To raise awareness of the horror of slaughter and the injustice of what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank and other Mideast countries. To raise money for humanitarian aid for Gaza and local peace organizations, and to lobby Congress to end the war.
RAW GAZA Supports
An immediate and sustainable ceasefire and release of all hostages.
The suspension of all unrestricted military aid for Israel.
Increased unconditional humanitarian aid.
Freezing settlements on the West Bank.
Ending the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Stopping all attacks against civilians in Israel, Palestine and neighboring countries.
The international investigation of war crimes by Israel and Hamas.
Opposing all discrimination against Jews and Muslims but stop using false charges of antisemitism to quell criticism against Israel.
Releasing and halting deportation proceedings against all those detained for participation in nonviolent antiwar protests.
Petition
RAW GAZA and its supporters will circulate a petition with the above demands in each state he passes through and either hand-deliver them to the local offices of US Representatives and Senators in those states when it passes through.
The Ride
This will be about a 4000-mile plus ride on a gravel bike (though mostly on paved roads) leaving May 28 from San Francisco, CA and arriving early September in Portsmouth, NH. It will be a solo unsupported ride by Bob Sanders, a Jewish 70-year-old former reporter, fifty years after he accomplished a similar feat when he was in college.
Previous RAW GAZA Rides:
Bob has completed two other RAW GAZA tours last summer in Northern New England and NH-DC, riding more than 30 days, totaling about 1400 miles, raising more than $10,000 and were covered in the Concord Monitor, the Central Maine Newspapers, WMUR, the Union Leader, and the Between the Lines radio show. More about the previous rides can be found on the RAW GAZA Facebook page. Each of those rides had one rider for a day. The tours endorsers included Not In My Name NH (Coordinating Committee); Jewish Voice for Peace VT/NH: NH Veterans for Peace, the New Hampshire Peace Action Educational Fund, New Hampshire Conference, of the United Church of Christ, Peace with Justice Advocates: the Palestinian Education Network: Baltimore Bicycle Works; New Jersey Peace Action; CeaseFireNow NJ: Jewish Voice for Peace Northern NJ.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Endorsement
This means RAW GAZA can put down your organization as endorsing the ride on press releases, literature etc. and for you to publicize the ride among your membership. Endorsement does not require any financial or material support.
Donate
Half the money RAW GAZA raises will go to humanitarian aid, via AFSC. A quarter will go to Peace Action, and a quarter will go to Not In My Name and other Jewish peace groups. Those who wish to donate can do so at the NH Peace Action donation page on their website, or via a check to NH Peace Action sent to 4 Park St.Suite 304, Concord, NH 03301. Just put RAW GAZA in the note or memo field. There is also a GoFundMe page. Those who want to just donate to expenses for the ride, should write a check to BikingOld, and send it to 99 Warren St, Concord NH 03301.
Riders
Supporters are welcome to ride, but they will be responsible for their own equipment, provisions, expenses and safety. Groups can get the word out and coordinate a time and meeting place for people to ride with RAW GAZA for an hour or part of the day. Those who wish to ride longer should have experience in long distance biking and contact Bob directly.
Hosts
Much of the cost of the trip will be offset by hosts, which could be your group, one if its members or others willing to help out. Hosts will shelter and feed Bob and any fellow riders. (Bob will also carry a tent and sleeping bag, so he could camp on a supporter’s property.) RAW GAZA is looking for any national and/or regional host coordinators.
Events Generally, RAW GAZA should arrive at each destination sometime in the afternoon, so a small reception or potluck after 6 pm in any destination should work, but he can also change things around so it could be a morning event the next day, or could attend an existing event, or join a petition drive at a fair or a vigil. Bob will just show up and say a few words, circulate the petition but it will be up to your group to organize it. If your group wants to make this into a fundraiser, you can keep any money raised. Event coordinators for cities on the tour will be helpful.
Media
Bob will attempt to do a press release media in all the cities he’s passing through, but your group can supply local media contacts, send your own releases on events and/or follow up with the local media that you already have relationships with. National, regional and local media coordinators wanted! Also someone who wants to help spread the word in various social media, particular Instagram, X, Blu Sky, Tick Tock, etc. Graphic artists to design logo, literature
Political/Medical/Legal
Set up meetings with local officials and the offices of national ones, to help collect and deliver petitions, etc, Health care providers or attorneys, to assist if needed.
