This year 4th Annual Mayors' Ride is really starting to grow up. Following in the footsteps of an alumni that just keeps coming back for more, led by Concetta Curtis who at 27 will be doing the whole thing with her dog Cosmo, the fire she is spreading is being felt by younger cyclists. We will be showing you the kids that are getting involved in New York and Boston while in Florida, 22 yo, William Gum inspired by the school kids he teaches is joining the Backsafer recumbent people to help kick this year's Mayors' Ride off from Miami in grand fashion. This as Jason Reser, a 26 yo bike shop owner, is going to create a whole new relay for us when he rides from Atlanta to his shop in Newport, KY just over the river from Cincinnati. A lot of familiar veterans with some fun writing styles are also returning as you will see in the words that follow. All this as the last two weeks have also brought us even more riding and proclamation ceremony commitments from council-persons and Mayors, etc, etc. Indeed the 2005 excitement continues to grow - Yahoooo!!!!!!!
Southeast Flank
A) William Gum signs on to ride Miami to Tampa!!
C) William Gum gets his students involved
C) Backsafer meets with Miami mayor
D) Backsafer Recumbent plugs us into Miami Herald
E) Miami Bike Coordinator fills out Miami Biking Report Card
F) Tampa to Tallahassee Rider(s) Needed
D) Tallahassee to Atlanta Rider(s) Needed
H) Jason Reser to ride Atlanta to Knoxville to Newport to Cincinnati relay!
Northeast Flank
A) Bikes Not Bombs Posts riders recruit letter to its list
B) Biikes Not Bombs police escort for Earn-A-Bikers to Boston NBG Day?
C) Boston to New York City Rider(s) needed
D) Massachusetts Ranks High for Safe Routes to Schools
E) Recycle A Bicycle to bring classes to NYC NBG Day
F) Faye Saunders types up Connecticut to New York directions
G) Reynolds Weld Lab to be at Boston NBG Day
East to West
A) Indy Greenway Report Card http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/Indianapolis/IndianapolisBiking.html
B) Oakland City Councilwoman Nancy Nadel to trike Berkeley to Oakland
C) Boise to Eugene moved up one day to June 30
D) Davis assigns our ride to its Bike Advisory Commission
E) Reno Bike Club scopes out Salt Lake City to Reno run
F) Pittsburgh Report Card http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/Pittsburgh/PittsburghBiking.html
Northwest Flank
A) Burley's new Marketing Director may add fire to Eugene NBG Day
B) Jim Muellner tunes in!!
Southwest Flank
A) Palo Alto City Councilwoman, Yoriko Kishimoto, poses for new picture
B) Palo Alto City on Bike Blvd
NBG General:
A) Repost: Send us reports from the road with an OGO
B) Repost: Ride reporter(S) still needed
C) NationalBicycleGreenway.com Blog Moderator wanted
D) Repost: 2005 riders order your FREE sunglasses from SlipNot Eyewear
E) Repost: Individual 2005 NBG Rider Business Cards now Available !!
F) 2005 riders order your FREE Copy of "How to Bike America"
G) 2005 riders order your FREE Hand E Cell Holder
H) Reports from the road to be Podcast?
I) Revised: Why we do Mayors' Rides - How they build the Greenway
J) Concetta's Mom signs in - Concetta in Tennessee
K) Repost: Find a Ride Partner - Place an ad at our classifieds
Southeast Flank
A) William Gum signed on to ride Miami to Tampa for us last week and this man is a 22 year old house of fire. When I first read his application, I thought to myself, hey this guy has a pretty evolved understanding of why we are here. He seems to understand that when we serve, we are really only serving ourselves. And his chosen medium for that service is the bicycle - WoW! He didn't have to have a head injury or go through many years of life experience to awaken to this fact. If you want to see a man who I feel we are going to read a lot about in the NBG years ahead, go to:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/William_Gum.php
B) When you get to William's web, you will see him pictured with some of his students. He tells me that they are as excited about his ride from Miami to Tampa, to help him kick off this year's 2005 National Mayors' Ride, as he is. They can't wait for him to begin and he tells us he will be using the OGO (talked about below) he plans to buy to let them know what is happening on his ride..
