Raleigh Rides
Posted on December 11, 2006
Filed Under bikes
I want to let y’all know about a new local bike blog. Jennifer Lewis has put together Raleigh Rides; a site organizing social rides just down the road in Raleigh.
Straight from the site…
The Raleigh Routes Adventure is intended to be both part fun and part advocacy. If you would like to join in the fun, the rides are open to everyone of all skill levels and with all sorts of bikes. We go at a fairly slow pace, making plenty of stops to take pictures and water breaks along the way. We also encourage post-ride dining! Eventually, our goal is to do all thirteen (13) bike routes by the end of the year. For a high-resolution version of the map, click here — warning: I mean, HIGH RESOLUTION.
I wrote to Jennifer to find out more; specifically I asked why she’s organizing the rides, what she hopes to get out of it.
Wow, word gets around quick.
I hope to get out of this quite a few things. Some of the personal ones include learning more about Raleigh and Raleigh’s bicycle facilities, meeting new people, and gaining confidence in my skills as a cyclist. Some of the more idealistic things include that I hope to raise more awareness about the bicycle-friendly assets that the city has, and to encourage others to get out and ride and meet others that are interested in riding, and hopefully to also start planting the seed for a cycling advocacy group in Raleigh.
And I believe that in order to make Raleigh more bicycle-friendly, I can’t just start complaining and demanding changes – I need to learn my city and what it has to offer - thus the idea to ride all of the bike routes in order to learn what it’s really like out there.
Who/what kind of cyclist should be coming out?
The rides are open to any kind of cyclist - we’ve had “experienced” people in full racing regalia, and then my friend who showed up on his little BMX bike without a helmet (he got one for the next ride) and very little cycling experience (but he can definitely make his bike jump a curb).I must add as a precaution that the first four routes are not that demanding because they are designed as recreational routes - the distances are not that long (on the routes… getting to the routes is another story, see the post about Route 2) and they are on residential streets. For this reason, these routes are great for newbies who’re just starting back on their bikes, and “expert” cyclists who don’t really want a major work-out but just want to meet new people or check out the routes and their conditions or support the activity with their presence. For the remaining routes, I’ve looked at the map and they are cross-town connectors so they look like they will be more demanding - pretty long (5+ miles), and they might be on some relatively busy streets.
That being said, we stop frequently for breaks, we’re not training for anything or trying to break any land speed records so we’re definitely traveling at a slower pace, but the rides may be a little demanding in terms of level of comfort with road-riding and riding in traffic. To compensate for that, most of our rides will be on Sundays in the afternoon, when traffic is the lowest. This might be counterintuitive to the aspect of the ride that is intended to check out the conditions on the route, but I also feel like Sunday afternoons are a more convenient time for a lot of people. So these rides will still be good for newbies, although they will need to be mentally prepared to ride in a little bit of traffic and for a little bit longer distance. And then afterwards, of course, we go get some food. There were some ideas of making the rides food-themed. Our first ride was ice cream, our second was smoothies, the third turned out to be more like fruit/coffee at Whole Foods, and we’ll see what Route 4 cooks up. I’m hoping we’ll go for flan or cannolis one of these days.
What’s the coolest thing that’s happened so far?
Really the most exciting thing for me that has happened so far has been the turn-out and interest in the rides. I’ve been really amazed by the emails I’ve gotten about it with hardly any advertising (initially, I just sent an email at their request to Bruce Rosar and Jake Petrosky for them to use to distribute as they wished. Now I’m keeping a list of people who have expressed an interest and have asked to be notified about upcoming rides).
I’ve also gotten advertising from people I hardly know, which has been really neat, including the North Carolina Bicycle Club and 1304 Bikes. And I’ve also been really buoyed by the support of my friends who’ve come along and been regulars so far, and who also encouraged me to start doing this when I was questioning the idea.
On a more sensational note, though, I’d like to say that the most jaw-dropping, damn-I-can’t-believe-he-did-that thing that has happened so far has been my friend Mack Nance, who like I mentioned rides the BMX bike (with no gears, little teeny-tiny trike-sized tires, and heavy as lead). Mack rode the first two routes on his BMX bike, hardly broke a sweat, kept up with the rest of the group (who were on road bikes and mountain bikes) the whole way even on some mega-hills, and even had some energy at the end of the first ride to race Danielle Newton on her tricked-out racing bike (he lost, but it was close). I was really impressed.
For more information about Raleigh Rides, check out the website or email raleighroutes@hotmail.com.
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