Welcome to Pedaling4Paws

Each year during the last week of June, a group of cyclists and animal lovers depart on a Tuesday morning from West Chester, PA on a 5 day, 500 mile charity bike ride to support local SPCAs and Animal Shelters along their route. The event is called Pedaling4Paws.

The trip goes through 7 counties in Pennsylvania and 5 counties in New York, and it arrives at the Canadian border in Ogdensburg New York in the early afternoon 5 days after departing.  Each year, the founders of the event invite others to join them on the ride and to help raise money and awareness for the SPCAs/shelters. You can follow their progress (or review past years) by visiting their blog and Facebook page.

Announcing the 2012 Pedaling4Paws Limited Edition Jersey!

Custom created by world-renownd designer, Juan Vela, this Limited Edition 2012 Pedaling4Paws jersey is available for ordering from September 21, 2011 to October 7th, 2011. If you want one, email jersey @ pedaling4paws.org with your name, address, phone, jersey size and the number of jerseys you want in that size. They are unisex jerseys, in what can be called a 'club' cut (slightly looser fitting). The cost is $50 per jersey with a portion of the cost going to the cause and the rest to the cost of the jersey!

Here's the design as delivered through Juan Vela Studio... Express your interest, show your support and let us know how many you want!

Why Pedaling4Paws?

In what started as an idea to ride a bike to the Canadian border, Mike Van Ryn and Viktor Ohnjec, members of the West Chester Cycling Club mapped out a 4-day, 465 mile route they planned to follow in late June 2009. They didn’t plan to make the ride a charity event but Mike’s brother offered to contribute $1 per mile to the Chester County SPCA.  From that point forward the ride took on a life of its own.  Word spread to the local community and donations started to come in.  By September, the Chester County SPCA was presented with checks totaling over $2000 from the money collected on behalf of the ride.

In 2010, Mike and Viktor were joined by Gary Bianchini and several other riders who rode with them for between a few hours and a few days. The 2010 donations were over $5000. In 2011, the Pedaling4Paws initiative surpassed their goal of $10,000 and grew both in the number of overall riders (over 20 at various points of the ride) and in mileage (over 500 miles to accommodate visits to SPCAs/shelters). Start planning your calendar for 2012 and future years!

Help us to spread the word! Join a fuure ride, tell local merchants or companies where fellow cyclist and animal lovers live and work and help make each year's Pedaling4Paws event the best ever!

How can you get involved?

• Join us on our 5-day ride from the last Tuesday of June each year - for all or even a portion of the ride
• Meet us along the way - see the day-by-day route
• Donate to your local SPCA or animal shelter
• Sponsor the ride directly or through your company
• See who is already involved...

Please track us on our blog!

When we start riding, we share updates on our progress through our blog:

http://pedaling4paws.wordpress.com/

We post updates approximately every 2 hours when riding.

Starting the 2011 Pedaling4Paws ride.

Day 4 - Pedaling4Paws Grows!