As we continue to do the work of getting our San Francisco to Washington DC route  known about. on which Amy Oleynik will also soon be HiWheeling, we are keeping the Mayors’ Rides (history) we have been doing since 2002 before the public:

Ron Bishop Oakland to Berkeley Mayors’ Ride
Hot Italian, the guilt-free, nutritious pizza purveyor that has popular stores in Sacramento and Davis, also has a  much celebrated pizzeria in Emeryville CA, very close to  to Oakland and its City Hall from where we will be riding to Berkeley City Hall a few weeks from now on Sunday July 24! I am telling you about Hot Italian because we are stopping there on the way for delicious, mostly organic (with an unheard of in the industry, sugar free base) pizza samples.

A non-athletic ride, we are hoping to see Alice Santos again on her high sitting three wheel bike. High profile safety consultant, Tom Ayres, a long time supporter of the NBG expects to be there as does Valerie Winemiller, a utilitarian cyclist with a keen eye on the political pulse of  Oakland. We extra look forward to also to seeing Mary Ann Blackwell, the  director of the Bay Area Easy Riders  Touring Club. She has been working with the two Mayors on the proclamations that will honor this event. She knew Ron, the Bike Mayor of Oakland. who you can learn more about HERE  very well. Another friend of Ron’s who tells us she will be there is Gail Robinson!

Speaking of proclamations, soon, I will publish the one that Mayor Jean Quan did for Ron Bishop in 2013! The former Mayor of Oakland, she  and her also dynamic husband Floyd Huen, were both good friend’s of Ron’s. They were at his ride last year and may come  again for the start this year  where we ride  around Lake Merritt to honor Ron! In term’s of Ron’s proclamation,  I found it at my dad’s where a lot of important documents were stored while I was in Ireland for five years.

HERE is the event

HERE is the Ping Vite   for where you can  sign up

Of note is the fact that our ride happens on the day after Pedalfest Jack London Square, a huge regional bike event that takes up blocks and blocks worth of the Oakland harbor front. You gotta know I’ll be there for that too!!

NBG Hero(s) Needed
Along with a completed Form 1023, the IRS wants $400 before they will reinstate the National Bicycle Greenway as a 501c3 nonprofit corporation. While I was in Ireland raising my little boy . Cayo <link>, for five years, the IRS pulled the plug on our nonprofit status. They did so because when I was there, they developed a new ruling that required that we file whether we have income or not.

For 15 years we had not filed because we were well under their several thousand dollar threshold. Well when that changed in 2009, I was unaware of this new requirement.

With the above in mind, is there anyone out there who can help? This needs to happen ASAP because the date for our re-launch fund raiser in Davis is 10/22

If four of you wanted to match a hundred dollars each, I could coordinate that.

Help Reinstate 5013c by Taking Raffle Chance

With regard to the need we are expressing above, you can be an NBG Hero by taking a chance at winning the Lightning Phantom pictured here (little brother of the P-38). a beautiful, and might I add fast, machine. If we can get 50 people to take a chance at winning it (it’s worth $1800), we will have the IRS covered. Since raffle tickets are $10 apiece, if you buy 10 of them, and if we reach our goal of $500 to make the above happen, unless you tell us otherwise, we will celebrate you as one of our NBG 501c3 Heros!

HERE is the raffle!

NOTE: Might be a good idea to buy raffle tickets now as they will increase by $5 per moth.

Davis NBG Fest Oct 22 – Repost

HERE is the Facebook  invite for the Davis NBG Fest

Sudwerks names its new beer *Bike Party*
Sudwerks, the beer brewing company that even has an internationally celebrated  college on beer making here at its location in Davis is going to receive the July 22 Bike Party Davis ride. We will be visiting them again because they want to atone for their sins  from our last visit. Seems miscommunication  had them closing the wrong beer dispensing tap room. As a result our group somehow got spilt in half once we got there.

Well not only are they going to stay open later for us, they even want us to sample the new beer they came up with. It’s called Bike Party! And if you volunteer to keep the intersections clear on our ride, you will get a free pint of the stuff!!

Bike Party Davis  Mission
A non-athletic party on wheels, with lighted bikes and trikes short, long and tall as well as bikes towing music, dogs and kids, our monthly rides here in the Bike Capital of America, show the fun that can be had while casually pedaling a two or three-wheeled machine. A by-product of giving Davisites this recreational outlet is that Bike Party Davis rides demonstrate the quality of life that has resulted from our making the bicycle a top priority in the transportation mix.

When people from other cities all over the nation and the world come to our rides and discover that what appears from its freeways and car roads is not the real Davis, they learn that the only way one can see and appreciate our city is from a bicycle seat. Once newcomers experience our traffic calmed and wide bike-laned streets, as well as our many under and over crossings and pathways and greenbelt arterials, we feel we are also serving the international community. This is so because the example we have set plants the seed for what is possible in other cities and towns all over this continent and beyond.

Davis to Winters on  Lightning P-38s
Eric Warp and  I rode 16 miles from his house in Davis to Winters on Saturday morning. Our ride on largely desolate farm roads and through walnut orchards and under a notable amount of olive trees ended at Steady Eddys. A coffee shop that serves delicious breakfasts, it also functions as magnet for road bike cyclists all through out the area.

