Philadelphia Tweed Ride 2012

Thanks to a recent Facebook post the 5^th Annual Philadelphia Tweed Ride is back on for Saturday, November 17 at 12:00pm. Follow their Facebook or webpage for updates including the route as they develop.

So what is a Tweed Ride? It is a bicycle ride that incorporates a period theme for the way participants dress and accessories they bring. For a Tweed ride the theme is England from the 1890's to 1920 so the riders do wear a great deal of tweed. Along with accessories such as hats, compacts, pipes, hip flasks, pocket watches, and bow ties. Many of the participants have vintage bicycles or bicycles that look vintage; including three speeds, Dutch bikes, and the odd Penny Farthing. The Philadelphia Tweed Ride webpage is full of photo galleries from previous rides, many of the men and women look as if they have stepped off the fashion runways of that era.

This is a a bicycle ride that attracts over 100 riders and all cyclists is welcome. The ride wends its way through Center City with a one rest stop where you can converse and play croquet. The final stop is held at a local nightspot and includes the judging for: Most Magnificent Millinery, Most Marvelous Mustache, Most Stylish Steed, Most Snappy Lass,and Most Dapper Chap.

The Philadelphia Tweed Ride is everything that a social ride can and should be, part parade and part time machine this is a ride for all ages.

Philly Cranksgiving 2012

The Second Annual Philly Cranksgiving Ride is coming to Philadelphia Sunday, November 18. Part bike race, part charity food drive Cranksgiving requires riders to navigate to a series of predetermined supermarkets and buying an item of food from a list. With all of the proceeds donated to Philabundance. This year Gary and CJ took sometime out from their hectic planning schedule to answer a few questions about this years plans.

Last year with temperatures in the 60's, what secret ritual do you have planned to ensure similar weather?

    CJ: Maybe if we get everything done super last-minute like last year, everything will work out! Of course, we'll try to get everything done earlier, and it'll be 40 degrees out. Just our luck. Short answer: we're rollin' the dice.

    Gary: Last minute planning seemed to be the trick.  We're doing a lot more work ahead of schedule this year, but I'm sure we'll be rushing to do something last minute.  Hopefully we'll be lucky again this year!

    For people who want to ride instead of race is there a time limit to complete the route?

    CJ: We'll probably cap it at 2-3 hours, or have some sort of "If you want to be considered for prizes, your manifest must be in by...". It's kinda tough because a slower rider may end up being Most Charitable, so that's something we kinda have to figure out. But, we definitely don't want to discourage anyone from riding and having fun, especially because food is food and every item helps out Philabundance.

    Gary: Last year we had a prize for most charitable and it was very well received (With the winner donating 10 Additional Items!).  This year, we're trying to place more emphasis on prizes for charitability.  2-3 hours seems about right for time limit, but if you show up a few minutes after the limit with an entire thanksgiving feast, we might be able to work something out.

    How many miles can participants expect to ride?

    CJ: We're shooting for 15-20 miles total. We definitely want a laid-back vibe with a ride that most people should be able to do in a couple of hours, but still give the option for a short, fast 'race' should people choose to ride hard.

    What are you doing this year to promote Cranksgiving Philadelphia?

    CJ: For starters, Gary set us up with a spiffy new website! In addition, we already have a Facebook event up with more people "Attending" than last year's event. We've got a couple of sponsors already and I'm trying to bug Gary into drafting flyers and other promo stuff that we can put in bike shops as well as on the web. We are hoping that earlier (and better) promotion will get us many more riders than last year. In addition, word-of-mouth from last year's participants should help us get Cranksgiving Philly bigger and better each year.

    Gary: Word of mouth is playing a pretty big role again this year.  We made sure to set up promotional material (with the website www.CranksgivingPhilly.com and FaceBook event page) early to make sure we get the word out there.  That, in combination with people who were excited about it last year, has already given us a good idea that about the potential increase in participants.  We'll be amping up promotion the closer it gets to the event, so expect flyers, Facebook updates, tweets, highway billboards, skywriting... ok maybe not the last two...   All in all, after last year, we're really excited to see what this year's event holds.

Dancing with the Devil

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In May 2011 the Philadelphia City Council tried to force a bill through that would have allowed the Philadelphia City Council to have final decision on new bicycle lanes on a case-by-case basis. Taking it out of the hands traffic engineers who have the experience and training and leaving it the hands of a group of people who will base their decision on what will get them reelected.

