Friday, March 30, 2012

Ride On Washington

Leading up to the National Bike Summit was the Ride On Washington. This ride was organized by Tim Johnson, of cyclocross fame, who wanted to get more professional bike riders involved in the Bike Summit. This year there were 20 people doing the whole ride from Boston to DC. They used the ride as a Bikes Belong fund raiser. The had various sponsors including Volkswagen who published this video.


They had a plan for people to join the ride as thy came through DC. Since I drove to Arlington and then rode my bike into DC. I rode the Ride On Washington route backwards and panned to meet up with the group. I found a group waiting for the ride and decided to wait with them. It was fun riding in. The first part was a two-way bike lane on the side of 15th Street. Then we turned onto Pennsylvania Ave which was bike lanes in the middle of the road. It all went very smooth and I chatted with some of the local riders as well as several people who had riden all the way from Boston.

It was a good prelude to the Bike Summit. I learned my around the part of DC I needed for the Summit and started feeling some of the excitement. One of my favorite parts of the week was being around people who liked talking about bicycle issues and even bicycles themselves.

Some of the riders in front of the Capitol

The crowd wasn't all spandex and carbon fiber as shown by these two photos.


Gunnar was ready to ride
Ivette from Bikes Belong

Monday, March 19, 2012

National Bike Summit

I am heading to the National Bike Summit this week. Watch this space for reports with a North Carolina perspective.

Tuesday: Hopefully joining the last leg of Ride On Washington
Wednesday: Getting on message with the Bike League and others
Thursday: Visiting Capitol Hill
Friday: Ride with staff, Congressmen and Senators