C) The Backsafer Recumbent people didn't just sign on as a name sponsor for Miami, they're rolling up their sleeves to help us kick the 2005 National Mayors' Ride with authority and straight ahead go power. Paul Lester, one of the Backsafer partners, actually took time out of his busy, high priced day as an attorney to actually meet with his friend Miami Mayor Manny Diaz on our behalf!!! Mayor Diaz in turn assigned one of his staffers to Paul. And by the time Friday, April 15 rolls around, Miami could very well set the standard for how NBG Day is judged!
D) Nor did Paul stop there. He is also friends with the Chief Executive Editor of the Miami Herald and the two of them have been in dialogue about Miami NBG Day! `As such, the person Paul's office (at this office alone he has his fun legal secretary, Rachel Crotto, assigned to work with me, this as his receptionist Michele Vidal is also excited for what we are doing and not even to mention his wife, Lois who I have been in touch with for years or his three other partners at Backsafer) will be working with at the Herald will also be taking his or her orders from the top!!
The Backsafer web: http://www.backsafer.com
E) Miami Bike Coordinator, Dave Henderson, who has been very helpful to me in trying to figure out the Miami biking scene will not only be at
Miami NBG Day but before we get there, he helped us understand it even better when he answered the questionnaire I sent him. As such, then, here is the Miami Biking Report Card:
http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/Miami/MiamiBiking.html
F) Once William takes all of the Miami excitement to Tampa and April 20, Tampa NBG Day, we need to then get that torch to Tallahassee. While there is still an outside chance that William's students will be able to talk him into pressing onward to the Florida Capital City, we still need to fill that slot. N O W! If interested, do go to:
http://nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/getstarted.php
G) As well, we need to get from Tallahassee to Atlanta and all the excitement Fred Fox and Paul Dockins are creating up there. We need you!!
H) They're feeling the excitement up in Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati. Jason Reser made it official. He says he will help us form a new relay leg by riding a route that was a part of my 1986 TransAm ride for the National Head Injury Foundation. He is officially going to ride from Atlanta to Knoxville to Newport (where his shop is located) to Cincinnati!
We're still trying to bring his brother out of retirement. Bitten by the NBG Mayors' Ride bug as evidenced by this slide show from their Chicago to Des Moines 2003 ride:
http://nbg.bikeroute.com/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=DesMoines
Jeff is still trying to create time so he can join his brother!
Note: Jeff created our awesome Mayors' Ride logo and his brother Jason is one our sponsors. Jason owns Reser Bicycle Outfitters http://reserbicycle.com
Here is Jason's well articulated bio: http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/jason_reser.php
Northeast Flank
A) Connected with Maria Ortiz, the CEO for Bikes Not Bombs (BNB), and she is clearing time aside so she can help us up there in the Northeast. As many of you saw, we talked about BNB in our last newsletter and Maria tells me that she will send out the request for a rider from Boston to New York that I forwarded to her in their next big mailing.
B) Like the Backsafers down in Miami, Maria also told me that she will do what she can to help us to make for a worthy show of force in Boston when they kick the Northeast off come May 3. For example, she wants to get her Earn-A-Bikers down to to Boston City Hall for NBG Day. By Earn-A-Bikers, Maria is talking about a great program that teaches kids how to work on bikes as they rebuild one for themselves and then are taught how to ride their creations safely.
And it was at this juncture that she still had some research to do. She had to determine whether on May 3, when we get there. whether her classes were at the beginning of a session or at their end. If at the end, she tells me that her kids might be able to ride to City Hall. She says 'might' because there is also the question of road safety in that part of Boston. At which point, and after we had finished our phone conversation, I realized that we could make good use of a police escort. Where we have relied on them to get attention for our ride in a number of Mayors' Ride cities in years past, here they could do double duty to make sure kids new to bicycling don't find themselves in harm's way!
The Bikes Not Bombs web: http://www.bikesnotbombs.org
C) If the following article that Faye Saunders forwarded is true, the Boston people will go a little bit out of their way to truly make sure their kids are safe should the Earn A Bikers wants to visit their Mayor. Besides Massachusetts, according to the article, being one of the five best states for fit kids they also have a top ranking for safe routes to schools!
