Fun with bikes and music

Xtracycles, cello, drums, and a great time.  Ben Sollee’s Pedaling Against Poverty Tour rolled into town last night at Blowin’ Smoke.  Ben and his bandmates are incredibly talented and clearly love what they do.  If they weren’t riding bikes, though, they may never have come here, and if they did, we probably would not have had the pleasure of meeting them like we did.  Thanks to them for a great event last night — everyone had a ball!

Our raffle raised $425 which will go to the Oxfam Unwrapped program Ben is touring in part to support (buying a bike for an impoverished community at every show — please consider giving individually to this worthy cause) and SBC’s new program for lights and helmets for low income cyclists who are more frequently injured or killed on their bikes, in part due to the absence of some of these key pieces of equipment.  More to come on that soon, and our thanks to Quality Bike Shop and Bicycle Link for assisting in these efforts.  Many thanks to Quality Bike Shop and Half Moon Outfitters for their donations for the raffle.

Thanks also to our volunteers who made the ride and raffle happen.  We had a great group groovin’ through the downtown Savannah streets last night before the show.  Ben and crew are on their way to Jacksonville for a Sunday 12/13 show at Jack Rabbit’s, via St Marys and Fernandina Beach where they will play the ferry that links those cities at 2:30 this Saturday 12/12.  Definitely something to see if you’re in the area.

Speaking of ferries, Ben noted during the show, and Mary Landers also noted in her article in today’s SMN that the Belles Ferry operators were less than accomodating when these four loaded cyclists arrived for a ride across the river despite an expected minimum of ferry traffic on a weekday mid December afternoon:

You also have to deal with the unexpected, such as a stern operator aboard the Savannah Belles Ferry, who would only allow the group’s oversized bikes to take the ferry one at a time. That would’ve taken the foursome about an hour and a half and put them off schedule, so they braved the Talmadge Bridge on their bikes instead.

Hardly a way to welcome visitors to our city.  That ferry is part of the East Coast Greenway route which will ultimately link Maine with Key West, and the next time loaded cyclists come through, we’d like to think they will get a warm welcome instead of a hassle.  Ben and crew were very good natured about it, even doing a funny monologue about it in the show.  This morning, the ferry supervisor has issued them an official apology, noting from the SMN pictures that they could have accomodated at least 2 bikes on a ferry, probably all if a larger boat had been used.  Still, this was a lost opportunity to extend the hospitality of the hostess city to visitors bringing nothing but good things to us.  Lesson learned — let’s hope that only happens once!