The World’s Friendliest Viking, Joey Mac, put together a great cruise for Halloween. About 20 cyclists gathered in front of Monty’s Crown on Monroe Avenue in Rochester around 8 p.m. for a slow, no-set-direction ride through the Park Avenue and South Wedge neighborhoods. There were Critical Massers, folks from Blue Cease’s New History Tours, members of Team RocBike, and unattached cyclists. Joey handed out glowsticks for all. He had also had a basket of candy on the front of his cruiser bike. He tossed candy to bystanders as we rode.

We started out on Monroe Ave, quickly turning into the Park Ave neighborhood. We cruised around shouting “Happy Halloween” at the trick-or-treaters, who cheered for us a lot more frequently than I expected. Everybody was in costume. We had a Viking (Joey), the Chicken Avenger (Adam Durand), a Ghostbuster, mountain men and many more. The show stealer for me, though, wasn’t a person. It wasn’t even a bike. It was two glass tubes:

Adam’s new Down Low Glow. Man, oh man, it’s cool!

Photographer and inline skater John Lam was with us, too, which was cool because he took my crappy camera midway through and managed to get some decent shots. He also rode the Packet Boat (Xtracycle) part of the way with his skates down — human training wheels!

We cruised by Frederick Douglass’s house on Bond Street and I told the ghost story that I had heard on the “Not So Smugtown” tour. Eventually, we made our way to the bar LUX on South Avenue. Let me tell you, 20 cyclists entering the back patio — including one with the Down Low Glow — was a hip sight to see. Here are the photos John Lam and I took tonight:

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Joey is planning to host a cruise every Wednesday for at the least the next several weeks. Watch our calendar for details!

UPDATE: Joey sent this note:

Thanks again to everyone who came out. I can’t take all the credit for the event, my buddies Brian Killmore and Karl Uschold helped plan and organize the ride, and Team Rocbike supported it! I uploaded pics from the ride that Brian took, on my flickr page

Fritz from Cyclelicious came up with the “baiku” concept — a haiku about bikes. Here’s one I wrote about tonight’s Bike Or Treat cruise.

Seventy degrees
Halloween evening bike cruise
Xtracycle bliss

While I was browsing today on my lunch hour at Greenwood Books, I got a chance to hear Mayor Duffy on our local NPR affiliate, WXXI. He was on the talk show, 1370 Connection.

A caller complained about there being too many cyclists on downtown sidewalks. Mayor Duffy agreed, and said, “I’m really interested in creating bike lanes downtown for bicyclists.” Okay, that quote may not be his exact words, but you get the gist.

So, let’s hold the Mayor accountable to his words…emails, letters, phone calls…maybe a more organized effort, particularly in light of Jack’s comments about the Midtown Plaza site.

Happy Halloween from RocBike.com!

From The Bike-O-Sphere

• VIDEO: Martinis In The Bike Lane (Thanks to Bruce for the link!)
• Breaking away
• Girl power
• San Jose earthquake
• Bicycle Safety on the Side
• A Halloween Story
• My new 3-speed steed….
• How to be a Quick Change Artist
• Commuter Bikes: They’ve Got It All Wrong! Part III
• Bicycling to the DMV
• Fix yer own bike ye scallywags
• Part of the Berkeley Part of the Commute
• Happy Halloween From The Mumu Of Death
• Handlebar and Grill
• A Halloween bike (or three)
• BSNYC TV: Putting Bikes on the Air
• Simple Wheels
• ‘Share the Road’ TV ads
• Happy Halloween, everyone!
• Bicycle evangelists and a contest
• October Totals and Post 500!
• a.lo’s daily commute
• Back in the Day
• Allow myself to introduce… myself!

In The News

• Bicycle industry eyes urban market
• http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=276361
• Bike lanes not safe enough
• Goodbye Lycra, hello street cred
• Workshops to promote bicycle-friendly environment

Ted and Caitlin put together this wonderful zine for the Critical Masquerade. Here it is in full digital monochrome for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

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Yesterday, I attended the Sustainability Day at Monroe Community College’s Damon City Campus in the Sibley Building downtown. Team RocBike member Julie White works at MCC and put the event together. It was a great idea — get a bunch of folks who believe in local food, cooperative business, recycling, bicycling and neighborhood empowerment together with a group of college students from all over the spectrum.

