Singer/Songwriter to Perform at 10 to 17 NBG Mayors Ride Cities: SF or LA to Chicago!!

I've sent a lot of excitement out over the on line ethers here over the years, but this is probably one of the biggest breakthroughs I have ever had the privilege to announce. Singer/Songwriter Claire Machado http://www.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Cam_Engine , the beautiful and talented musician, who with her daughter, Brianna, has thrilled NBG Fest http://nbg.bikeroute.com/gallery/santacruznbgfest2003 crowds for two years now, will be hitting the road WITH us next summer!! From San Francisco (and maybe LA or San Diego) to Chicago as per this schedule draft that Jim Redd will soon be working his magic on to embellish: http://www.BikeRoute.com/NationalMayorsRide2004 , theirs will be one of the few fossil fuel powered trips that will ever get my blessing. You see, where Car Free is concerned, I have always felt that if a vehicle trip moves at minimum a handful of people or transports goods (or a large quantity thereof) that are hard to move on a bike, that such trips are worthy.

Well, as per Claire's bombshell below, and based on our subsequent telecon, she will be adding much substance to our proclamation ceremonies. Claire will be able to help administer our receptions and make sure that our NBG banner is in place, our literature is disseminated and that our riders, as well as those luminaries that are present, are all wearing NBG caps for the TV and newsprint that will be present. As the glue that will hold all of this together, armed with her credentials as a senior building code officer for the county of Santa Cruz, Claire will also use her knowledge of how city and county governments work to establish a dialogue with key road planning decision makers in each of the cities we celebrate in BEFORE we even get there. While at the ceremony itself she will preface her short performances with a call to action for the improvements these municipalities need to make to encourage cycling for their workers and really all those who make up the areas they serve.

What's more is that Claire will be doing advance work on our behalf as she lets radio audiences know about the road show, hers, ours and the bands that join her, that is coming their way.

And as if all of the above is not enough, as you will see below, she will be writing a song FOR the Greenway. And she is asking for your help. She wants her words to communicate the tremendous feeling of emancipation one gets from riding a bike. She wants to be able to express how the actions of the cyclist are so crucially needed to make this a more liveable planet. If you have ideas, please contact her at: thecrystalpig@yahoo.com !!

I hope you can see the power of this. It is gigrontous folks. Last year Jim Muellner http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide/JimMuellner broke new ground by riding the whole thing from DC to Santa Cruz while this year we can look forward to our first NBG musical ambassador.

Big P O W E R -- Yahoooooo WoW!!

At 3:02 PM -0800 11/23/03, Claire Machado wrote:
Martin..
Hope things are going well. I wanted to let you know I asked my boss about a six week leave of absence from work from June 11 to July 30th..He said as long as things were going well I would be able to go.. That means I can start booking shows from SF to Chicago and can go ahead of the riders to Radio and stuff..and then perform somewhere the night they will be in town.. maybe speak at events if you would like .. I could also serve as a rescue vehicle if the riders got stuck and needed help. I could camp along the way and take some video of the riders..I'd take an RV or hook a trailer up to my truck..

If I can get more time off, I could do some of the West Coast things too.. maybe do the southern leg.. I'd like to be able to get Houston in somehow.. I will be trying to press 1,000 CDs to get out to radio a few months in advance..I want to put a 'bike riding' song on the CD... .. can you and your riders help by giving me their feelings in writing?? I'd like to write a Greenway song that I can sing at the proclamtion ceremonies and press on to my CD. Music is all about capturing feelings to make a connection.. I would want to make this an uptempo song with lots of energy..

I met a number of musicians at the Road Rally.. The drummer from Teddy Pendergrass' band is in Baltimore.. I was going to try to talk him into doing the Northeast Route with your riders up there.. I am also going to try get 2 other bands for the trip from SF to Chicago..If I can interest a bigger name than me, I will try.. I liked one of the young hip bands from Louisville that I'd like to invite ...I can then book a full night for at a club.. I had hoped to do appearances at a few radio stations, music stores, coffee shops and bookstores along the way.. I've started a spreadsheet and research..

P.S. Everytime I get to a point when I think some things aren't possible ..I take a look at my piece of Space Shuttle tile ..and think that if it's possible to get a team of people that can fly a spaceship around the Earth.. it's possible to create a team to make bicycle safety for all citizens an absolute
necessity.. We need to believe that it is possible to decrease dependency on oil by promoting safe alternative routes of travel for the cost-effective mode of travel that the bicycle is.. The Mayors, with enough political support from the people, will have the ability to get legislation passed in their jurisdictions that directs their Planning staff to promote non-oil related modes of transportation. This will include creating safe connecting bike trails which will become the models for others as these leasders showcase them at the Mayor's conventions that they attend.. The more cities you can get interested the better..no matter where they are.. they will find their way to Chicago.. I will begin to look at the spoked routes idea with the new Street mapping software I got.. your map looks like the West and East are covered but we should work on those North and South routes.

Jody Fitch saves the (NBG) Day!!

Jody FItch gave his Saturday evening to the NBG effort and then some!! This, after having pretty recently moved, I had given him the wrong address which didn't even exist four blocks away. Unarmed with my phone number he still managed to find me 40 minutes late. How? Well when Jody described the bike I ride at one of the house doors he knocked on, the several blocks away neighbor told him of a garage he'd seen filled with bikes that might host the person he was looking for.

When Jody did get here, he got right to work telling me, for a solid three hours, what I needed to know to maintain our cutting edge web site, NationalBicycleGreenway.com. This as he documented a lot of what we talked about, everything from PHP to telnet to how a lot of the data bases that Andrew Morton and Jim Redd created for our site, interconnect with it. Since it was such a huge amount of information, he also pointed out web sites and other on line manuals where I could get the info I needed for that which I forgot or needed a better understanding of.

As we were calling it an evening, I asked him if he had any ideas for how I could get the gearing on my Linear Compact adjusted. Since I am heading over to Santa Cruz late next Friday, I had wanted to get my lower gears working for the several thousand feet of climbing I had in store for myself. Well another hour later and my Linear not only had a new used derailleur and chain, but it shifted once again thru the entire gear range! You see I had added a 60 tooth chain ring and thought that was the problem . But it was Jody who found the real culprit. It was the shifter I had changed on another occasion. So we used another derailleur I had in my spare parts inventory that better synched with the shifter and also had to change the chain as a result.

After we were done, Jody asked me why I had so many bike parts laying around. He smiled when I told him that garage sales were a great source of such stuff for me!

What a great guy. What tower of wisdom and mechanical genius this guy is

Jody Fitch ROX!!

THANK You Jody !!