Join us for the National Bike Month edition of our Bike to Beer social at Moon River Brewing Company
tonight starting at 7pm. We’ll be celebrating a year with Frank McIntosh as Executive Director as well as revealing upcoming changes to Price Street, Bike Education, and the Midnight Garden Ride. See you there!
Kids Bike Rodeo
May is Bike Month! Coming soon…
Bring the kids next Saturday for some great fun and learning about safe riding! It’s preferred that kids bring their own bikes and helmets, though we will have limited numbers of both on hand for kids who might not have theirs! Suggested donation is $5 to help support our ongoing mission to improve bicycle safety in Savannah.
What: SBC Rodeo
When: Sat May 14, 10am-12pm
Where: Jacob G. Smith Elementary School, right next to Habersham Village shopping center
Why: Teach your kids to ride safely and have fun doing it!
On Bicycle Education
Many of you have been following the developments as we have regarding the SCAD student who was struck by a bus while riding her bike on Montgomery Street on Saturday. Below is the full text of a letter to the editor from our own Education Chair, Garrison Marr, which we hope will be printed very soon.
Early this week a college student was involved in a bicycling crash on Montgomery Street that resulted in serious injuries. The incident and its reporting has led to increased dialogue in the community on safe bicycling. To be sure, the most important outcome after this accident is that the student regains her health, and our thoughts are with her.
Because the dialogue on safer cycling has surfaced again, I would like to offer two quick thoughts:
Bicycle education is available to interested community members and it is concentrated where the available resources are likely to have the biggest impact. SCAD now offers bicycle education as part of its First Year Experience program, reaching new college students who may not have biked before coming to SCAD. The Savannah Bicycle Campaign offers quarterly in depth Traffic Skills workshops for the general public; the next is May 21 at the Bicycle Link bike shop. The SBC also organizes Bicycle Rodeos for children and their parents once every two months, teaching kids and their parents bike skills, and their parents bike-friendly motorist behaviors.
The chief principle of bicycling education is that bicyclists fare best when they act and are treated as operators of vehicles. The recent incident is an unfortunate example of the outcome of wrong-way bicycling which puts a bicyclist in a place in the roadway where they are unexpected.
Education is also only one tool in a toolkit for bicycle safety that also contains other “Es”. Bicycle-specific engineering (e.g. bike lanes, multi use paths), enforcement targeted at dangerous motorist and cyclist encouragement that invites Savannahians to make bicycling a healthy part of their daily lives.
It is in our community’s best interests for all groups to become safer, healthier, and more generous roadway users.
Garrison Marr
Education Chair
Savannah Bicycle Campaign
Volunteer: Bike Census and Earth Day
Two great volunteer opportunities coming your way: the City of Savannah’s annual bike census and our own Earth Day Wheelie and Post Wheelie Dealie! We have t-shirts for volunteers, because we want you to help us spread the bicycle love in Savannah.
April (like just about every month) is a great time to ride in Savannah. More folks seem to get out on their bikes in April, though, so this is when we have partnered in the past with the City of Savannah to coordinate volunteers for the bike census. The last couple showed a huge increase from 2009 to 2010, and looking around, we expect that trend will continue! Please help us measure that trend so we can inform our discussions with city planners and elected officials next week — we have shifts available Monday April 25, Wednesday April 27, or Saturday April 30. Use this link to fill out your available times.
We can’t leave out the fun, either, can we? We need volunteers to help with our Earth Day display at the festival leading up to our triumphant Earth Day Wheelie this coming Saturday April 23! Shifts are listed here, and we have just a few open spots left, so get in on the action now…
Get your Earth Day Wheelie On!
Many of you campaigners will remember that it was early in 2008 that this group of bike-minded folks began to organize, and the first major project we organized was the Earth Day Wheelie. Well, here we are in 2011 preparing to celebrate the 4th Annual Earth Day Wheelie!
