Giving thanks for our 7th Annual Cranksgiving

Photo credit: Azania Rizing Photography

This year's Cranksgiving was happily a mixture of the “old” and “new”.  Last year, after rethinking how such a dynamic event could happen safely admist COVID-19, we were grateful to combine some of the elements for this year’s 7th Annual Cranksgiving. And our community showed up in large numbers!

• 210 riders participated in 56 teams

• 43 volunteers checked riders in, and counted & organized food

• $2500+ of groceries donated

• 1400 pounds of fresh fruits from Hungry Harvest donated

• $440 dollars raised directly for Moveable Feast & the Franciscan Center

• 4 checkpoints run by partners

• 22 local businesses donated prizes

• 6 sponsors provided funding for the event

Last year gave us an opportunity to be a little more creative with how Cranksgiving would logistically happen. We adopted a two manifest arrangement of stops so riders could end directly at one of our food partners - The Franciscan Center or Moveable Feast. Manifests were sent out virtually, and participants rode home after dropping off their food.

This year’s Cranksgiving allowed us to keep what worked last year; we kept the two manifests, meaning that we had a total amount totaling 17 checkpoints across the city — we'd like to believe that this is just one minute contributing factor to having more exposure and visibility of cyclists of all types on the road across the city for such a valuable cause.

This also meant this year’s event needed more support than ever to make possible, and we are so grateful for the volunteers, businesses, and their creativity that really made the event. Hungry Harvest joined us for a second year to set up a produce pick-up checkpoint, REI hosted a cornhole at the Washington Monument, Cutlass Velo hosted a ringtoss checkpoint at St. Mary’s Park, and A Few Cool Hardware Stores set up a checkpoint at Waverly Ace Hardware to promote their PPE Drive for Moveable Feast. Volunteers stationed at parks ran challenges from guessing a word in American Sign Language to naming parts on a bike.

Cranksgiving is truly a community event. It was an idea originally planted in a Facebook group, planned by friends, filled with support from Baltimore businesses — all to benefit those facing food insecurity this winter, and done by people on bikes. Bikemore is really grateful we get the chance to harness your energy into a positive force for Baltimore.

Check out photos from the photobooth on Facebook!

Love community events like Cranksgiving? You can keep them going by supporting our work Bikemore and making a donation today.

Cranksgiving Sponsors

Prize Sponsors

cranksgiving benefits

Special thanks to

Charm City Meadworks for hosting our after party, Hungry Harvest for donating produce, Cutlass Velo for hosting a checkpoint, REI for hosting a checkpoint, and a Few Cool Hardware Stores for hosting a checkpoint. Thanks to Brian O’Doherty for taking Cranksgiving photobooth pics!

Making every day count

Photo Credit: Side A Photography

We usually like to share the highlight reel - big wins, happy moments, times when lots of us are together and celebrating. This Giving Tuesday, we wanted to share the everyday work that Bikemore does fundamentally change the way that our city thinks about our streets and public space.

Changing entrenched systems doesn't happen overnight; while you may have heard about our Lake2Lake project or Cranksgiving, we’ve also…

• Spoke to over 250 residents about traffic-calming and bike infrastructure at 31 Mobile Bike Shops

• Participated in over 200 hours of Community Meetings to support infrastructure projects in neighborhoods around Baltimore

• Participated in over 100 hours of Baltimore City Dept. of Transportation and Dept. of Planning meetings

• Supported over $100 million in transit, bike, and other planning grant awards

• Attended 250+ hours of statewide transportation coalition meetings to pass the Transit Safety & Investment Action, a bill for the largest investment in MTA in generations

This is the work we do regularly. We show up to make sure there's always a voice to advocate for equitable, accessible, and transformative Complete Streets infrastructure. And to make it possible, we need your regular support. 

The most sustainable way to support Bikemore is to set up a monthly donation. If just 366 people started a donation today, you would collectively fund one third of our annual budget. You would make Bikemore possible.

We’re really proud of our everyday work, because it means that we’re planting seeds in communities throughout Baltimore -- and that’s where true change happens.

Donations made through this form provide us unrestricted funding of our advocacy work, through our 501(c)(4) Bikemore in Action and are not tax-deductible. To make a charitable donation that may be tax-deductible, click here.

A win for Lake Montebello - celebrate with us!

A digital rendition of some of the proposed infrastructure, and potential crosswalk art. Photo credit: Graham Projects

This Spring, we were awarded a $50,000 grant from NACTO with our partners Baltimore City Department of Transportation, Black People Ride Bikes, and Graham Projects. Together, we envisioned a process of gathering community input and providing education on traffic-calming alternatives that would make our public parks safer to access and roads less dangerous for all.

This week, new bike infrastructure, curb bump outs, traffic islands, and pedestrian crosswalks will be installed at 33rd & Hillen, a large intersection that leads to the main entrance of Lake Montebello. For many years this has been a danger zone for bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorists alike. This installation is one step closer to a long-term vision of how we can rethink and redesign street space in Baltimore, creating space with people in mind - not just cars.