THE ROUTE
RAW GAZA considering two routes depending on which will generate more support. (Both subject to change)
Bob Sanders biked across the USA in 1975 when — he was a student at Oberlin College — a year before the “bike-centennial,” a feat memorialized in Newsday, his first published article. After a period of activist journalism – 1978-1985 — where he founded and edited Community in Philadelphia, Bob went to Columbia Journalism School and joined the mainstream media working as the Syracuse Post Standard, starting up Granite News Service in New Hampshire and reporting for the NH Business Review for 30 years, where he won numerous awards, including the NH Journalist of the year in 2019.. After retiring in 2023, Bob planned to recreate his X-country trip 50 years later, only this time for a cause, founding BikingOLD, or BOLD. He went on two trips to get back into shape, one round trip from Raleigh, NC to Atlanta, and the other round trip from Concord, NH to Syracuse and Binghamton and back.
Originally Bob wanted to do the ride to defend and expand Medicare and Medicaid – causes he still believes in — but repurposed his riding after Israel’s catastrophic overreaction to the brutal October 7 attack. He felt that as a Jew, he must speak out against this ethnic cleansing and founded Not In My Name, NH, which has put ads in newspapers, lobbied lawmakers and showed educational films, and sponsored speakers. Bob is NIMN’s representative to the Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East. In 2024, he founded Ride Against War on Gaza (RAWGAZA), did a Tristate tour in Northern New England, passing through all the state’s capitals and largest cities, and NH-DC tour from Concord to Washington DC where he petitioned and lobbied lawmakers from the states that he passed through
Bob, who lives in Concord, NH, can be reached at bob.gns@gmail.com and at 603-224-6124.
Purpose
To raise awareness of the horror of slaughter and the injustice of what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank and other Mideast countries. To raise money for humanitarian aid for Gaza and local peace organizations, and to lobby Congress to end the war.
RAW GAZA Supports
Petition
RAW GAZA and its supporters will circulate a petition with the above demands in each state he passes through and either hand-deliver them to the local offices of US Representatives and Senators in those states when it passes through.
The Ride
This will be about a 4000-mile plus ride on a gravel bike (though mostly on paved roads) leaving May 28 from San Francisco, CA and arriving early September in Portsmouth, NH. It will be a solo unsupported ride by Bob Sanders, a Jewish 70-year-old former reporter, fifty years after he accomplished a similar feat when he was in college.
Previous RAW GAZA Rides:
Bob has completed two other RAW GAZA tours last summer in Northern New England and NH-DC, riding more than 30 days, totaling about 1400 miles, raising more than $10,000 and were covered in the Concord Monitor, the Central Maine Newspapers, WMUR, the Union Leader, and the Between the Lines radio show. More about the previous rides can be found on the RAW GAZA Facebook page. Each of those rides had one rider for a day. The tours endorsers included Not In My Name NH (Coordinating Committee); Jewish Voice for Peace VT/NH: NH Veterans for Peace, the New Hampshire Peace Action Educational Fund, New Hampshire Conference, of the United Church of Christ, Peace with Justice Advocates: the Palestinian Education Network: Baltimore Bicycle Works; New Jersey Peace Action; CeaseFireNow NJ: Jewish Voice for Peace Northern NJ.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Endorsement
This means RAW GAZA can put down your organization as endorsing the ride on press releases, literature etc. and for you to publicize the ride among your membership. Endorsement does not require any financial or material support.
Donate
Half the money RAW GAZA raises will go to humanitarian aid, via AFSC. A quarter will go to Peace Action, and a quarter will go to Not In My Name and other Jewish peace groups. Those who wish to donate can do so at the NH Peace Action donation page on their website, or via a check to NH Peace Action sent to 4 Park St.Suite 304, Concord, NH 03301. Just put RAW GAZA in the note or memo field. There is also a GoFundMe page. Those who want to just donate to expenses for the ride, should write a check to BikingOld, and send it to 99 Warren St, Concord NH 03301.
Riders
Supporters are welcome to ride, but they will be responsible for their own equipment, provisions, expenses and safety. Groups can get the word out and coordinate a time and meeting place for people to ride with RAW GAZA for an hour or part of the day. Those who wish to ride longer should have experience in long distance biking and contact Bob directly.
Hosts
Much of the cost of the trip will be offset by hosts, which could be your group, one if its members or others willing to help out. Hosts will shelter and feed Bob and any fellow riders. (Bob will also carry a tent and sleeping bag, so he could camp on a supporter’s property.) RAW GAZA is looking for any national and/or regional host coordinators.
