Today I found myself purely by chance downtown with about 100 other cyclists chasing down motorcycle police escorts as we rode around in a huge gaggle promoting bike awareness. I gotta admit… it was much more fun chasing the cops than the opposite! Ha ha. Anyways, while I walked around awaiting the ride to begin (apparently about 15k) I noticed most people came with friends. While I do have several friends currently who have jumped aboard the bike bandwagon with me and now have 2 wheels, they still don’t come out to these kinds of fun functions. I think it is now my next personal goal to get them out. It really is the best thing peddling alongside someone you don’t know at all but you have one thing in common… the bike. Actually, chances are there is a few other things you may have in common… nature, green movement, exercise to name but a few.
As it turned out, the ride was terribly slow. Painfully slow in fact but then… it was more about the awareness and less about seeing who can peddle fast and who cant. The slow pace kept the huge group together as one and that was a good thing. It was very entertaining to observe the several hundred pedestrians, other cyclists and drivers held up by our motorcycle police escorts as we cruised along (about a football field and a half in length). Some people actually clapped as we passed them! I don’t know if they thought Lance Armstrong was winning or not but it was the thought that counts I guess.
I am not unaccustomed to this kind of group rider attention anymore. Last year I met up with more complete strangers and began riding once every two months roughly with a bunch of riders during an event called Night Ride. BikeBike bike shop promotes this event and it begins at 8pm on a full moon evening and we ride all around downtown with our blinkie lights and funky bikes and bells going dingy dingy. It’s great exposure for one thing and its just the best fun on a bike. Riding at night add’s a whole new level of romanticism to the whole thing.
Well… I hope those of you near me who have bikes feel inclined to ride with me on one of these things. I know you wont regret it one bit.
Cheers
Scotty
Here is a video I made of the event’s ride part
That’s not a stranger – that’s me (and my son, SIlas)!
Speedy J
Lol. Awesome. You’re not a stranger now. Cheers.