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From the article:
Massachusetts - Residents here are enthusiastic about sports, and not just the Red Sox. One in six kids play youth soccer (the highest number in our survey) and one in 10 play little league baseball or softball. Massachusetts also has one of the largest "safe routes to schools" programs in the country.
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The article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7137441
The list
http://www.child.com/kids/health_nutrition/fittest_states.jsp?page=9
D) We need a rider(s) to get the Boston NBG Day proclamation to New York City. To see what you get and what we need from you, go to: http://nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/getstarted.php
E) Caught up with Recycle A Bicycle (RAB) Founder, Karen Overton. A longtime veteran of the bicycle industry, she and I had fun comparing notes. And talk about Big Power! Karen has a Master Degree in Urban Planning. And it is this brain power that has shown her how to help schools turn their under utilized industrial arts facilities into bicycle refurbishing classrooms. A huge success, RAB has its program in six different New York schools!! And it is these kids that Karen also wants to make a part of New York City NBG Day! Do stay tuned!
The Recycle A Bicycle web: http://recycleabicycle.org
F) On their way from Boston to New York, those relay cyclists making that connection will not only have the East Coast Greenway (ECG) to thank but Faye Saunders who just typed up the roads the ECG says will safely get us through Connecticut.
G) Spoke with George Reynolds of the Reynolds Weld Lab. George, who rode from Boston to New York City for us last year on one of his rocket fast bikes tells me he is too busy to do so this year. Too many people want his bikes!! But he did say he will be there with the Bike Not Bombs people and Boston HiWheel Dave at Boston NBG Day on May 3rd!!
The Reynolds Weld Lab web: http://www.reynoldsweldlabs.com
East to West
A) Talked to Mr Greenway. Ray Irvin, of Indianapolis and the cutting edge Indy Greenways organization, last week. And he wasted no time in getting out a report card for what truly sounds like Greenway heaven.To see what I am talking about, go take at look at Indy Grenways at http://www.indygreenways.org
We are still tweaking it, but here for now is the 2005 Indianapolis Report Card: http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/Indianapolis/IndianapolisBiking.html
B) Oakland City Council-person Nancy Nadel is going to trike with us from Berkeley to Oakland once again. She tells me that as the 7/28 Oakland NBG Day approaches that she will work to expand the role that Oakland plays but in the interim, she did fill out our questionnaire. Here is her resulting bio:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/Nancy_Nadel.php
C) Skot Paschal and Ed Migliore, the two teachers who will be meeting Boise bike riding Mayor, Dave Beiter, are cooking up a noteworthy escapade for their ride to Eugene. So much so that they need more time. So instead of July 1 for Boise, we moved it up one day to June 30
D) Spoke with city of Davis Bike Coordinator, Tim Bustos, and they are taking our upcoming River Run from Foslom on Sunday July 24th so seriously that it is going to be on the agenda for the Davis Bike Advisory Commission that he is helping to create. They plan to begin work in April!!
E) Mike Damon, the Reno Bike Club president who rode Folsom to Reno last year after he rode and helped us with our first ever Mayors' Ride River Run, tells us he had so much fun. he would not pass up the opportunity to do both of those runs again. However instead of riding from Salt Lake CIty to Reno like he had said he might, other commitments have forced him into not being able to make that connection. He was looking forward to it or as he says it is a a relay leg that cannot be beat for the serious touring cyclist who wants to really get into his or her head. With goods roads and a minimum of people, cities and cars, it is a stretch where he says one can really take in the beauty of the desert as he also gets to know himself. Does any one else want to join Concetta when she comes through that part of her ride??
E) In case any of you missed it, here is the Pittsburgh Biking Report Card that David Hoffman of Bike Pittsburgh helped us to create:
Phttp://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2005/Pittsburgh/PittsburghBiking.html
Northwest Flank
A) Burley Bike Cooperative just brought on an enthusiastic new Director for their Marketing Department. I sent her our promotion materials and the positive reception I got tells me that they may help us to add a worthy degree of fire to Eugene NBG Day!!
