Bike with Bike Ypsi Once Again

Spring is springing and it is time to ride, people! Come out for the Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival 2009 on May 3. Medium and long rides start at 10:00am, a neighborhood ramble (self-guided) goes from 10:30 until 1:00pm, and then its hot- and not-dogs, booths, bike polo, and there is some talk of games. Cool people go to the Corner after for a beer. It was amazing last year (see those happy faces????) with 120+ people. And there is a new run of BY t-shirts!



Also, as we did last year, Bike Ypsi is organizing Bike to Work Fridays for the month of May. Here is the deal...

May is bike to work month. Meet up with local Ypsi-to-Ann Arbor commuters every Friday in May for a leisurely ride to work. We ride rain or shine.

On May 1, 8, 22, and 29, we will meet at 8:00am at Bombadill's coffee shop (217 W Michigan Ave) for the ride in to AA (leaving by 8:15am).

On May 15, there is a special Bike to Work rally in at the AA Farmers' Market and we will meet at Bombadill's at 7:15 and leave by 7:30am in order to attend. All riders are encouraged to wear their Bike Ypsi t-shirts on this day (these would be the t-shirts you can buy at the spring ride on May 3)! There will be food and give-aways at the rally.

Return rides will meet every Friday at 5:15pm at AA Farmers' Market in Kerry Town to ride back to Ypsi.

Bombadill's offers free coffee to all helmet-bearing cyclists before our Friday rides! Help yourself from the pot at the front of the store.

Routes are chosen based on where people need to go, but we generally have a group that rides out Packard and one that rides out through Gallup Park.

We will end our rides at the Tap Rom Annex (W. Michigan Ave) for happy hour specials. They haven't told us what the deal will be yet, but they were delighted to be asked and mentioned cooking up some "freebies" for us, so I'm excited!

All riders are encouraged to wear helmets for these rides!


See the happy riders in these pics from last year's Bike to Work rides? Yes, we even rode home in the rain one evening... but it was a warm rain and there was beer at the end and we had much fun being silly and wet. Give it a whirl if you are heading to AA some Friday.

Bike Love.

Many of my bike freak pals and I have been riding enthusiastically since March, but May is going to be it... the month of the bike. I hope you'll come out and find your own bike love.

Bike Ypsi's Spring Ride and Festival is Sunday (May 4) in Rec Park. There are long, medium, and short rides in the morning and then food, bike related booths, bike polo, and a kid bike rodeo until 2:30pm (we'll be in the Senior Center if the weather is really bad). Cool stuff will be happening: mechanics to show you how to do basic things for your bike, an AATA bus so you can practice putting your bike on the rack without the threat of holding up a busload of impatient passengers, info on gear and nutrition, a helmet give-away, WCC fitness center passes, etc.

Every Friday in May I'll be biking to AA with anyone who wants to ride. There's been a "bike to work" initiative nationwide for years and my encounter with one of these rides in 1993, a week or two after I moved to Atlanta, helped launch me into being an urban bike commuter for the rest of the years I lived in Georgia. It is probably too much to hope that these Yspi-AA rides will have quite the same impact on any of the participants, but you never know... So, if you've thought about but hesitated to ride to AA, please come with me. We're leaving from Bombadill's: 8:00am on May 2, 9, 23, and 30; 7:15am on May 16 (since there is a big rally in downtown AA that day). Return ride is from AA City Hall, leaving at 5:15pm and ending at Haab's for free happy hour appetizers.

BTW, the image on this post is from a "Good Roads Rally" in SF in 1896: 5,000 riders showed up demanding, yep, better roads.