In November, Graham Projects will install accompanying traffic calming art (like in the photo above!) to make this infrastructure vibrant and visible.  You still have the chance to vote for your favorite design - just cast your vote today! These designs were inspired by dozens of submissions we gathered at community events and online.

Now, we’re inviting you to come celebrate this new infrastructure and art at our Lake2Lake Play Day next Saturday, November 6! Bring your friends and family for an afternoon of fun activities including a hike in Herring Run, yoga for all-levels, kids games and a dancing forest, photo booth, food, music, and more!

This kind of work doesn’t happen alone. We need support - from our community partners, city agencies, and you. The best thing you can do today is start a $10/month donation. Your support is what enables us to collaborate, pursue national funding for our local projects, and make change in Baltimore.

See you there! 

A night at Druid Hill Park, and a movement to make it equitable

We’re are grateful to all of those that came out for our latest Friday Night Lights. These nights been a really fun way for Bikemore to bring people together and connect to Baltimore’s beautiful outdoor parks.

We believe in a city that connects people to people and opportunities. And a key piece of what creates a healthy, livable city is connection to our parks. We’ve been working in Reservoir Hill and Druid Hill Park since the start of Bikemore, and it’s been exciting to see some big changes afoot led with a vision of Complete Streets and restoring relationship between surrounding neighborhoods to Druid Hill Park.

• DOT released a study on the Big Jump. The big takeaways? There is virtually no impact on car travel times and 87% of survey respondents wanted some version of it to stay.

• ... which is why we're excited that the Big Jump is getting an upgrade to concrete barriers in Spring 2022! The water-filled orange and white barriers will be replaced by concrete Jersey Barriers. And, Graham Projects is leading public art to go on the barriers. We’re taking your input on what that art should look like: draw and share your design ideas.

• All of the work along Druid Park Lake Drive & Druid Hill Park is coming to the final planning stages. RecnParks will hold a meeting the week of 9/28 to show their plans for the redesigned park once the DPW work on the lake is done. DOT is leading a Complete Streets design effort on Druid Park Lake Drive to reconnect surrounding neighborhoods to the park, and will host a meeting on 10/7 to present plans. Check out the articles in Next City and the Baltimore Sun that highlights the advocacy of neighborhood leaders to increase accessibility and equity in the area.

• DOT has begun community meetings and gathering input on the Northern Segment of the Baltimore Greenway Trails Network, which includes Gwynns Falls Parkway and Wyman Park Drive, roads that would be connected through the Jones Falls Trail within the park. We suggest you continue to keep an eye on the project, and join community meetings to advocate for the trail and share your ideas of what it could look like.

To follow along, make sure you follow us on social media (links below), and please continue support the work of Divayogi, Black People Ride Bikes, and TAP Druid Hill.

Also, mark your calendars for the big Charm City Cross race on October 2&3!

If you have ideas for the next Friday Night Lights, let us know.

 Want to support Bikemore? Help us out by starting a small monthly donation. Even $5/month helps Bikemore build sustainability from grassroots donors like yourself. 

A year of food distribution by bike

When we first started brainstorming how we could distribute food by bikes, processing how we would physically make it happen felt like an eternity. We were about a month and a half into the pandemic, and sitting still at home felt both wrong and the only choice we had. From arranging zoom meetings to figuring out program design to posting on social media to recruit volunteers - it took about a month from an idea to go to an actual plan with people involved. 

That rush seems unnecessary in retrospect. Though, to be fair, we had no idea that this pandemic would affect our daily lives for over a year. And a year later, volunteers are still showing up to distribute food to those in need in Baltimore. This need didn’t arise because of COVID-19, although it became much more prevalent as folks lost stable employment and safe access to grocery stores and restaurants, being pandemic hotspots.

Part of that need was transportation. MTA ridership in Baltimore dropped 60%, the remaining 40% were essential workers that needed to board buses, subways, trains to get to work and other services. But many folks, especially older adults who were particularly susceptible to COVID, were caught at home without a safe way to get to essential services. The majority of the deliveries went to them. 

While we were still coming up with strategies of how to make food distribution by bike work, we were concerned about a factor we had no control over at all: how many people would show up to volunteer. But on the first day of distributing food at Civic Works’ Real Food Farms, we met over twenty volunteers during rain and a thunderstorm. For weeks afterwards, at least fifteen people came each week, taking more bags and deliveries than anyone had expected from people on bikes. 

We’re grateful for every volunteer that showed up, even just to deliver food once. Thank you for your generosity of time and spirit during a pandemic that was difficult for everyone. We are grateful for our partners that continue to work on distributing necessary resources throughout the city. Please continue to support them how you can - showing up to volunteer in other capacities or donating funds to keep their work going.

In the past year since May 2020, 68 volunteers have delivered 870 grocery boxes and bags and 1600 meals. 

If you’d like to get connected with one of our food distribution partners (Bmore Community Food, Civic Works, the Franciscan Center, No Boundaries Coalition, and United Workers) to support them on deliveries, get in touch with us at clarissa@bikemore.net and we will connect you.