Events
Generally, RAW GAZA should arrive at each destination sometime in the afternoon, so a small reception or potluck after 6 pm in any destination should work, but he can also change things around so it could be a morning event the next day, or could attend an existing event, or join a petition drive at a fair or a vigil. Bob will just show up and say a few words, circulate the petition but it will be up to your group to organize it. If your group wants to make this into a fundraiser, you can keep any money raised. Event coordinators for cities on the tour will be helpful.
Media
Bob will attempt to do a press release media in all the cities he’s passing through, but your group can supply local media contacts, send your own releases on events and/or follow up with the local media that you already have relationships with. National, regional and local media coordinators wanted! Also someone who wants to help spread the word in various social media, particular Instagram, X, Blu Sky, Tick Tock, etc. Graphic artists to design logo, literature
Political/Medical/Legal
Set up meetings with local officials and the offices of national ones, to help collect and deliver petitions, etc, Health care providers or attorneys, to assist if needed.
THE ROUTE
RAW GAZA considering two routes depending on which will generate more support. (Both subject to change)
Middle route as a whole (Boulder) 3939 miles
Northern route as a whole route (Minn) 4085 miles
JUNE: CA, OR, ID, WY
June detailed 1206 miles (both routes)
5/28 Fly to SF
5/29 SF, CA
5/30-31 Oakland, CA
6/2 Sacramento, CA
6/10 Adel, OR
6/16 -17 Bosie, ID
6/25-26 Jackson, WY (Grand Teton)
JULY (COLORADO/NEBRASKA/IOWA)
July Boulder route detailed 1866 miles
7/6 -7/7 Boulder-Denver CO
7/18-7/19 Lincoln-Omaha , NE
7/23-24 Des Moise IA
7/27 Cedar rapids, IA
JULY (SD, MN, WI)
July Minn route detailed 1659 miles
7/8 Pine Ridge reservation SD
7/15-18 Sioux Falls SD
7/21-22 Minneapolis, MN
7/28- Madison, WI
7/29-30 Milwaukee, Wi
AUGUST IL, MI, OH,PA,NY, MA,NH
August detailed 1283 miles (both routes)
8/1-2 Chicago, IL
8/7 Ann Arbor, MI
8/8-9 Detroit, MI
8/12 Oberlin, OH
8/13-14 Cleveland, OH
8/15 Erie, PA
8/18-19 Buffalo, NY
8/21 Rochester, NY
8/22-23 Syracuse, NY
8/27 Schenectady/Albany, NY
8/29-8/30 Amherst, MA
8/31 Keene, NH
9/1 Manchester, NH (Labor Day)
9/2 Portsmouth, NH
9/3 Concord, NH
THE LEAD RIDER
Bob Sanders biked across the USA in 1975 when — he was a student at Oberlin College — a year before the “bike-centennial,” a feat memorialized in Newsday, his first published article. After a period of activist journalism – 1978-1985 — where he founded and edited Community in Philadelphia, Bob went to Columbia Journalism School and joined the mainstream media working as the Syracuse Post Standard, starting up Granite News Service in New Hampshire and reporting for the NH Business Review for 30 years, where he won numerous awards, including the NH Journalist of the year in 2019.. After retiring in 2023, Bob planned to recreate his X-country trip 50 years later, only this time for a cause, founding BikingOLD, or BOLD. He went on two trips to get back into shape, one round trip from Raleigh, NC to Atlanta, and the other round trip from Concord, NH to Syracuse and Binghamton and back.
Originally Bob wanted to do the ride to defend and expand Medicare and Medicaid – causes he still believes in — but repurposed his riding after Israel’s catastrophic overreaction to the brutal October 7 attack. He felt that as a Jew, he must speak out against this ethnic cleansing and founded Not In My Name, NH, which has put ads in newspapers, lobbied lawmakers and showed educational films, and sponsored speakers. Bob is NIMN’s representative to the Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East. In 2024, he founded Ride Against War on Gaza (RAWGAZA), did a Tristate tour in Northern New England, passing through all the state’s capitals and largest cities, and NH-DC tour from Concord to Washington DC where he petitioned and lobbied lawmakers from the states that he passed through
Bob, who lives in Concord, NH, can be reached at bob.gns@gmail.com and at 603-224-6124.
Details