Looking for input on creating an annual community ride/event for girls and women

[ame]

You might want to get in touch with Janae Noble @ Noble Pursuits. She set up several ladies only California rides - I knew here from the Princess Promenade, which eventually my club helped SAG for, and she was my cycling coach (I needed a little/lot descending confidence help). I think that first year was more than a little exhausting for her - permits, vendors, lining up sponsors... and the first year it was rocky. You definitely need help from multiple clubs - road painting, route guidance, SAG (get a high school cycling club for kid ride alongs/chaperones if you do have a youth option), sweeps, clean up, set up, adverts... The ride in Sacramento uses a multi-purpose recreational trail which was open to other cyclists/users at the event day, but that also limited permit/liability woes. There was an optional time trial, which was fun!, and costume contest. However, it seems to have really taken off. My daughter also participated in the ride, and she enjoyed it. We tough girls did not so much enjoy the princess aspect - but I did half-heartedly go as a Valkyrie.

I cannot much help but offer encouragement. While my ride buddies are now mostly men, so I tend to prefer mixed gender events, I think rides like these are encouraging in building confidence. That said, I love the pre-Mothers day idea. I did used to lead a women's only ride before moving to the SF Bay Area where I still have not joined a club - my ladies group added in some skill building workshops, which was helpful - and could be useful for getting the word out if you target clubs (e.g. cycling clubs, school clubs, Girl Scouts, 4-H). I might suggest you consider contacting your local hospitals/health plans as sponsors - or even the local council. Try the education department if you go for the hospitals - very often they have money for health related activities.

[azfiddle]

We have no other women's rides in our area. We're in Tucson, Arizona, where it is possible to ride year-round but June-mid-September require very early starts, so fall and spring are better choices.

Rebecca mentioned GABA- a bike club here that does three century rides among other things, and we wouldn't want to compete with that. We want this to be very accessible to people who might not otherwise ride, and encouraging especially to girls and young women.

We had not pictured this as a fund-raiser- more of a community service to encouraging girls and women to participate in cycling. So the idea would be more to break even than raise money.

Ame, can you send me a contact for Janae Noble? We are also going to be contacting a local hospital, which one of our group works for.

We had not considered costumes or anything like that... up to now... I might prefer to keep it simple.

I hadn't thought about painting roads. For the GABA century rides, they place stand-alone signs along the road indicating the route. I was hoping we might even be able to borrow or rent their signs.

One option would be to use the ever-expanding "Loop" around Tucson, which is a paved MUP with many miles that are lightly used by pedestrian traffic- mainly used by cyclists. This would provide a safe route that would not conflict with vehicle traffic for the short distance. Thus we we wouldn't need to consider having any traffic control. Plus, I really think we are going to start small - and hope we don't need to worry about traffic control with the number of riders we'd like to have for the first year.

We have quite a few sponsors for the team: a car dealership, bike shop, several restaurants among them, so that will hopefully help. We also are doing some volunteering for other events and maybe can get support back from those organizations for this.

This is all really , really helpful

Sharon

[ny biker]

Another thought, if it hasn't been mentioned yet -- some of the local bike advocacy groups in this area sponsor short rides that are intended to encourage new cyclists and introduce people to the local trails and bike facilities (e.g., roads with bike lanes). Perhaps you could partner with a group in your area or at least get advice from them.

[OakLeaf]

As far as marking roads, planting signs won't be much, if any, quicker than painting stencils. The most time-consuming part is finding a place to pull your car over, then walking while you place three or more markers beginning 250 or so feet before each turn, then getting back in the car. Signs would be easier to do than paint with one person - because you don't need to put on and take off rubber gloves to get back into the car - but I much prefer sending road-marking teams out in pairs anyway, for safety reasons.

[Skippyak]

People move signs.

[Becky]

Yup, and bad weather can cause problems with painted markings. The best rides I've done use a combination of signs and paint.

We had number of folks get terribly lost on a super-hilly, quite remote century route near here a couple of years ago because of fall storms that obscured or washed away painted markings a couple of days before the ride.

[OakLeaf]

That's just a matter of using the right paint. Paint formulated for road marking stays on fine, and any paint store has it.