Posts tagged “Ride Civil”  

Quick Reminder — RideCivil’s next ride is this coming Friday, check www.ridecivil.com for details and the blog for the latest news. We had a great ride last month, with quite a few folks and wonderful weather. It’s looking pretty good this week too, hope to see you there.

The wave of press on RideCivil continues at the Seattle PI’s the Big Blog. There’s a shout-out to Bikehugger.com in there too.

Much of the post is about the differences (and similarities) between RideCivil and Critical Mass. Amazingly, the comment tide hasn’t yet turned, it’s about 50/50 between pro-cyclists and against. Hop on over and make your voice heard on the PI site, or on the RideCivil blog.

RideCivil.com is alive, baby! We’ve got our landing page up, as well as our blog. Check in there for our ride announcements, ride reports, the video of the 8/8/08 ride being swarmed by scooters, all your RideCivil needs.

We came, we rode, we smiled (and waved). August’s Ridecivil was a smash success — we had about 30 riders, news coverage by the major outlets, a ton of fun, and no traffic conflicts.

We also learned a ton about how to conduct a large ride like this. Before we left the park I asked the riders to take responsibility for their own riding, for keeping the group as a whole together, and to agree to a few basic principals and goals. I have to admit, my little speech didn’t instantly convert the crew into a synchronized cycling team, but we kept it together across many red lights, merges and turns. Big thanks to all the riders for this, especially the leads and sweeps.

Reminder: today is our monthly RideCivil event. We’ll gather between 5:30 and 6:15 at Westlake Center park, then have a socially paced, unscripted group ride through down town with a focus on fun, safety and civility between all road users.

We’ve received a lot of attention this month, including some help hosting our own site (the blog’s coming, I swear!), some artwork, and even some press on KUOW. Special thanks to the folks making it happen. Speaking of, come on down and make it happen this evening. Hope to see you there!

RideCivil™ is a Bike Hugger gift to the cycling community — our response to recent Critical Mass violence in Seattle, NYC, and elsewhere. You are free to remix, re-use, and share the RideCivil artwork as a flyer, shirt, jerseys, socks, thong bikini, tattoo, or whatever works. Please blog and link love it. We hope other cyclists RideCivil in their communities. Watch for a related website and ride plans to follow.

The RideCivil mark and artwork are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

The artwork was created by Drew Carlson and distributed by Bike Hugger.

A 300 DPI, PDF version is available for download here.

With all the (well deserved) concern over the recent Aloha Incident on this month’s Critical Mass lots of people have been wondering what they can do to promote civility, cooperation and good feelings between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. I’m sure there are many good ideas, but please take the opportunity to demonstrate your civility on our next RideCivil ride.

Note: RideCivil doesn’t cork or block traffic, and I’m not at all clear where KPLU heard that we do. Thanks to Byron for the plug on KUOW.

Meet at: Westlake Center park
When: Starting around 5:30, but generally not departing until 6:15. Aug 8 (2nd Friday of the month)
Route, Destination, Duration and Pace: Determined by participants, including a post-ride sit down someplace with food and drink. We usually ride more than an hour at a no-body-left-behind social pace.

Just finished a KUOW interview on Critical Mass and RideCivil. I’ve been traveling and wasn’t totally prepared, but we’ll post more about RideCivil, as soon as we’ve got details.

Related Posts

• Critical Mass
• RideCivil
• Please Ride Legally

Reminder: This Friday is our monthly RideCivil event. We’ll gather between 5:30 and 6:15 at Westlake Center park, then have a socially paced, unscripted group ride through down town with a focus on fun, safety and civility between all road users. My daughter likes to call it the Smile and Wave ride, and that’s not far off — maybe we can spread a little hugga love through the streets of our fair city, even on Friday the 13th.

This is our ‘change your luck’ ride, and by change we mean change for the better. If the weather’s any indicator things should be looking up for those of us in grey and rainy Seattle. As for me, I could use a bit more good luck. On Tuesday’s ride home I got screwed. Bolted, technically, but it all adds up the same. How’s your cycling luck been recently? What’s the gnarliest thing you’ve extracted from your tires?

As always we’ll be riding Seattle’s downtown this month to promote civility between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrian. This month it’ll be the Change Your Luck ride, bring your lucky charms whatever they may be. We’ll meet at Westlake Center around 5:30-5:45, chat for a few (pick an ultimate destination, maybe one with beer and food) minutes while we wait for any late arrivals and depart around 6:15. There is no no fixed route, we’ll decide as we ride based on what looks fun. The pace is very social, no one left behind.

The goals are to promote cycling as an integral part of our city’s traffic, demonstrate civility in action between roadway users, and to have fun doing it. The more folks out riding the safer we all are, so let’s get out and ride!

Our Next RideCivil is just 3 weeks away, so drop an appointment on to your calendars for May 9 around 5:30 at Westlake Center park as always.

April’s ride went well, starting off with some bicycle diversity — me on the folding fixie, Eric on the dutch bike + schlumpf mountain drive, and a nice gentlemen who showed up to on is 192 speed tricycle (sorry, missed your name!) and Michael representing for the rest of you on a non-folding, 2 wheeled, non-internally geared bike. Micheal and Eric and I had a great ride around the city, including Bikestation, the water front, and eventually all the way up Capitol Hill for a meal and some suds at the Elysian. Many good vibes were spread, including to the tow-truck drivers with the moutain bike on the back. The weather did not cooperate for the aquatic theme — it was gorgeous, sunny, and warm. All future RideCivils will bear the aquatic banner in hope of similar conditions.

