FAQ

Spin For Life is an indoor cycling event raising needed funds for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Click here to register today. You can even start or join a corporate or community team. Start training and start fundraising. (Each participant commits to raising a minimum of $250 in 2020).

November 21, 2020 is event day!

The event is an 8-hour spinning relay (indoor cycling). We want you to spin your heart out for one hour and then somebody else will take over your position.

You can participate with your own spin bike at home or in one of our spin studio “hubs”. We’ll all be connected by the live stream event broadcast — so you and your team can participate from anywhere in the world!

Our goal: cycle around the circumference of the globe together in just 8 hours!

Spin For Life’s COVID-19 safety procedures are built on the guidance of the Government of Canada and the World Health Organization. We update these periodically as new research and health information informs practices.

There are two ways to participate in Spin For Life on November 21, 2020: Home or Hub. Each comes with different safety strategies.

1. Participate at Home

Your home should already be a safe space for you, your family, and any members of your regular cohort. If you choose to participate in Spin 2020 at home, the key requirement is that you already have your own stationary bike or outdoor bike on an indoor trainer. You should follow regular hygiene practices — wipe sweat away from your bike with a clean towel, use disinfectant spray and a cloth to wipe down your bike and the floor after each use, especially the handlebars, resistance knob, bike seat, and top of the bike frame. You should only be sharing your bike with people who live with you or are part of your cohort. If you or anyone you are in contact with is feeling sick or is displaying symptoms of COVID-19, isolate, seek medical attention, and get a COVID-19 test. 

2. Participate in a Hub

“Hub” participation means choosing to participate in Spin For Life 2020 in a partnered spin studio or fitness facility. Near the end of October 2020, we will ask you to select which Hub you’ll be participating at (out of a growing list with locations around the world). All Spin 2020 Hubs will be adhering to minimum guidelines; these will include:

• 3-metre radius of distance between stationary bikes (unless plexiglass or other physical dividers are employed by the specific Hub location)
• Masks worn when not actively exercising
• Masks worn by all staff and volunteers
• No fans or forced air circulation
• No shared food or water fountains
• (Currently) No showering or change room access
• Spinners for a given Spin Hour will enter the Hub 15 minutes before their Spin Hour begins and will vacate the Hub no later than 15 minutes after their Spin Hour ends
• Each Hub will alternate an hour of spinning with an hour of cleaning
• At the end of their hour, each Spinner will be required to thoroughly wipe down and disinfect their bike and the surrounding area (cleaning products will be provided)
• We suggest each Spinner wipe and disinfect their bike before they begin spinning, as an added precaution
• During each Cleaning Hour the Hub will be vacated by all Spinners; staff and volunteers will remain in order to deep clean and disinfect the Spinning areas and common areas of the Hub
• Alternating Spin and Cleaning Hours help us ensure that groups of Spinners do not cross over with each other — this helps limit the possibility of transmission
• Larger Hubs that have more than one defined spinning area will alternate Spinning and Cleaning Hours in an offset pattern so that Spinners will be active in the large Hub during every consecutive hour of Spin 2020 but groups of Spinners will not be able to congregate in common spaces
• Sanitizing wipes, disinfectant spray, hand sanitizer, and disposable masks will be made available at all Hubs

Most importantly, Spin For Life is a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society, specifically geared to improving the lives and health of cancer survivors and patients — most of whom are immunocompromised. We have many cancer survivors and patients in treatment who are participating in Spin For Life. Please, please, please do everything you can to support our community’s health including not coming to a Hub on Spin Day 2020 if you are feeling sick, are showing symptoms of COVID-19, or have been recently exposed to someone with COVID-19. Instead, isolate, consult a medical professional, and get tested. By opting out to keep others safe, you’ll be the type of hero we need right now.

Donations go directly to the Canadian Cancer Society — 100%.

And no event costs get billed out of donations. We hate it when donations pay for the event. Just like you, we want donations to fund cancer research and care. So that’s what they do. 100%. Always.

Donors can choose to allocate their donation to a number of key Canadian Cancer Society programs including regional research grants, clinical trials, patient travel, and COVID-19 emergency cancer funds. Find out more here.

Sponsors, patrons, and registration fees.

Like we said above: we never cover event costs by taking from donations.

Spin For Life is a third-party organization (meaning we are not the property of the Canadian Cancer Society) but we do exist expressly to fundraise for the CCS. This allows us to be very clear about where money goes — donations go to the CCS, sponsorships and fees come to Spin to pay for the event and marketing (which motivates more donations to the CCS).

Have we mentioned, we love our sponsors?!

Step 1: Click Here.

Registration costs $15.

*2020 is a weird year so our usual fees and minimums have changed but we hope you find them even more accessible.

And if you were registered for a completely different cancer event that has been cancelled due to the pandemic, we will “adopt” you and waive your registration fee. #spinfam

Once registered, you’ll have your very own fundraising profile page. You can customize it and share it on social media or by email.

Ask your friends, family, colleagues, or friendly strangers to donate to your Spin For Life fundraising campaign — you can send them the link to your Spin profile or they can search your name after clicking the “Donate” button on spinforlife.ca.

To participate on November 21, 2020 you’ll have to raise a minimum of $250.

There is a $15 registration fee and you commit to raising a minimum of $250 for the Canadian Cancer Society.