I brought the Xtracycle, and proved several important things about the bike:

• It can be ridden up an escalator (though not without equal amounts of effort and luck)
• It can be ridden around the atrium in the Sibley Building
• It is invisible

I proved that last bit by riding the Packet Boat — indoors, mind you — past the glass wall of the library. Not one person looked up. Not one. The bike is, like, 15 feet long. Therefore, it must be invisible. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Talking with an MCC student about the magic that is RocBike.com

The Packet Boat drew a lot of curious looks and questions. One woman said she wanted one so she could go riding with her husband. “He’s always telling me to get a bike. This way I could just ride with him!”

I also put together a 40-minute DVD of RocBike photos and videos that played on a TV screen behind my table.

I had some fun conversations. Joanna from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) said she travels across the state to quite a few events like this one. “Until it snows a lot — then I don’t want to get trapped far from home.”

Bunny, the Americorps coordinator at the campus, told me about some of the many adventures she’s had during her time in public service. She’s been everywhere from California to the Mississippi Delta to upstate New York. As she was leaving, she casually dropped the tidbit that she and several friends rode their bikes across the country this summer from Oregon to Rochester. I asked her whether she’d written about the experience. “Not yet,” she said. Hmmm … if only I knew someone with a cycling site.

Pat from the Rochester Bicycling Club

I wasn’t the only cycling advocate at the event — the Rochester Bicycling Club had a good table full of commuting tips and cycling basics.

All in all, it was a cool event and I hope Team RocBike will be doing more things like it. Thanks, Julie!

From The Bike-O-Sphere

• what’s this all about?
• It gets dark early now
• Olympic traffic taming
• Unsafe passage
• Blame The Cyclist?
• The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: Germ-Laden Projectiles
• changes
• Bike Racing Team Lightens Car-Load
• New York Public Radio WNYC reports on the efforts to make the city more bike friendly.
• Precious Cargo
• Cycling in wildfire smoke
• Doctor of the Year
• Commuter Bikes: They’ve Got It All Wrong! Part II
• I carry a lot of stuff.
• Get Lit Ride
• The Power of the Bicycle
• WEEKEND SUPER HERO RIDE
• Beijing Bicycle
• In the spirit of giving in
• Ride Report: Samish Lake Loop
• The Garb
• Choices

In The News

• Environment: How to Build a Local Energy Economy
• Bicycle manufacutrers lure urban youth with high-end bikes
• HOPE, LOSS, AND BICYCLES IN ZAMBIA
• Guangzhou embraces bicycle-friendly planning

My good friend Tom sent me this link from YouTube. Here’s the description:

1963 Bicycle Safety Film entitled “One Got Fat”.
A group of monkey-masked kids decide to ride their bikes to the park for a picnic. Along the way, one by one, the kids are knocked out of the ride due to careless or unsafe riding.
Narration by Edward Everett Horton of “Fractured Fairytales” (Old Rocky and Bullwinkle) fame.

Jason Crane interviews Eldon “Fatty” Nelson, impresario of FatCyclist.com, one of the most popular bike blogs on the Web. Fatty started the site as a way to lose weight by publicly humiliating himself, but his quick wit and strong writing have turned FatCyclist.com into a vibrant online community for cyclists of all kinds. Readers have followed his trips to the Leadville 100, his humorous quiz questions, and his generous giveaways. He’s even used the site to turn a difficult family struggle into an uplifting chance for everyone to do the right thing. Recently, he became the humor columnist for BikeRadar.com. And he lost the weight, too.

(The theme song for The RocBike Review is “The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side” by The Magnetic Fields. Visit them at The House Of Tomorrow.)

 The RocBike Review #3: The Fat Cyclist [29:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download