Kent pointed out this video on his site earlier this week. It’s a great reminder about how to ride in traffic safely. We’ll be using techniques like these on this month’s RideCivil, but we won’t be throwing around terms like Lane Control Position. Instead we’ll be focusing on riding safe and civil, having a good time, and spreading some good vibes around to our fellow road users. Hope to see you there.

p.s. The weather’s shaping up, so I won’t be too surprised if you leave your swim-fins at home.

The next Ridecivil ride is queued up for this coming Friday. The 10 day forecast looks a bit damp so I’ve themed this the Aquatic April ride. Bring your snorkel for your helmet, flippers for your cleats, swimsuit instead of your favorite woolly knickers, whatever you like. Just bring yourself on down for a fun Friday ride. As always our focus will be on promoting civility between pedestrians, motorists and ourselves.

Meet at 5:30 at Westlake Center park, we’ll depart around 6:15 for an hour plus, consensus driven ride through our fair city. Destination TBD, but generally involves food and drinks. Looking forward to seeing you there.

p.s. Don’t forget a snorkel lock. It sucks to have your snorkel stolen.

What a great spring ride. We had a nice intimate crowd (less than 20, more than 3 although pretty close to that number) and fantastic weather. We spent just a small amount of time in downtown (route here) , voting instead to head up towards Queen Anne, Eastlake and then under/along I-5 back through to S. Lake Union. We stopped off at the Cafe Venus/Mars Bar for a bit of food and some beer before heading our respective ways.

My favorite part of the ride was the smell of spring in the air, shocking lack of rain, and how much sun we all got. I’m still tan from it!

We’ll resume our normal 2nd Friday schedule for next month’s April RideCivil. Check back here for details. Photos from the ride at the Bikehugger Urban group.

Quick reminder: RideCivil is coming up this Friday, 5:30 PM at Westlake Center. Now’s your chance to participate in a ride focusing on positive interactions between pedestrians, motorists and cyclists in Seattle. Should be a great first Spring ride, I’m planning on bringing along some tunes. If you’ve got suggestions for the playlist please post a note in the comments section.

Keep the date! We usually do RideCivils on the 2nd Friday of every month, but how could I resist riding on the Vernal Equinox and 1st day of spring (almost)! The official equinox is actually on the 20th, but we’ll call it good and ride out Friday evening, 5:30 from Westlake Center. Looking forward to a little more light for the ride, hoping for better weather and more riders.

Despite a threatening weather report we got a very reasonable turnout for last night’s RideCivil — 5 growing to 7 as we recruited a few more riders along the way. We managed to overcome the persistent drizzle around 5:30, and by the time we hit the road around 6:15 the rain dried right up. Our route meandered about 9 miles (props to Kat for the map!) through downtown on several big loops, and ultimately headed south to the Elysian Fields pub for a bit of food and beer before I had to head out. It was great to see folks from many different cycling communities coming together (Cascade, .83, Seattle Likes Bikes, and various commuters) all representing. Next time the Big Boom Box will definitely work.

Next up we’ll have a couple strategy and planning discussions, as well as announcement of next month’s ride. Check back here for future updates.

Well, RideCivil’s taken a bit of a winter break but it’s time to get back in the saddle and ride. Come join us for a civilized ride through downtown, emphasizing the integration of cyclists, civilians and car drivers on our road ways. Route is TBD on departure, but we’ll probably ride for around an hour at a social pace through our fair city. Generally those who show make the ride their own, but the spirit of the ride is light, fun, and cooperative. Hoping to see you there!

Friday looks like it’s going to be as nice as Thanksgiving here in Seattle, brisk but clear, a great day for an evening ride!

The media climate is shaping up as well: check out this recent SeattlePI letter to the editor criticizing Critical Mass. I’m not 100% down with Mr. Dudley, but I definitely am down with having a down-town ride that’s a bit more integrated and a bit less confrontational than CM. Hopefully that’s just what we need here in Sea-town. Mr. Dudley, we’d love to have you and anybody else who’s wanted to come to CM rides but been put off by it’s reputation.

We’ll meet around 5:30 at Westlake Center in downtown. We’ll plan on leaving shortly after 6:00, and wrapping up the ride around 7:30. See you there.

You’re cordially invited to our next Ride Civil ride (formerly Critical Man-nerds) this coming Friday the 23rd. Meet at Westlake Center, 5:30 pm.

All Ride Civil rides will focus on getting cyclists out on the streets, driving awareness of cyclists and cycling rights, having fun, and encouraging civil behavior between cyclists, motorists and pedistrians. This is your chance to come out and show Seattle traffic cyclists are here to stay and that we can share the roads with them without conflicts.

It’ll also be a great chance to get out and be social with other cyclists, maybe burn off a bit of that thanksgiving weight or haul back your Black Friday loot. So please bring your selves, your bike (cargo or otherwise), and your sense of humor and fun down to Westlake Center at 5:30 PM. We’ll go bike bus style — 2 abreast, social speed, no one left behind.

There’s another cargo bike focused ride earlier in the day for those who can’t make the later time.

p.s. We’re not stopping for any shopping, so get yours out of the way early, eh? See you there!