HEADING EAST: JULY 21, 2006

Our Last Solo Ride:

Our last ride was on one of those unusually blazing late July days (where is the fog when you need it??). The change in our local weather has really made us think hard about globally shifting weather patterns. At least by riding our tandem we are not contributing to global warming and we hope, by using the city’s bike lanes, we can promote more cycling. It would be great if Oakland became known as a cycle-friendly city. We ironically talked about this as we rode through Broadway Auto Row, Oakland’s car dealership district. One ray of hope among all of these vehicles was a VW ad promoting new bio-diesel cars.

We started out early so that we would not wilt under the sun. One of our main goals on this ride was to publicize our upcoming group rides during which we plan to show off some of the city’s bike lanes and also lead folks to some of the interesting sites that we have found. So that we could reach the widest possible audience, we had our flyers translated into Spanish and Chinese (many thanks to Oakland’s Equal Access Office!). We distributed close to 1000 flyers to city farmers’ markets, local public library branches, city rec centers, cafes and bike shops.