Our 2005 Mayors' Ride is fast becoming a locomotive that cannot be stopped. As you will see, we keep adding the kind of people and color that can't help but allure anyone still sitting by the side of the tracks. This as the respected high priests of cycling, those whose HiWheel rigs gave birth to the two wheel movement that we know today, join in to give us added authority in many of our cities as you will soon read. And just as bicycling's tradition marches forward with us, so too does our Mayors' Ride history. Not only do our veterans keep coming back but they keep bringing new riders with them and even coming back to give more of their time and resources to keep our movement virile and strong! If that's not enough, other organizations continue to do what they can to help us as we keep moving forward with great excitement and fury. The joy of sharing all of this with you, my brothers and sisters for whom I feel great love, is indeed difficult to contain. I hope my words below, communicate at least a minute piece of what all of you are helping us to make possible! THX 4 all of U!!
NBG General:
A) Find a Ride Partner - Place an ad at our classifieds
B) 2005 riders order your FREE sunglasses from SlipNot Eyewear
C) Individual 2005 NBG Rider Business Cards now Available !!
D) Why we do Mayors' Rides - How they build the Greenway
E) Concetta leaves Texas March 2
F) Prepublication campaign for "The NBG Manifesto, How America Can Bike And Grow Rich" to include web site
G) Mr Greenway suggests bike clubs escorts for my 2007 ride
H) Don Loomis's killer Mayors' Ride video
I) The Loomis's Route Across America
Southeast Flank
A) Jason Reser to ride Atlanta to Knoxville to Cincinnati relay?
B) Backsafer greases skids for us with Miami mayor
C) Paul Dockins has riders eyeing Southeast relays
Northeast Flank
A) East Coast Greenway to route us from Boston to NY and Philly
B) Bikes Not Bombs Might Recruit riders
C) Dave T to be at NBG Day with Antique HiWheel, maybe other Wheelmen
East to West
A) Skot bringing a Doctor on his ride from Boise to Eugene
B) Skot Paschal's new bio
C) Ray Irvin, Mr Greenway, to help us hold up his Greenway program as a trophy
D) Chicago HiWheel community to be represented!!
E) Oakland to San Jose, Jack London's route, added
Northwest Flank
A) Jim Muellner wants riders to join him for his ride down the coast
Southwest Flank
A) Palo Alto City Councilwoman, Yoriko Kishimoto, to Ride
B) Help Yoriko do the Lake Tahoe Century
C) Richard Katz to ride Antique HiWheel San Jose to Palo Alto
NBG General:
A) If having a Ride Partner would make it easier for you to join us, try placing an ad at our classifieds
http://www.bikeroute.com/ibrd_cgi/Classifieds/class_ad.cgi?database=personals.setup . We get a million + unique visitors a month at our site so you may very well have good luck!
B) If you are riding with us this summer, shoot an email to the SlipNot people c/o Kevin at Kevin@slipnoteyewear.com. Send them the URL for the schedule page with your name on it along with your physical mailing address and they'll send you a really cool pair of sunglasses for your ride!! I love mine! Here is the review we did for SlipNot: http://www.bikeroute.com/Recumbents/News/Archives/000068.html
C) If you are riding for us this summer, you also get handsome business cards that you can start passing out NOW! Send me an email and I'll reply with a pdf of the handsome NBG Scout business card that Faye Saunders will have created for you. It has the NBG logo, the graphic Adam Krohn created for us for our Cycle America 2000 ride, your email address and the URL for your NBG bio. If you want us to publish your cell phone number, reply with that as well!! Once you get the camera ready copy from us as a pdf in your email box (make sure to include your physical mailing address), all you have to do is buy some ink or laser jet business card stock (we will spec out the product # when we send you copy), about $13 at most office supply stores, stick it in your printer, hit print, and presto you have NBG Scout calling cards.
