[CycleMainiac]

Anyone else do urban rides?

We had a big group for July 1, which also happened to be First Thursday here. One greoup met 5:30ish to ride about campus and try to get chased off, up ramps and down steps. Some guys jumped off some pretty big stuff. Then we continued south to the Capitol Complex where we managed to walk the entire group, bikes and all, right through the state Capitol. The silly troopers didn't react until we were nearly out the other door and then the only thing they could *scare* is with was "Don't ride on the sidewalks" .

On south via Congress and a few more jumps to meet the remainder of the group at Stevie Ray Vaughn (statue)

At this point we had about 35-40 riders. We headed over to SoCo for First Thursday. South Congress is a business district that throws a big street party every first thursday. Tons of people, lots of beer food and live music. We hung out at one place the split into smaller groups and did what ever exploring and riding all around. I finally rolled home about 11.

Anyway it was a hoot. Tomorrow we are rolling again for a full moon urban ride pub crawl.

 

[Spike]

Used to

That does sound like fun. I used to do the occasional urban ride when I lived in Milwaukee. I liked going down to the lakefront (Lake Michigan). But the rides were always with a friend or two, not a big organized group event.

Now that I'm in Calgary, and far from downtown, there are so many pathways and trails in the nearby parks, I haven't done an urban ride yet.

Spike

Anyone else do urban rides?
Anyway it was a hoot. Tomorrow we are rolling again for a full moon urban ride pub crawl.

 

[kpicha]

Holy moly, 35-40 people?! Wow, what a group! That does sound like fun!

 

[CycleMainiac]

We had 20 for Saturday's Night Blue Moon ride. We had beer at 5 of 6 places we stopped. One girl wanted to get peirced so we stopped at three different places. Then she changed her mind remembering she was leaving for a cruise the next day.

And of course we had to get pics of our white moons under the blue moon.
Don't look if moon shots are offensive to you

https://www.bikemojo.com/photos/data/500/12full_moon_fever_1.jpg
https://www.bikemojo.com/photos/data/500/12full_moon_fever_2.jpg

We didn't get chased by cops on campus or near the Capitol
I think I rode about 20 miles, made it home about 2am. Silly fun!

 

[JustDoIt]

I don't really do urban rides. But, I do ride through urban areas to and from a trailhead near my home. That trailhead has options. It's almost like having a bunch of trails right at my front door. (I'm very fortunate.) The ride "to" isn't much of anything. That's all about getting to the dirt. The ride "from" is a different story. A few highlights of the urban ride back to the homestead:

- find the neighborhood cat (slightly uphill section. it's tricky -- she can hide under bushes and has been seen near 3 different homes so far.)

- coasting record alley (also tricky -- you have to veer right then left in a weird little intersection, timing to avoid possible oncoming cars, to hit a dip that could contain water or gravelly junk, and then rise up into the alley... it'll level off. but, you still gotta have speed if you want to be a contender.)

- some mandatory curb hopping (that's what qualifies it as an urban ride, right?)

- gravel test (this building has gravel between the street and the sidewalk. best if you can maintain traction and control to weave between every little tree. you can start from the inside or the outside.)

- swoopy stuff through campus (extremely hard to obey the speed limit signs)

- no-hands parking lot (it's a diagonal cut across, very few cars)

- speed test (slightly downhill road, big ring necessary, need someone with a bike computer if you really want to know the results)

I can't imagine riding with so many people!! I must be anti-social.

 

[formica]

My friend and I do urban sometimes. We ride some single track through this giant vacant area called 'end of the world" and go really fast when we get near the homeless camps. Then we go inot the park and mess around. There's this old amphitheatre that has wide flat steps to practice hopping up a front wheel on. Then we pedal around, ride stairs if we can get away with it, and look at the big stuff that the guys huck off. The cops are pretty cool, we've been told as long as we don't run anyone over or go through flower beds we can do whatever.

One day we had our pads on because we were trying some moves on these rocks in an old abandoned pond. Then we went on the bike path to get back to our cars, too lazy to take the pads off. We got some really funny looks ( armor on the bike trail) and funny comments,l I know we looked silly.

formica