B) Here over the weekend, as this was going to press, I heard from our first ever Mayors' Ride coast to coast cycling veteran, the amazing Jim Muellner. Jim is riding for us this year from Seattle to San Francisco:
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HI Martin: It is always fun to read and learn about all the little challenges that various riders face in being able to participate in the NBG rides. While most of us are all at different ages and levels of experience, we also have different equipment that we are comfortable with.
Every time I look at pictures of different groups I can almost tell what their reaction would be to what I ride (Jim rides the trike his company builds that folds to fit in a suitcase). I wish that somehow each of these riders or groups would seriously look at what new technology is coming down the pike. Every rider is aging or will experience some physical change that will require them to do a big mind set change. The more open riders are to these changes the easier that transition will be. I know of quite a few riders who are so hung up on the old style two wheeled bike that they have given up riding rather than get on a recumbent or a recumbent trike just because it does not look cool to them. What a pity.
Keep encouraging riders to try every new style available. I know I keep tweaking what I ride to extend my riding range as far as possible for as long as possible.
Just a few thoughts I wanted to share.
Can you give me the name and e-mail address of the person in charge in Seattle. I want to set up a meeting point and date for the ride start there. I personally may still do the Vancouver to Seattle bit as a personal goal.
Thanks, Jim
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Jim's amazing bike building company:
http://justtwobikes.com
Jim Muellner's web: http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide/JimMuellner
Southwest Flank
A) Councilwoman, Yoriko Kishimoto, met me at her City Hall plaza for a quick picture taking session, the result of which you can see at the web she helped us to create for herself:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios/Yoriko_Kishimoto.php
B) It should also be noted that I rode Palo Alto's famous Bike Boulevard to get to its City Hall which has one of its entrances right on the Ellen Fletcher Bike Boulevard!
NBG General:
A) In lieu of the Pocket Mail device our riders have been using since 1998 to stay in touch with us here at NBG Central, we have found a cost effective replacement that is always on line. No more looking for the fast disappearing phone booth to stay in touch with the on line world. Or for that matter carrying a hard to keep charged cell phone to send and receive Pocket Mail data. Or then use an antiquated technology to attach the handpiece to the device. AT&T Wireless/Cingular has come out with a product, one third smaller than a Pocket Mailer, that sends and receives EMail in real time. Wirelessly!!
Called the OGO, I paid $79 for mine and there is an $18 a month connect fee. It places your Yahoo email account in your pocket for instant access, all the time, anywhere they have coverage (which looks pretty strong along all the routes our Mayors' Ride will be covering). Be forewarned, however, that it's keys and its screen are tiny but I am finding it is a serious tool that I have been having great success with!! I've even written some of this newsletter with it. From the road!!
To find out out more about the OGO: http://ogo.com
B) We still need Ride Reporters. Since there will be riders who cannot afford an OGO, or don't want to be bothered by one, or just want to run an OGO for their own personal use, we would like to be able to give our Scouts the option of having one less thing to think about. We would like to make it such that all they would have to do is make a phone call to you and talk about their day. Here, then, is the official announcement for what we need:
The Fourth Annual National Mayors' Ride, a ten-week bicycle relay involving 50 major, coast-to-coast population centers, is looking for Ride Reporters. As per our schedule at Bikeroute.com, and the blogs we keep for our riders at NationalBicycleGreenway.com, this could be a way for you to practice your craft as you experience America without ever having to leave the comfort of your home or office. Our bike riders will do all the work before they then call in their daily activities to you. Assigned to one cyclist per relay ride link, your job will be to create reports that will interest a large internet audience (tens if not hundreds of thousands of people) in what our cyclists are doing out there on the open road.
You can come along with us for as short as a week or develop a following of people interested in your story telling ability by staying longer as, if you like, you can track the efforts of different cyclists every week!
In the past, we have seen the media that we always get excerpt from some of these accounts and this could be a powerful way for you to build up your track record of bylines.
