May 12, 2006
Annual National Bike Greenway Ride comes to Mount Rainier!
The Mount Rainier event was fabulous, the Mayor and city provided quite the event in support of the NBG/Mayors Ride cyclists (Scott and Barry) and we even had a few politicians from Prince Georges County and Maryland in for the ceremony including Victor Ramirez (state delegate) and Will Campos (PG county council member)!! My understanding is that the city will provide a taped video copy of today's event and I will send you a CD of pictures taken with my camera.
A summary: MR Bike Coop Director, Paul Joseph Park (PJ) and I met both riders in Edmonston along the Northwest Branch Trail at about 8:00 AM and then rode back into Mount Rainier and eventually ending up at City Hall around 8:30am...we were greeted with applause and shouts of support! We proceeded to take a tour of the Mount Rainier Bike Coop, fit some younger riders with bikes from the coop so that they could join us in the "cycling" sendoff later on and to replenish our "stores" with wonderful food and drink that the Mayor provided as well as donations from the local food cooperative (Glut).
We then had the proclamation ceremony (at 9am) with PJ, as host (he also talked about the Bike Coop as well as mentioning the MetBranch Trail), introducing myself (to talk about our local cycling "cell", the Rainier Riders), Maryland Delegate Victor Ramirez who spoke of support for cycling and then Mayor Malinda Miles who spoke on the city's support of cycling. She then proceeded to read the city's proclamation and then presented a copy to both Scott Campbell and Barry Childress. They each spoke for a few minutes.
What followed (after more refreshments) was a wonderful sendoff whereby the Mayor led a group of us on bicycles to the city's border with DC. After coming back to City Hall for more refreshments a group of us joined the two NBG riders and escorted them down to DC City Hall and Freedom Plaza.
Thanks again for including us on this years "Mayor's Ride"!
Joe