D) From the NBG Business Plan and my book, "The NBG Manifesto, How America Can Bike And Grow Rich":
Why Mayors' Rides:
By giving local decision makers all across America a forum they can use to showcase the advances they have made for the two wheel transportation option, because good bike infrastructure means good quality of life, we are giving them a way to sell their city to prospective tourists, employers and other business concerns. While within its borders, by showcasing the efforts of those bicycle activists and city leaders working to make two wheel transit safer and thereby more attractive to their own constituency, we also make it easier for bike riders to connect to the businesses and attractions within these cities. As a by-product, this will also help them solve many of the woes that automobile oriented planning has brought upon them. As our riders help us fine tune the roads and paths that connect to these population centers, a rudimentary Greenway network that connects cities to one anther will begin to develop.
E) Concetta's long journey to us here in San Francisco leaves Texas on Wednesday, March 2. From there she will travel up to Knoxville where she will begin her bike scouting tour for the Stop The Bombs International Peace Walk http://peacehq.tripod.com/OSSTBIPW/stbipw-sched.html that leaves Knoxville on March 14. And she has been off the charts busy. In getting ready to leave her Texas world behind, besides wrapping up her job in management for a local restaurant, the cleaning and moving involved with ending her apartment lease and selling such items as her bed and other objects one needs for daily living, even giving her car to charity, Concetta has still tried to squeeze time in to get acclimated to her new Kool Stop trailer and the heavier bike she is now riding. She just had it outfitted with new tires, fenders and panniers. Keep the fire up, Concetta!!
F) My book, "The NBG Manifesto, How America Can Bike And Grow Rich" is starting to take on a life of its own. The early morning hours find me busy with it. It's exciting for me to know that instead of spending the hour to hour and a half that many people spend commuting to get to their place of employment, I get to feel the excitement that comes out of my fingertips as I plot out my next bike ride across America and the Greenway I **know* it will call for!
And it is with this thinking in mind that soon I am going to begin a
prepublication campaign that will help me spread the word long before my ride begins. When I finish the website that will let people buy an advance copy of this truly powerful body of work, the fruit of many years of my own business plan writing and Greenway promotion efforts, it will appear as a link in the signature that ends all of my email transmissions.
Too exciting
G) When I told Mr Greenway, Ray Irvin of Indy Greenways who we talk about below, about my 2007 ride and my book, he was greatly enthused as he seemed to think that the time was right for such a book. What's more is the fact that he highly recommended that I get bike clubs to serve as escorts as I reach each of the metropolitan areas that my 2007 Mayors' Ride passes through. What a great idea!!
H) Here over the weekend, on Saturday night, Don Loomis used the birthday party he held for himself at his home in San Jose to give the friends who he had packed his house a present. We were treated, and I do mean treated, to the video he created from his last summer's coast to coast ride across the US for us. You see Don took the twenty hours of film he shot on the 2004 Mayors' Ride and turned it into a two hour piece that kept everyone's eyes glued to the TV screen. An impressive feat indeed when you consider Don had to entertain crowd of maybe 25 people made up of mostly non cyclists. Even the handful of kids that were there were kept occupied by the images that moved across the screen.
Here now as I describe that which took place on Saturday nite, I am realizing that as a powerful visualization tool, Don's video production needs to be seen by anyone contemplating a bike ride across America. There are other ways we can use Don's amazing creation. With a different editorial slant, we can use a lot of the material he has collected to create a short info piece for the NBG which we can use to sell our organization to potential sponsors. It is also something we can condense to help sell the NBG business plan that my 2007 novel "The NBG Manifesto, How America Can Bike And Grow Rich" will be calling attention to.
I) Marathon Man that he is, Don tells me that a cue sheet for the route he used to cross the continent is next on his list. If the quality of his video is any indication, I know we can expect a thorough body of work that will endure as many parts of it ultimately evolve into the main trunk line for the National Bicycle Greenway!!
Indeed Don is The Man
Southeast Flank
A) Heard from Jeff Reser's brother Jason last week. It was the Reser brothers who rode Chicago to Des Moines for us in 2003 and produced this epic slide show of their ride:
http://nbg.bikeroute.com/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=DesMoines
Greenway believers Big Time, they have both produced for our effort. ,Not only did Jeff create our awesome Mayors' Ride logo but his brother Jason is one our sponsors. Jason owns Reser Bicycle Outfitters http://reserbicycle.com , near Lexington, Kentucky. And they may very well keep putting out for the NBG.
