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up vote 2 down vote favorite

Yep, it's all right there in the title. Thx!

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Not a dupe - but some of the answers to this question: bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1752/… mention charity rides. – Unsliced Sep 21 '11 at 15:12
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Here's a directory of charity rides and a directory of Gran Fondos some of which are fundraising for charity. Both for 2011, mostly US. Maybe somebody wants to pick through and figure out which have most participants. – freiheit♦ Sep 21 '11 at 17:55
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A note for trying to find these: typically charity rides follow one of two models. (1) Riders are fundraisers (or "sponsored") typical raising $500-$5000 each in donations from various sources and going on the ride. Often these are long multi-day rides. AIDS LifeCycle and Climate Ride follow that model.(2) is that riders pay $20-$200 to go on the ride themselves. Typically these are one-day events, often with multiple route/length choices. Gran Fondo's like Levi's Gran Fondo follow this model. – freiheit♦ Sep 21 '11 at 18:48
That second model (riders pay a more moderate amount) tends to have much higher attendance, even if they raise less money than the riders=fundraisers model. – freiheit♦ Sep 21 '11 at 18:49

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I am not sure how you would find the individual rides with the highest participation, but there are a few organizations that reach thousands of cyclists across the US by holding rides in several communities.

In the US you tend to rarely see huge rides because the logistics and regulation hoops in many areas is to great to overcome. Many rides are capped at 2000 or 3000 riders.

The list below is based on my perception that they hold the larger rides in the most areas:

MS Bike Rides (National Multiple Sclerosis Society): Most are two day rides and many rides attract 3,000 riders or more.

LIVESTRONG (Cancer - Lance Armstrong Foundation): In addition to 3-4 of their own large rides, they have begun to sponsor other large ride like RAGBRAI.

Tour de Cure (American Diabetes Association) Their site reports that between the 80 or so rides they sponsor they get 40,000 participants.

There are a lot of others like Team in Training, American Lung Association Rides, etc, but those three have charity rides as one of the primary fundraising activities and are fairly well known throughout the US.

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up vote 2 down vote

The London to Brighton Bike Ride organized by the British Heart Foundation is the largest UK one, probably the largest in Europe. That has 27,000 participants.

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Also in the UK there is 'SkyRide'. – ʍǝɥʇɐɯ Sep 21 '11 at 20:46
Not really - SkyRides (goskyride.com) aren't really charitable, but they are rides more geared to families and 'communities' rather than sportive-like, travelling from A-to-B events. – Unsliced Sep 22 '11 at 10:56

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