The Philadelphia City Council introduced this bill just before the Labor Day weekend and the hearing was held the day the Labor Day weekend. In an effort to get the bill passed while avoiding any input from the public. It didn't work. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia mobilized its supporters though the use of Twitter and Facebook. So the City Council changed the hearing time from late afternoon to early afternoon. When that didn't work the City Council prevented people from speaking by claiming they were supporters of the BCGP and therefore not part of the general public. And yet in spite of all of this the bill was stopped in its tracks.

This May the Philadelphia City Council presented the same bill, using the same methods. But something changed, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia caved in. Proclaiming it “a bill we can live with”. Sure Alex Doty, the BCGP's Executive Director, will claim he negotiated a complete streets bill, which would finally address cars parking in bicycle lanes.  Initially scheduled for a hearing on June 14, it was placed on hold due to problems with the city budget, with the BCGP's fervent hope that the bill would be passed by September or October of this year.

So here we are in the beginning October with no sign of any further news on this groundbreaking safe streets bill. Well the BCGP in a recent blog post plans to update their volunteers  “pending City Council legislation which may have a large impact on bicycling in Philadelphia.”. I would have been more comfortable with “a positive change” or “significant improvement”. The question that should be asked is, by allowing the Philadelphia City Council's bill to pass uncontested the BCGP have no guarantee that the safe streets bill is not watered down or more conditions favorable to the Philadelphia City Council are attached to it.

The vast majority of the cyclists in Philadelphia that the BCGP claims to speak and act on their behalf. The ones who are not local volunteers or generous suburban donors will just have to wait until they deign us with the information. The members Philadelphia City Council have made repeated attempts to politicize bicycling and infrastructure in Philadelphia and now the BCGP has enabled this behavior. The BCGP thinks they may be managing the situation however if you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change, the devil changes you.

Parking Day 2012

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On Friday, September 21 I spent part of my day roaming through Philadelphia checking out many of the Park(ing) Day creations. Park(ing) Day was first created in San Francisco where parking spaces were converted into temporary one-day parks. It has since spread to many major cities around the world. As I travelled around Philadelphia I had a chance to stop at many of the parks. Most of them fell into a standard format; hay bales or trees used to form a barricade to separate traffic from the park long with shrubs and/or shrubs. In some cases grass, gravel or wood chips was used to cover the pavement.

There was one stand out park created by Groundswell Design Group; they repurposed a parking space using an ordinary item to create an extraordinary experience. They took a standard steel shipping container cleaned it, repainted the interior and the exterior, planted a green roof on top of it using wild flowers, and hung works of art by a local artist. Creating a mini portable art gallery; complete with interior lighting and two benches so you could sit and enjoy them.

The Groundswell Design Group unique design made it visible from a distance, but left you asking yourself what it was so you needed to see it. With both ends open it allowed for plenty of natural light and air circulation. And at the same time the container blocked out the noise and exhaust from the street.

I would like to put forward a challenge to the planners and the 2013 participants. Plan something that is more than a park. How about the Temple or University of Pennsylvania theatre departments doing 5 minute abridged performances of great plays, area dance companies could create multiple short performance pieces to be choreographed to fit into a parking space. Or how about the local Burning Man group, Videogasm, creating a truly unique structure.

Cranksgiving Philadelphia 2012 is coming

Back again for another year its the 2^nd Annual Cranksgiving Ride, a mix of a bicycle racing, a trip to the supermaket, and street navigation. First held in New York City in 1999 by a group of bicycle messengers it has spread throughout America as other people have planned their own.

Cranksgiving requires participants to navigate from a starting point at Love Park to a series of designated supermarkets, you buy a food item from a shopping list and bring them to a final checkpoint at Tattooed Moms. All of the food collected is donated to a local food bank, in Philadelphia all of the food collected goes to Philabundace.

All you need is a bicycle, a lock, a backpack or messenger bag, and $15.00 to buy groceries with. You may need a map if you're not to familiar with Philadelphia or bring a a partner who is. There is no entry fee. In 2011 with 13 riders Cranksgiving Philadelphiag collected close to 200 pounds of food, from the look of their Facebook page they should easily double the amount collected.

Last year the organizers answered some questions about what inspired them to create the Cranksgiving Philadelphia and what they learned. Use this link to find out more about them and Cranksgiving.