Welcome the the second annual Provo Utah Cranksgiving. You heard me right, Cranksgiving. It was from an much larger event that happens every year in NYC. According to their website:

Since 1999, New York City cyclists and bike messengers have raised food for their city’s homeless the week before Thanksgiving. Like traditional “alleycats”, Cranksgiving tests your skills and speed navigating city traffic. But it also tests the sharpness of your wits as you navigate the aisles of grocery stores searching for specific food items. Once you’ve found them and made your way through the checkout lines and finished the ride, all of your food will be donated to a local homeless shelter. Cranksgiving is a charity ride, and anyone can participate. It’s been happening for over 10 years in New York City, and has spread to cities across the country and across the ocean.

Check out the above link for more info, and start one in your own town. You many notice at the above link that little Provo Ut is listed! Zac Whitmore, our dear friend and hero did so much work to promote the event. It never would have happened with out him!

The plan was for everyone to meet outside of the Provo City courthouse.

Jordan had his extracycle of course, perfect for hauling heavy loads.

There were some unfamiliar faces too, including this camera man from the Provo 17 tv station, who was covering the event!

We left the courthouse and headed up 300 south. Check out the new bike lane!!! We can thank the bike committee and all of the amazing community members that stood up for a more bike friendly Provo! It was really exciting actually for us, because we attended the city counsel meetings to support these changes. It was really cool to see the product of the work Zac and the committee did.

First stop, Allen’s. We all jumped off of our bikes and ran into the store. We tried to focus on high protein items as well as things needed for the Holidays. The goal on our ride specifically was to get 5 items per person (minimum) per store.

Store one, mission accomplished!

This same pattern continued at A Fresh Market.

My back pack was getting really heavy!

The ride was beautiful! It was really cold and super windy, but the fall leaves were gorgeous and we were all in high sprits.

We got to Macey’s and the parking lot was full of little kids eating donuts. We got inside away from the craziness.

We had been told that they were always in great need of diapers. We had never made the purchase before so it took us a while to figure out what to buy.

Karl, Karen and Zac all loaded up!

We finished the ride at a little coffee shop on Bulldog called Coffee Pod.

We unloaded all of our goods onto an obliging table, and I was pretty surprised at the amount of loot we had gathered!

Victory shot!

We went in to warm up and I found someone reading the Daily Herald.

It was Karen.

Hot chocolate and such all around!

We finished our drinks and road over to the food bank:

Yes, they were closed.

They had generously left a couple empty crates out front for us to fill.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We were about to leave when this man who said he was the manager of the Daily Herald arrived. He said that the news paper’s Savvey Shopper (a segment in the paper) had gone to the grocery store and bought $1,200 worth of groceries for $501. We offered to help him unload.

Boy did we leave the food bank a surprise!

Hurray for Cranksgiving!!!