*Lots of cancer events have been cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. If you were registered for a different cancer fundraiser, indicate that on the Spin For Life registration form and we will waive your registration fee. We want all of the cancer community to find a home in Spin For Life.

All abilities are welcome!

Don’t get us wrong, spinning for an hour is hard work, but we constantly strive to make Spin For Life as inclusive as possible.

Indoor cycling is low risk, the bike is stationary, you can do it in shorts and running shoes, and you can adapt how hard are you are pedalling at any given moment.

We also work with great partners who help identify adaptive spinning options like arm bikes and low-impact floor pedallers.

In a Hub, NO. At home, YES.

Spin For Life is a digital relay around the world. Every hour, a new group of Spinners takes on the challenge.

If you choose to participate at a spin studio Hub, you’ll spin for your chosen hour.

If you choose to participate from home, YES, you can spin as many of the 8 hours as you like — provided you aren’t planning to share your bike with other family members who need to spin their hours!

In a Hub, NO. At home, YES.

We have a growing list of spin studios, cycling gyms and fitness centres across Canada and around the world that are partnering with Spin For Life to be our Spin Day “Hubs” on November 21, 2020. About a month before the event we’ll prompt you to select which “Hub” you would like to spin in. If you choose to spin at a “Hub”, the bike will be there waiting for you.

If you have a stationary bike and internet connection at home, you can choose to participate at home. You’ll be able to access all of the event content and fitness instruction digitally through a private link we send you.

Our minimum age requirement is 6 years old. So long as you have guardian permission and can correctly fit the spin bike that you’ll be using, we welcome you to participate!

Please note that some of our spin studio Hubs have minimum age requirements that differ from our own (typically because of insurance reasons).

We have no upper age limit. So gather your oldest fellows and come spin!

Digitally, YES. In person, NO.

To follow the safest practices during the COVID-19 pandemic we are limiting in-person interaction at Spin Day Hubs to Spinners, volunteers, and necessary support personnel. 

That said, Spin For Life will be live streamed worldwide for any of your donors, friends, and supporters to watch. They’ll be able to comment on the stream to send you and all other Spinners well wishes.

You can participate from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection and access to an indoor bike!

The entire Spin For Life event including all of the spin instruction, cancer stories, and around-the-world journey is broadcast online. 

Spin from your own bike at home or choose to participate in one of our growing list of spin studio Hubs across Canada and the globe.

In future years, when the pandemic is no longer affecting our daily lives, Spin For Life will be hosted at one of AirSprint Private Aviation’s airplane hangars in Canada. If you’re not in Canada, you’ll still be able to participate digitally from anywhere in the world!

Spin For Life is a “Peer to Peer” fundraiser, meaning when you sign up you automatically have a participant profile page. Your profile page is your main method of collecting donations.

You can personalize your profile by adding photos and text to help tell your cancer story and why you are participating.

When someone wants to donate to your Spin For Life campaign — let’s say, your grandma — you can either send grandma the link to your Spin profile page or she can search for your name after clicking the “Donate” button at the top of any page on spinforlife.ca.

Once grandma is on your profile page she’ll see the big section titled “Donate to [Your Name] Now…” All she has to do is click there and fill out the donation form. 

Grandma’s donation will show up on your Spin profile and increase your fundraising total.

100% of all donations go to the Canadian Cancer Society.

All eligible donations receive a tax receipt.

If you need help fundraising, our Spin For Life team is here to help. We have text and email templates that you can work from when you ask family, friends, and coworkers for donations, but we also have a wealth of ideas and support systems to help you raise funds by hosting events, busking, mobilizing social media — we’re here to help — but, ultimately, you need to be prepared to go out on a limb and ask people to commit to a cancer cause you care about. Call us at 1-888-508-9277 if you want to chat.

You can donate directly through the Spin For Life website by clicking here. Once on that page you can search for which participant or team campaign you’d like to contribute to, click through to their profile, select a donation amount from their page (or choose to enter your own amount), fill out the necessary tax and credit card information and voila!

If you prefer donating by phone, mail, or in person, call us at 1-888-508-9277, print out a donation form (using the below button) or visit the Spin For Life team at the Canadian Cancer Society office at 200, 325 Manning Road NE in Calgary, Alberta.

Tax receipts for eligible donations will be issued through the Spin For Life website on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society. If eligible, receipts are sent approximately one week after a donation is made.

Absolutely!

Spin teams work as one. If one person on the team fundraises, say, $100, that $100 counts towards the team’s total. 

Let’s do some easy math:

When you register for Spin For Life, you agree to raise a minimum of $250 in 2020. Let’s say your team has 4 members. Each of you has a minimum of $250 to raise. That makes the team minimum 4 x $250 = $1,000. One of your team members, Ariel, is a fundraising rockstar and raises $750. That leaves only $250 for the other three members to raise between you to hit the full team minimum. And you’re ready to Spin!

YES! We need lots of volunteers all across Canada and around the world. Join the newsletter and we’ll keep you up to date with how to sign up to volunteer.

Yes, November 21, 2020 is our new event date. 

The change is part of our response to keep things safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than cancel Spin 2020 we opted to make it the best digital cancer fundraiser around. Going digital means anyone anywhere in Canada or around the world can participate which is awesome! But it meant we needed to line up with the Canadian Cancer Society’s national events calendar and November 21, 2020 was the best date.