actually had snow that morning. The third was in the fall and it was unseasonably cool, plus rain. (The rain at least was seasonable. Reasonable too. Reasonable seasonable rain.) We had decided not to do anymore, but with the Chamber agreeing to do the advertising, this seemed like something we could put together with relatively low effort investment.

I have a sponsor for insurance and I'm not doing t-shirts or schwag of any kind.

The Blue route is 7 miles, in town, features the 3 trails and highlights a) how short they are, b) how disconnected they are, and c) how hilly the last one is. White route, 18 miles, out to the park and back. Red route, 27 miles, circles the park, includes hills so steep I go 38 mph down them. Red route has a SAG stop in the graveyard, to rest up from those killer hills!

$10 registration (no t-shirts so we can be cheap!), half goes to FLATS, the other half is actually their ticket to the pancake breakfast at the end, which is itself a fundraiser for the community fireworks show.

I'm excited!

The Tour de Poway here has a $5 add-on for a t-shirt that you pick up the day of the race after you finish. I don't know how much the shirts actually cost, but they probably build it in to the entry fee, and I can't remember what that was, but it wasn't much. My daughter and I did the 18-mile ride together while DH did his one and only century.

I imagine the cost of the shirts was already built into the price. They had barbecue, too, and race participants flashed their ride number to get a lunch for $5, which was marked off on the back of the number. There were two codes written on the back of each ride number, one for a $5 shirt and one for a $5 lunch.

They also had a professional sports photographer set up near the one-mile-to-go mark and everyone got a picture taken, with the option to order prints from a digital review a week or so later.

I like your ride name. Love the SAG stop in the graveyard. I hope it goes really well!

Roxy

Another reason not to include a tshirt is because there are a TON of 5K's in the area and anyone who moves at all ends up with so many tshirts. I have gotten tshirts that I never even wore, they became bike rags immediately.

I like the photograph idea.

By the way I'm open to ideas and advice. I've never planned an organized ride.