You could, if so interested, probably spend every Saturday and Sunday riding your bike in some official or semi-official ride in the DC area without repeating yourself all year. Between club rides, charity rides, races, WABA rides, and community rides we're almost drowning in organized rides. Still, there is no signature ride in the area like the Five Boro Bike Tour in New York City (which I haven't done, but want to do) or RAGBRAI in Iowa (which I have done, and is great fun).
WABA used to sponsor BikeDC, which served that purpose, the one can't miss bike ride in the area. But it has been a victim of hurricanes and the post-9-11 security push.
Because of the unique security challenges we now face in DC, the number of agencies and jurisdictions involved in the permitting process for the event has increased dramatically. Accordingly, WABA needs to take time out in 2005 to evaluate whether to continue the event in the future or to achieve our goals in other ways.
Sure, there's the 50 States Ride (Aug 26), Bike-In Movie (Aug 5), and Booth's Escape Ride (Oct 21 - You'll bike right by my house, isn't that exciting?) but those are, by nature, limited to experienced riders, people who can get dates, or people who shot Lincoln.
Baltimore, on the other hand, has a ride called the Tour du Parks. Now I for one, am not a fan of bike rides (or races) that use a variation of the Tour du France name - lacks creativity, but still the ride sounds like fun and I'll look at doing it next year.
“If I had friends coming into town, this is what I’d do to show them the city,” said Michael Abrams. “It’s the full spectrum of nature and urban landscape.” About 350 amateur bicyclists — from grade-schoolers to Social Security recipients, but mostly 20- to 50-somethings — came with small groups of friends Sunday for the Tour du Parks, a social morning of exercise.
The big selling point of BikeDC was the street closures, and on the 4th it was nice riding around the Mall without any traffic. It sounds like the Baltimore ride stayed off the roads, but I have to think that a ride could be put together that would close a few roads early on a Saturday morning. They seemed to be able to close the streets for Marathons.
I wonder, if I wanted one ride that would show out-of-towners the city, what would it include. The Mall, the Capitol and the White House obviously. Georgetown. Capitol Hill and Eastern Market Neighborhoods. The Anacostia Waterfront. Rock Creek. DuPont Circle, Adams Morgan and U Street. Old town Anacostia. I think that's doable.
Don't forget all of the organized mountain bike rides by MORE: http://www.more-mtb.org/forum/calendar.php?
Posted by: Graham | July 06, 2006 at 03:21 PM