For 20 years, Ride Illinois has been coordinating mailings of invitational ride information as an easy and affordable way for bike clubs to promote their rides. We are reaching out today to ask if the club (or organization) wants to use our service in 2021. We are using a lower-cost method to reach 10,000 known invitational riders plus bike shop customers, while reducing the financial risk of another event cancellation. Read on for details.

In our 2001-2018 mailings, clubs printed their rides’ brochures, and we would mail them (at nonprofit postage rates) in a large envelope to a mailing list combining all participating clubs’ past event rider lists. In 2019, we debuted a new format of a Ride Guide "keeper" magazine, with each ride having a 5.5” X 8.5” magazine page instead of a separately-printed brochure. The Ride Guide was extremely well received by cyclists as well as bike shops. This year, of course, the pandemic hit. We realize that many were not able to host their annual rides, including Ride Illinois.

For 2021, our Ride Guide will be in a digital magazine format, published as a PDF, to keep costs down for both clubs as well as our organization. We will send out postcards to 10,000 known invitational riders -- as always, from ride organizers lists of past riders -- and rack cards to approximately 200 bike shops across the state. Both the postcards and rack cards will direct people to the digital Ride Guide.

Ride Illinois invites you to promote your ride with a 5.5” X 8.5” page in our 2021 Ride Guide, which will be published online when the cards are mailed out in April. Since it will be a digital format, we will be able to include links for both your ride’s webpage as well as a registration link!  

The fee for the 2021 annual ride mailing will be $250 for Ride Illinois affiliated bike clubs (reduced by nearly 60% over the 2020 fee), $450 for other bike clubs, and $500 for other organizations conducting bicycle ride events ($600 for those organizations that do not provide a rider list).

Participating clubs email us your ad, with a resolution of 300 dpi or greater, in a press ready format (PDF, with all fonts embedded or outlined, or jpeg). Each 5.5" x 8.5" page of our magazine has only one ad! Most rides provide their own ads; however, if you do not make your own ad, we can recommend a graphic designer that can produce one for you for an additional fee, starting at $150. (If you need an ad designed, contact us and we will give you more details about pricing and options.)

The $250 rate is for affiliated bike clubs that have made a donation to Ride Illinois within the past year. To learn more about supporting our advocacy work and the benefits of club affiliation, please visit our website. Thank you for supporting our work for better bicycling in Illinois!

Ride Illinois affiliated bike clubs also receive additional support in promoting their invitational rides by having:

Detailed information about the mailings and deadlines are below. If you are interested in our 2021 mailing, please contact Ride Illinois Communications and Projects Coordinator Gina Kenny as soon as possible at gina@rideillinois.org or (708) 334-2244.

When: The Ride Guide will be available in April. We are having the deadlines and publication be available a little later for 2021 to allow clubs and ride organizers more time to determine the details for their rides. An April publication ensures enough promotional time for spring invitational rides as well as helps get summer and fall rides on participants' calendars early!

Mailing List: Clubs/organizations must provide a mailing list of previous ride participants (or 2019 participants if they did not host a ride this year) in an Excel spreadsheet to Ride Illinois with separate columns for first name, last name, main address, additional address info (such as apartment or unit number), city, state, and zip. Please send a separate file of your members so that they receive the ride magazine, too. (Please note that it greatly helps our deduplication process if the first and last names are in separate fields. Also, we only want rider lists for the past one to two years, not earlier.)

Geographic Distribution: This depends on the mailing lists received from the clubs. Historically, many of the participating organizations have been from the Chicagoland area, so the majority of the addresses (but definitely not all) tend to be based in the same area. However, we invite all Illinois bike clubs to participate and welcome the opportunity to promote organized rides throughout the state.

Bike clubs must be current in their affiliation, meaning they have made a donation to Ride Illinois within the past year. If you are unsure of your status, please contact us at info@rideillinois.org.

Our fee covers printing of postcards and rack cards, postage, and other associated costs. It does not include the production of your ride's ad.