Hop on your bike for Aggie Blue Bikes’ annual Cranksgiving
Aggie Blue Bikes is hosting their annual Cranksgiving, but the event looks a bit different this year. Being charitable is often unrealistic for college students with little money to spare, so Aggie Blue Bikes is making their charitable event more accessible to students.
This year, instead of a bike race where contestants buy food at different grocery stores to donate, the focus has shifted to a food drive.
The Cranksgiving event is on Nov. 19 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Participants will meet at Aggie Blue Bikes, located between the fieldhouse and the Military Science building on the campus of Utah State University. From there, they will bike to the assigned grocery stores.
Cranksgiving participants will be stationed at different grocery stores, collecting items from shoppers that are willing to buy food to donate to the Cache Community Food Pantry. Once bags are filled, they will be hauled on bicycles to the food pantry. Dinner at Lucky Slice Pizza will be provided to participants.
Avery Cronyn, program coordinator at Aggie Blue Bikes, said he likes hosting the usual alley cat race for Cranksgiving, but he hopes that more food will be donated this year by doing a food drive.
“There should be more of an emphasis on getting food rather than having a bike race,” Cronyn said. “But I would really like to find a way to tie them both together. For shops like us that are more of a collective, alley cat races are a staple of what we do.”
An alley cat race is a casual race for any level of biker. Cronyn said most Aggie Blue Bikes events are some form of an alley cat race.
Finding people willing to ride their bikes in November has been difficult, creating a barrier to finding volunteers for events like Cranksgiving.
“If we can get more people who want to ride their bikes in the middle of November, that is potentially more people who realize it isn’t that bad, ‘I can do this for longer than I anticipated’,” Cronyn said. “Then hopefully we can get a bigger commuter population in Cache Valley.”
Aggie Blue Bikes has hosted Cranksgiving since 2018. The event originated in 1999 in New York as a charity-focused alley cat race.
“If we are in a situation where we are able to have food on our tables and shelter, we are pretty lucky,” Cronyn said. “I think recognizing that and being able to give back is really important. Being able to do that on a bike that doesn’t pollute is pretty important. If we can get more people to do that, that would be fantastic.”
The Cache Community Food Pantry is located at 359 S. Main St. in Logan. If you are in need of food assistance, applications are available on their website. If you are interested in donating, needed foods and donation times are also available on the website.
Although Aggie Blue Bikes is located on the USU campus, Cronyn says the events aren’t just for students.
“Over the years, we have been trying to expand and reach the greater Cache Valley community,” Cronyn said. “All of our events are available for Cache Valley residents to participate, as well as the university community.”