Hey Guess What?!

Its freaking hot out! Holy Satan’s underoo’s is it hot out. Here is my two part plan for enjoying this weather.

1. Drink lots of water.
2. Ride lots of bikes.

If you just keep riding you will keep having that self made breeze to keep you cool, and if you just keep drinking water you will keep sweating to keep cool in the breeze. (ride more bikes is basically my solution for everything.)

If however you don’t enjoy the idea of being a bag of sweat when you get to work here are some other tips you can use to stay cool.

1. drink lots of water
2. comfortable breathable clothing
3. ride slooooooow
4. ride early or later to beat the worst heat
5. bring a change of clothes for when you get to work
6. find shower facilities near work
7. adult baby wipes, perfect for places with no showers
8. drink a super cold glass of water when you get to work, it will cool you off from the inside and make you stop sweating

Leave your tips for warm weather riding in the comments.

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Just Keep Swimming

100 miles today, temps in the 90s, humidity in the 70s…and one huuuuuuge hill at the very end.

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Holy Crap…Its Hot

I mean really hot, devils undergarments hot. Sweat drip down your face hot. Fall over and pass out hot. Melt your tires to the pavement hot. Boil your brain hot.

People are cranky, really cranky. I was getting honked at for stopping at red lights, for making turns, for existing. Everyone is angry, and no one is happy (except for the bikers that is).

Be careful out there, wear some sun screen, drink lots of water, enjoy the faint breeze (or make your own), and watch out for the poor poor souls trapped in the little metal boxes.

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KatamariCat Recap

So I wasn’t really sure how this race was going to go. My expectations were that it would involve carrying stuff, perhaps even a lot of stuff. With that in mind I emptied my bag of all but the essentials, threw in a couple old tubes to use as tie downs, and even went so far as to attach a rack to the back of my bike. I was so not prepared for the epic amount of sheer awesome this race would turn into.

Let me say that again…EPIC. I know that people on the internet like to use terms like epic and awesome casually, but boy howdy this was a fantastic race.

Just ridding over to the starting point I was a dripping sweaty mess, it was about 90 degrees outside with about the same humidity, riding was more akin to swimming through hot water covered in a wool blanket. Before the race started I stopped at a gas station, got two frozen snickers bar ice cream things, and a giant Gatorade, the ice cream didn’t make it past the end of the parking lot, and the Gatorade disappeared shortly after…it was hot.

I got to the starting point early, and was disappointed to see so few actual racers (mostly check point workers), but that soon changed as I sat under a tree and though cool thoughts about 50 other racers showed up! A fantastic turnout for such a geeky themed alleycat, on such a devils nut sack kind of day.

Once everyone was collected we were given the following manifest:

(this is going to be a long post, click below to read the rest)
Read more »

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Bikes Not Bombs Cleeeeeaaaaans Up!: Makes Over 100k In One Day!

Nice work BNB, your bike-a-thon was AWESOME. To all the riders that braved the near 100 degree heat and suffocating humidity to ride your little fannies off for a good cause here is a message from the good folks at Bikes Not Bombs for you. With your help they raised over 100,000 dollars!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU BIKE-A-THON RIDERS AND VOLUNTEERS! Over three hundred of you riders braved the sweltering heat on Sunday June 8th and made heroic rides. What a day! At 8:30 in the morning people were already sweating and looking for shade from the punishing sun as the line to check in for the 62 miler stretched across the field (we had about double the riders this year than last). Heat and humidity made the hard pedaling on the rides all the more challenging for all you 15, 25, and 62 riders, but reports are pouring in from riders who had a great day, who kept cool with fun and camaraderie.

You all accomplished an amazing thing for Bikes Not Bombs with your fundraising – $95,000 has come in so far and when the remaining pledges come in we’re looking at $105,000! Our most successful Bike-A-Thon before this raised $42,000, so we’ve more than doubled that record. This is an unbelievable success for Bikes Not Bombs! With your help, BNB is keeping up with its expansions in youth leadership and international work.

* Top fundraising riders were: JON McCURDY, JIM CAMPEN, VINCA JARRETT, JOHN-PAUL FERGUSON, and ESTHER CERVANTES
* A special thanks to BNB supporter STAN CHEN, who matched all BNB youth fundraising!
* Top fundraising team: ARON BOROS, ESTHER CERVANTES, JOHN-PAUL FERGUSON, RICHARD GRIJALVA, WILLIAM HUTCHINSON, PAULIE PENA IV, RACHEL TABAK, & SCOTT THOMSON as BIKES OVER BAGHDAD.

A great big thanks also to the VOLUNTEERS who made June 8th possible: and there were a lot of you, every one so vital to pulling off such a large event!

We still want to hear from more of you on your experience – what went well and what we need to improve, and thanks to you who had to deal with the problem spots. Email Jasmine, Carl, and/or Arik. OR just fill out an online survey for Bike-A-Thon riders here.

The Green Roots Festival afterparty was fabulous, Elijah Evans, David McDonald, Nzhinga Webster, and Darren Fenty of BNB’s youth programs were amazing with the 30+ piece Branches Pan Groove Steel Orchestra (Dave and Elijah even rode the Bike-A-Thon before they played), and the keynote speakers: Bill McKibben, Khalida Smalls, City Councilor Chuck Turner, and BNB Director Kim Foltz made inspiring speeches – tying together the workshops’ themes. The Green Roots Festival was a great sharing place for folks of all different walks of urban life to explore ways to deepen their environmental knowledge and action, and it made some true connections for BNB to work with other environmental organizations more closely in the future.

Thanks to all of you who helped lead an environmental workshop, and to groups who came out to spread the word from info tables.
(see a list of workshops and organizations involved at http://www.bikesnotbombs.org/greenroots)

Have a look at some of the some of the first photos to hit the web! These were taken by the photographer Silke Hase (of creativemomentz.com). Let us know if you have more to share.

An edited overview of Bill McKibben’s speech at Green Roots can be seen here:

Laurie Dougherty, Bike-A-Thon rider, posted a video and information about the Green Roots Festival on Dot Earth, a blog at the New York Times online run by NY Times science reporter Andrew Revkin. Dot Earth is about sustainability, energy, population, and environmental impacts of human behavior. Laurie’s great video covers some of the history of the SW corridor park (where the festival was held) which was saved from plans to put the interstate through Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, and instead became the park with bike paths, walking paths, green space, and submerged public transit and regional rail. Here’s the link to her blog post.

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