how to organize a kidical mass ride in your community

This weekend we put the finishing touches on our Kidical Mass flyers, which are soon to be peppered all around town. So I thought I’d write a post on organizing a Kidical Mass ride for anyone else interested in starting one in their community.

First, what is a Kidical Mass ride?

A Kidical Mass ride is a bike ride for families and children of all ages. According to the official Kidical Mass website, the event is…

“… a legal, safe and FUN bike ride for kids, kids at heart, and their families. The first ride was held in April 2008 in Eugene, Oregon and has now spread to over a dozen communities throughout North America and beyond. The rides are meant to be family friendly bike rides through a community.”

The site further explains:

“They generally meet at a park and end not too far away at another fun spot (park, ice cream shop, pool, or special event). Each community figures out the type of ride, routes, locations, and events that work best for their area families.”

The planning:

I’ve been wanting to plan a Kidical Mass ride in our town for a while now. I first asked around to see whether such an even already existed and I just didn’t know about it. When it didn’t sound like there were any organized family bike rides in town, I took the following steps. You could do all or only some of these to get the word out. The goal being letting others know about it and to make it accessible to as many interested families as possible:

1) Pick a date, a route, and a meeting spot.

I chose a date that was a few weeks away to have time to spread the word about the ride. I chose a centrally located meeting spot in a park that would be easily accessible to families from any side of town. Then the tricky part came: choosing a meeting time. This involved the most deliberation in order to find a time that worked with most kids’ nap times :)

2) Create a facebook page/spread the word.

I created a facebook page with all the above listed information, including links to the Kidical Mass website and a brief description about what the event aims to be. I invited all of my local friends with children. I made the page open to “friends of friends” so that they could invite their friends and so on. (When I first created the page, I had about 25 people invited. By the end of that afternoon, invitations had gone out to over 90 people. Parents, who I had never met, were chiming in and asking questions and saying they were interested in the ride. To my delight, word was spreading quickly!)

3) Create a website.

I created a website to have an easy URL for people to remember. (For example, YOURTOWNkidicalmass.blogspot.com). When I asked the local bike shop about family rides in town, they offered to post a link to ours on their website and to help advertise it. A website is often easier to circulate than a facebook page, so this is what I created to “give out” to local businesses willing to help us promote the event. I used a free blog hosting service and included the date, meeting time and place, a route map, and general instructions (bring a picnic lunch, etc) on the site.

4) Make flyers.

This was the fun part. I enlisted my friend H’s daughters and put the little artists to work. I wanted colorful, bright flyers that would catch other parents’ eyes. We set up shop on our deck and used fingerpaint to create park and bike scenes. Bonus: This proved a lovely learning opportunity as we listed the names of each bike part while painting it: a blue bike frame, a yellow saddle, red handlebars, etc.

Our artists were then rewarded with blueberry pancakes and cherries, a very important step in this process, one not to be forgotten!

My friend H. had the awesome idea of creating reusable flyers to make it less work on us (smart!) and more environmentally friendly (nice!). So after the girls made their artwork, I pasted the info slots, collage style, unto the flyers and laminated the whole thing without filling in the details (date, time, place, etc).

I will add the details for the September ride (using dry erase markers on the laminate) before posting the flyers around town and then will go back and change the information before the next ride in October. Our signs should hopefully last us through this fall if not longer. I also included a link to our website on the flyers so that parents could find more information and a route map for each month’s ride.

5) Distribute flyers in key locations.

Places we’re targeting include: the local bike shops, our co-op, the kids’ consignment shop, the library, and the local coffee shops.

6) Tell everyone about it, get your bikes ready, wait for the day, and cross your fingers for good weather!

Our Kidical Mass ride is coming up shortly and I can’t wait to see how many parents and kids join us. I chose a comfortable distance (5 miles round-trip) with a park stop at the half way point to allow those who don’t bike on a regular basis to feel up to it. It also allows for younger children to bike on their own. The picnic stop will give us a chance to meet one another, socialize, discuss future ride ideas, and to have the kids play and enjoy the outdoors. It also allows parents of children too young to do the entire ride the ability to join us at the half way point, to enjoy the park portion on the event, and to opt for a shorter distance if needed.

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I will write more about the first ride after it’s done and I will hopefully have more rides to report of this fall before the weather turns cold and the roads icey. Have you organized a community bike ride in your town? If so, how did it go? What tips would you share? Share your story in the comments below!

And check the Kidical Mass site to see if there are any established rides in your area or to learn more about how to start one yourself! Happy cycling!