You see, Jason expressed interest in helping us create a relay link that connects two existing Mayors' Ride cities, Knoxville and Cincinnati by way of Atlanta! And he tells us he wants to pedal the connection between these two cities at a brisk pace. He was talking about rolling hundred mile days. Indeed I will keep you posted. As soon as he completes his questionnaire, I will be sure to let you know!! And to top it off, his older brother Jeff may even break free from his duties as a new dad to ride some of the relay with Jason!!
B) The Backsafer Recumbent people, a team made up of a chiropractor, an attorney and a marketing person may be able to help us turn up the volume with Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. Since Backsafer's law partner has offices close to Miami, he has connections with that city that may be able to help us make for a power Bon Voyage when this year's Mayors' Ride begins from there on April 15!
C) And by making a Miami Send Off attractive, we may even be able to give Paul Dockins the incentive he needs to get those riders off the fence who are thinking about joining us. And Paul who has taken over as a our Southeast NBG Rep tells me he has made contact with several Florida biking groups and that he has excellent leads for the Orlando-Tampa-Tallahassee segments. He also tells me that he is participating in the Bike Florida, "Red Hills to The Sea" ride http://bikeflorida.org from March 19th - March 25th, which begins and ends in Monticello, Florida after a 435 mile loop to the gulf and back. Paul feels that this ride should also provide excellent additional recruitment opportunities for the legs we have that still need riders.
Northeast Flank
A) Caught up with Tony Barrett last week. He was hunkered inside his home in Maine as he waited out a snow storm. Always willing to help us advance our cause, Tony, an officer with the East Coast Greenway, said that he will send me the route they use to get from Boston to New York and Philadelphia.
As such, I already received in the US Mail, a beautiful brochure that depicts a segment of the East Coast Grenway that is called the Southwest Connecticut Bicycle Route. Soon, he will also be sending me the rest of the route via email!
B) Finally established dialogue with the Bikes Not Bombs (BNB) people last week. We exchanged an email last November but then the 2005 Mayors' Ride started going off. While every one I talk to at BNB wants to get in step with us, nothing has been firmed up because they need to get their marching orders from the top. While it looks like they will be at Boston NBG Day on May 3rd and that they may be able to get us a rider or riders to shuttle the Boston proclamation down to New York City NBG Day, I cannot commit them as this goes to press. I should know next week.
In the process, however, I did learn a little bit more about their great organization. Once a nonprofit with chapters all across America, as they moved toward centralizing their operation here over the last 20 year, giving birth to innumerable spin offs in the process, pretty much all of the original BNB organization has become epicentered around Boston. And it is from there that a whirlwind of two wheel activity takes place. They have earn a bike programs for kids that help them build a bike for themselves while also teaching them the skills they need to be able to safely ride them. They regularly ship containers full of bikes to developing countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua where they also station a mechanic who shows them how to get them built. And they even have a bike shop that serves the local community, etc... Find out more about them at http://www.bikesnotbombs.org
C) Dave T tells us that he will be at Boston NBG Day with one of his antique HiWheel bicycles. And that he will try to interest some of the other local HiWheel cyclists in joining him. Dave has been riding these daring eye catching bikes since he was a kid. He sent me some pictures of some of his Tall Wheel stunts that still have me scratching my head. You cam see them at: http://nbg.bikeroute.com/gallery/BostonDave
East to West
A) The tales from the road between Boise and Eugene, a new relay leg this year should grow even richer this next July. Skot Paschal is brining along a doctor, and a most interesting doctor indeed. Accompanying Skot for the fun he always creates will be Ed Migliore. A teacher in the Santa Cruz school district, Ed is a PhD who also happen to study Qigong a Chinese self-healing art that combines movement and meditation. WoW. See his NBG bio at:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/ed_migliore.php
B) Long time readers of our mailings remember Skot Paschal but this year instead of our just linking to the web site this popular middle school teacher makes available for his kids, we finally got him to fill out our NBG questionnaire. From which we are now able to offer his official NBG bio:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/Skot_Paschal.php
C) Talked to Mr Greenway last week. Ray Irvin, of Indianapolis and the cutting edge Indy Greenways organization, who was, as always, very supportive of our coming thru his city. I could hear the excitement in his voice grow as I reminded him of the date, June 3. He told me that we have to, in some way, tie in to the National Trails Day symposium that they will be hosting that weekend.