Eric met a friend there as I hob knobbed with some of bike riders who had ridden in. Many seemed to have come from   Vacaville where it sounds  like there is quite a population of serious cyclists. About 45 minutes later I left for home because I wanted to  do the Sacramento 2nd Saturdays Cruise later in the day.

Since I knew I wouldn’t be riding hard at the Sac ride and Eric who is working himself back into shape was not with me, I put the hammer down on my ride back. 33 minutes later, I was back in Davis! I love this P-38 (you can win it’s slightly slower  little brother, the Lightning Phantom at our raffle! <link>) !!

While Eric and I were riding to Winters earlier our riding was brisk, tho not as fast as what I did on the way back as I  just explained. And when I say brisk, I mean we were moving a bit quicker than what the average road bike is clocking on these very long, very straight roads. As Eric and I rode, we talked about how grueling terrain like this used to feel on a touring bike where the sameness of scenery remains unchanged for long periods of time, where the next turn in the road remains visible for what feels like an eternity.

On our Lightnings, the speed at which the scenery changes has made it far easier to explore the outer bounds of Davis, a relative island surrounded in part by flood plains!

Sacramento 2nd Saturdays Cruise and the Bigger Picture
For the different kind of ride I was set to embark on, I took the Clive Buckler engineered marvel, the Advanta. As a pedal powered pub crawl, the ride moves very slow. So slow in fact, with all the constant stopping,  it was not practical for the Eagle HiWheel, probably the slowest bike in the city of Davis. Nor would the Eagle fit on a bus rack. But the Advanta is a champ at taking the bus and moving slow if need be!

A spin off of the Bike Party phenomenon that is sweeping America (Critical Mass rides are fun too but they  cannot seems to shake the stigma of the negative press some of their early rides used to receive spawning Bike Party), the 2nd Saturday Cruise goes a long way toward making it cool to ride a bike. Where a little over a decade ago, cyclists were thought of as goody goody tree huggers, the Sacramento Cruise and the Bike Party rides that are springing up everywhere are showing how it is the in step people who are the ones who are riding their bikes nowadays.

This shows up in the faces of all the motorists who have to wait for us. Often we hear them verbalize their look of wonder with some form of the the question, “how do I find out about this?”  You can tell they’d much rather be with us than sitting in a motor vehicle.

Because of  rides like the 2nd Saturday Cruse, America is seeing the every day warrior for the environment is their next door neighbor. Their seeing that he or she doesn’t have to wear spandex or  the Lance Armstrong game face to be a serious cyclist. Consider, for example,  Ruby Noad a tall Panamanian who was riding the 1960s Schwinn Varsity her uncle had given her.

Because of the Sacramento Bike Party and 2nd Saturday rides, Ruby became so excited about cycling that in between her work and her workout regimen as a martial artist, she upgraded her classic bike so that it rides more comfortably and performs better.  After new wheels and tires and a new seat, now she is ramping up for a bike ride on the Coast Highway. And the joy on her face is so apparent when she rides.

And consider a bike I saw there made by Alchemist Cycles. A true gem, this labor of love has 38-inch wheels and chrome in all the right places. All the twists in the well polished metal are perfectly executed. Nor is any detail overlooked. This is a true work of art. And Deven, the builder, showed me other bikes that he had made that other cyclists were riding! Nor do his bikes ride  fast or are they thought of as performance machines. They are just cool! And comfortable!

Monetizing our San Francisco to Washington, DC Route
Armed with the Virtual Tour of Reno <link>  we got on line last Winter, we have now begun the work of monetizing the Virtual Tour we are building for Davis, the Bike Capital of America. Toward that end, we have begun selling the places to eat, sleep, shop, play and recreate that flesh out the Davis Biking Attractions map we have developed. And once complete we will, by summer’s end,  have a model we can use to interest investment capital in helping us replicate business supported Virtual Tours in all 20 of the NBG Anchor Cities  that hold our route   from San Francisco to Washington DC together.

This strategy is important to connecting America with a Greenway. It gives face to the services, food, drink and others attractions that make our Anchor Cities what they  are. And by giving them face, a personality is established that makes them attractive biking destinations, also allowing cyclists to visit them well before they get there. It also causes these businesses to take an interest in matters that affect their potential cyclist customers.

Grocery Outlet Signs On!
An example of the personality that various bushiness give to an area is the Grocery Outlet store in Davis, CA. While there are Grocery Outlets stores all over America, the Davis operation caters to a clientele that is often more discriminating about its food. For that reason, the Davis Grocery Outlet has a far larger selection of organic and GMO-free foods than what you will see in most Grocery Outlet stores. And because the fuel cyclists rely on is the food they ate, the Davis store is a hum drum of activity. Personally, since I shop  there every day because I don’t want to miss the deals that fly off their shelves, I am proud to say they are on our map!!

Other NBG Maps Stars
As you may have seen in past newsletters, the fun Grocery Outlet people (besides bargains I also always get a healthy dose of laughs when I am there) join the 3-star Hallmark Inn. Hot Italian Pizza Bar, Whole Foods and Ken’s Bike-Ski-Board  as NBG Davis Attractions. Soon a large number of the smaller businesses I have been working with will find their way on to our map. And I am excited to be able to bring out of the Davis woodwork some of what I have been finding for out of the area cyclists to see!!