We are bringing back all the fun, music, and street empowerment that goes with a free police escorted ride through downtown Savannah. Ride starts at Park and Bull at the south end of Forsyth Park at 4pm. We will finish with the Post Wheelie Dealie at Blowin’ Smoke where we invite you to partake of some refreshments and to join or renew as a donor-member of this movement! With your help, we’ll keep pedaling toward our goal of bike enlightenment as we usher in the Age of Bicycles in Chatham County. Don’t miss it!
What: Earth Day Wheelie and Post Wheelie Dealie Party
Where: Forsyth Park (Bull and Park) to Blowin’ Smoke (514 MLK)
When: Sat 4/23, 4pm
Why: Fun, sustainable trasnportation and recreation.
Pedal mixology tomorrow!
What a great spring, Campaigners!
All of our pedal powered friends are invited to join us for the April edition of Greendrinks. We’ll be there to promote the Earth Day Wheelie and mixing up treats with our pedal-powered blender. C’mon out and see us!
What: Greendrinks with Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s CycloConcoctions blending!
Where: Cha Bella at E Broad and E Broughton
When: Tues 4/12, 5:30-7:30pm
Why: Going by bike is sustainable transportation. Sustainability is good. Cocktails are good. Sustainability + Cocktails = Better
SMF this week: 3 Valet Shows, Funky Closing Ride
Bicycle and music aficionados! We are so pleased with our partnership with the Savannah Music Festival to provide free valet parking. Three more remain in our six-pack:
Tonight 4/4, 7:30pm Band of Horses at Johnny Mercer Theater – East entrance to the Civic Center
Tomorrow 4/5, 8pm Citizen Cope solo at Trustees Theater
Saturday 4/9, 8:30pm AND 10:30pm Maceo Parker shows: Funky dance party at Charles Morris Center
Valet opens 30 minutes before showtime and closes 30 minutes after the end.
Plus, along with the Saturday show, we’ll host the Closing Night Funky Sunset Social Ride, starting at 7pm from the Morris Center. We’ll bring the funk — you bring your bike and your friends and shake your moneymaker with us!
Coming soon: Earth Day Wheelie 4/23
Details will be up very soon on the 4th Annual Earth Day Savannah Wheelie set for Saturday, 4/23 at 4pm. It’s hard to believe this will be the fourth time around, but there it is. The free pedal party through downtown starts at the close of the Earth Day Festival in Forsyth Park and finishes with the Post Wheelie Dealie party, our annual membership drive. Mark your calendar!
Update: Avett Brothers SMF Bike Valet
Tonight only, the Savannah Music Festival brings the rambunctious pop-Americana of the Avett Brothers to the Savannah Civic Center’s Johnny Mercer Theater. Showtime is 9pm, and we will have volunteers on hand starting at 8:30 to secure your bike for the show at the east entrance to the Civic Center (the side facing Orleans Square and Oglethorpe House). We’ll be there until 30 minutes after the show.
If you are watching updates from the National Weather Service, you may note that it is likely to be raining at showtime. We are aware of this prognostication and say the show (and valet!) must go on — if it’s raining we will be under cover. See y’all there!
April Bike Fools
Friday is indeed April 1, and before things get silly we want to remind you of two bona fide events for your foolish pleasure. First, start the day off right with a 2Wheels 2Work. Forecast is for wind, but seasonable temperatures in the best time of year. Any bike will do, though some of our local cargo hauling bikes will be on display for our partner on this event, a SCAD Industrial Design class looking at innovative ways to transport stuff by bike. Ride in from Habersham Village starting at 7:30, meet us along the way or join us at the finish for coffee at Jittery Joe’s at Ex Libris on MLK.
Bookend your folly with a ride to our third valet of the Savannah Music Festival, the sure-to-entertain steel guitar stylings of Robert Randolph and the Family Band. Showtime is 9pm, and we’ll be parking your bikes on Broughton Street in front of Will Call at Trustees Theater starting at 8:30.