Much in demand, his voice quickened as he told me I have to get in contact with an understudy of his who only goes my the name of CK. CK, Ray told me, has a masters in transportation and has relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. He gave me CK's contact information and told me that CK could be a valuable asset to our work.
I had originally contacted Ray because I want to begin work on an NBG Day page for Indianapolis now. As I told Ray, I want to be able to hold his amazing program that is fully integrated with Indianapolis's Transportation, Parks and Rec, and Public Works Departments, up as a trophy for the rest of our Mayors' Ride cities to see. And in order to have at least an overview of Indianapolis NBG Day on line before our Mayors' Ride begins in earnest, I told him I need data from him ASAP!
If you wan to see what I am talking about, go take at look at Indy Grenways at http://www.indygreenways.org
D) Heard from Carey Williams last week. The Illinois Wheelmen Captain he tells me he'll see if I can interest a few other local HiWheel cyclists to usher our cyclists toward Des Moines. And he says they will all riding in costume to indeed make for a spectacle beyond compare! More as that excitement develops!!
E) We have added another new relay leg this year. A route that the famous author, Jack London, whose 1900 honeymoon was a bicycle trip to Santa Cruz, used to ride with some degree of frequency. Jack had a girlfriend in San Jose that he would visit from his home in Oakland. On a HiWheel bicycle!
This is also a connection I made from Hayward, close to Oakland, a lot of times as a teenager. Back then it was all fruit trees, sweeping views of the bay and foothills and wide open spaces. Now homes and businesses have replaced a lot of the natural beauty that used to envelope one's senses and it may have been that sacrilege that has kept me from trying to get that relay built into our Mayors' Ride program. But I am sure that this was how most all of America showed up before cars came.
And now instead of a ride along the foothills maybe we can take advantage of a lot of the trail work the cities of San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Hayward and Fremont have been doing along their baylands to make this connection a worthy one. I say let's throw this relay into the ring and see what comes up!!
Northwest Flank
A) Jim Muellner, http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide/JimMuellner who will be riding the Pacific Coast for us next summer wants riders to join him for his ride down the coast. Learn how to be a success from a true winner in the game of life! Take inspiration from a man who is vibrantly alive and a true joy to be around. Shoot Jim an E if you want to begin anywhere on the coast north of San Francisco! JMuellner@aol.com
Southwest Flank
A) Yoriko Kishimoto made it official! She is riding with us from San Jose, where we will meet riders coming in from Oakland and Santa Cruz before we then head on to Palo Alto.
A councilwoman, for the city of Palo Alto, Yoriko has been very generous with her time, as, on the phone, we have explored ways to get Stanford involved and what we would need to make a reception at the City Hall plaza work so that we can invite more of the public to join us there.
Here's Yoriko's NBG bio: http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/Yoriko_Kishimoto.php
B) Since she is such a heavy weight in local bicycle transportation matters, I know we will be getting a lot of help from Yoriko. If you in turn want to help her help the Leukemia Society you can make a pledge for her very first one hundred mile ride. To make a donation, go here: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/yoriko
Yoriko will be biking the mountains that surround the 22-mile long Lake Tahoe in what is called "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride-Lake Tahoe". This annual ride, in its 14th season, makes you earn its beauty. With peaks that ascend to 10,000 feet from this mountain lake that already sits at 6,200 feet , the climbs and the lack of oxygen at altitude make it a challenging ride for even the most seasoned of cyclists. Go Yoriko!
C) Besides Yoriko and Santa Cruz and Oakland all coming to San Jose on July 29 this year, we can look forward to another HiWheeler being at the NBG Day reception. Richard Katz, of San Jose will not only be there but he is also going to ride with us from San Jose to Palo Alto! The bike Richard will be riding was made in 1885. It is a Rudge 54" Light Roadster and you can see a picture of him and this stead when he rode a century on it in Yosemite as per: http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/2005SW.html