Here is the blog that Faye Saunders kept for the ride Don Loomis did for us last year:
http://nbg.bikeroute.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/Reports/Archives/cat_don_loomis.php
If interested: NBG@bikeroute.com
C) Our blogs at NationalBicycleGreenway.com are not interactive because we don't have have anyone who can serve as an moderator for them. They are a one way street because the spam artists take over when someone is not watching. if you have a minimum of mail list experience, you can greatly assist us by serving as a moderator for our blogs. We're talking probably less than 10 or so minutes a day to approve or deny those posts that are pending. Let us know you can help and we'll get you the password and login. It would be great if we could increase the noise level of Greenway discussions at our site!!
D) 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
E) 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 (which we will shorten to read bikeroute.com/YOURNAME). 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.
F) If you are riding for us this summer, you also get "How to Bike America" (HTBA). The bulk of HTBA, an on-line book, was written over a two year period for cyclists riding TransAm to Cycle America 2000 in Washington DC. It continues to be updated and edited online and reflects many contributions from the on line cycling community as we yearly cross America with our Mayor's Rides. Send me an email for the login and password..
G) The people at Hand E Cell are making available their wrist mounted cell phone carrier FREE to those of you who are riding for us this summer. A brand new product, this is an exciting new device that places your cell phone right where it is the most accessible when you pedal your bike. On the back of your hand or wrist. No more reaching behind yourself or making awkward, potentially dangerous movements to access it when it's ringing or if you just want to make a call or tell the time of day. Shoot me an email if interested. But be prepared. When you wear one of these lightweight, barely noticeable carriers, everyone else will want to know where you got yours!!
H) We are researching a new technology that threatens to become the wave of the future. Called Podcasting, it's a way to post tape delayed audio to a blog where there is also the option for instantaneous feedback. You can even download these broadcasts to your Ipod (if you have one) and listen to them when you are away from your computer, say on a bike or at the gym, etc. Here is an article that the San Francisco Chronicle did about this new phenomenon:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/28/BUGJUBGR591.DTL
What I am taking a harder took at is all of what is involved in recording our riders when they phone in to report on their day. How much bandwidth are we going to need? What is the sound quality of those phone recording devices I might be using to capture these conversations? And what is the best way to turn the resulting audio into an MP3 for web broadcast?
A number of podcasters are springing up all aver America to create their own radio shows complete with music, an m/c, a prerecorded broadcast and a live email interface option. Here, for example, is an inventive podcast done of a recent San Francisco Critical Mass Ride:
http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/bikescape@sbcglobal.net/1570-1-20050307-bikescape_3-7-5.mp3
Be patient as it takes two to five minutes to download the above link contingent upon your connection speed. But it is worth the wait as it goes live inside of an actual Critical Mass ride. You will hear the car horns and the cheering they provoke, the background roar of the city and pedals clicking and gears turning, all as various participants partake in extemporaneous interviews as they pedal their bikes.
The above can be found at http://bikescape.blogspot.com where you will find a number of other excellent, mostly bicycle based, podcasts!
I) As we continue to fine tune our promotion materials, we are better able to articulate our vision. Here is a revised version of why we do Mayors' Rides:
By giving civic leaders 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 revenue generating concerns. As our message then sinks in, that making it easier for bike riders to get to businesses and attractions makes good business sense, we will also be helping cities solve many of the woes that automobile oriented planning has brought upon them. As cities see what other cities are doing and then try to match up to them, the local cyclist wins again creating a powerful magnet that draws a whole new market of visitors to their city, the long distance bicycle traveler. And as long haul cyclists help us fine tune the roads and paths they use to make these connections, the momentum for a Greenway network that connects cities to one another will grow into a momentum that cannot be stopped!!!
J) Concetta's long journey to us here in San Francisco, she left Texas on Wednesday, March 2, should be in Knoxville by the time you get this. From there, 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 today. On Saturday, two days ago, her mom posted this note to our NBG Riders mailing list:
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i am concetta's mom. i believe she forwarded this email to me accidently but i wanted to let you know that she should arrive in tennessee soon. she did not bring her laptop and did bring her cellphone. cosmo is with her as well. she has spent a long time preparing for this and she is determined to reach her goal. if you need anything feel free to email me. my name is Pat.
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K) 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!