I went for a nighttime ride tonight, and decided to explore our soon-to-be neighborhood. We’re moving into the Helderberg Neighborhood (near PS 19) in June. I wanted to explore Helderberg Avenue, which I’d noticed both up by South Main Street and down by Academy Road, but which, according to the map, ends at a few points in between.

View Larger Map

I started on South Main and headed southeast on Helderberg. It’s a very quiet street that runs across other fairly quiet streets, so there were few if any cars. I did see quite a few cyclists down the main streets to both sides. The temperature was perfect for a nighttime ride — cool enough for jeans and a fleece, but warm enough to not have a chill in the air.

On the map, the first break in Helderberg Avenue is just southeast of Cardinal Ave. If you’re driving a car, that’s as far as you can go. If you’re riding a bike, though, you can cross Cardinal, ride up a hill that’s also someone’s driveway, and pass between two posts and a garden onto a little paved path that leads to Sycamore Street. Easy as pie, and pretty, too. A jogger passed me on the short path and said, “Nice lights!” The path goes down a little hill to the sidewalk on Sycamore. There’s a three-way stop at this point, so it’s a safe crossing point after you hop the curb. (You can also go down the sidewalk a few feet and exit onto the street via a driveway.)

At this point, Helderberg is more like a wooded alley, with several lovely houses fronting the street. No cars to be seen.

At Pinewood Avenue, Helderberg ends again if you’re driving. For a cyclist, another path leads you through to Ramsey Place. You can continue on Heldenberg all the way to Academy Road, and then across Academy onto one of the campuses. I’m still not sure which part of which campus I’m on when I ride this way. A lot of this area is part of the Albany Medical Center, but not all of it.

In any case, I continued down a campus path to Princeton Drive, then to Holland Avenue. I turned left on Delaware Avenue and then right on one of the most fun streets in Albany — Park Avenue. This is a brick street that rockets straight down to MLK Boulevard and Lincoln Park. I had just had disc breaks installed earlier in the day at the Down Tube, so I zipped down the hill at about 25 mph and jammed on the breaks at the bottom. They worked like a charm. (Although they need to be broken in, as Eric at the Down Tube had cautioned.)

The rest of the ride was a lovely cruise through downtown, including my usual trip to the mall at Empire State Plaza, one of my favorite places to ride at night.

Then it was home to degrease and lube my chain on the screened porch while listening to John Gielgud’s 1941 radio production of Hamlet. What a great night!

Tonight’s bike cruise was unbelievably awesome. I’ve put some pictures up on Facebook. We ended up with 22 people, 5 Down Low Glows, 2 LED-based glow systems, about 2 helmets, and one tinny sound system. There was an amazing vibe during the ride. A lot of new people, who were really into it. And we grabbed some brews at Lux Lounge afterwards.

A number of people remarked how exciting it is that Rochester is really starting to feel like it has a bike culture. In fact, at one point in the ride, we got mistaken for the Tuesday Night Urban Assaulters – amazing that Rochester has enough bike cliques for people to mix them up.

Please join our clique for the next ride. We usually leave from Dogtown at 8pm on Wednesdays. We have a Facebook group if you enjoy receiving spam about upcoming rides. See you out there.

Darryl rides the RocBike Cruiser

Photo by Eric Breitung

After an extra week of waiting while my DLG kits were shipped back to california because of a mix up at the fed ex office, they were kind enough to overnight them to me. I installed them in about 5 minutes before work, on my recently acquired and refurbished late 60’s Sears Spyder 5-speed 24″ muscle bike.

I had to wait until my dinner break (around 8PM) to fire them up, but it was worth the wait. I definitely got some weird looks riding around, cars slowing down as they pass to to figure out why my bike was glowing. I didn’t get a stream of comments from people like Jason did, but one lady in a car said, “That’s a good idea!” to which I replied, “It’s a great idea!”

I took pictures on the way home at the end of my shift.

My good camera still has a broken lens so I have been forced to use the little digital point and shoot the last couple of weeks. Best I can do for now. More pics after I get a new lens!

It was 90 degrees in Albany yesterday, and that meant it was still gorgeous late last night when I went cruising down to Empire State Plaza and the Capitol. Enjoy!

So some of us RocBikers and Wednesday Night Cruisers ended up pooling our money together for about 10 fancy glowsticks, a.k.a. Down Low Glows (DLGs). If you have self esteem issues, strap one of these to your bike and bask in the complements of strangers. They turn your bike into a mobile coolness generator. If you do any night riding, they are probably one of the best investments you can make for bike safety and street cred.

The package recently arrived here in Rochester, and on Wednesday night this week, Brian, Nick, and I got together with non-glowers Brandi, Lindsey, and Eric for an inaugural DLG cruise. We started cruising in daylight, so the class warfare didn’t start until the sun went down.

Heading down Park Avenue

This was the first time I’ve seen Brandi on the cruise – Welcome!

Waiting at Oxford and Monroe

Locking up at Dog Town to eat and wait for the dark

It’s now dusk enough to fire up those lights!

There wasn’t as much light variety this ride as there will be on future rides – there are people in Rochester with Red, Green, and Pink DLGs as well. But the blue and orange played well together, and we got plenty of shout-outs from impressed people as we rode by.

Impressive, but if everyone showed we’d have a lot more glow!

Lighting up the streets

I already have a Green DLG on my commuter bike, so for now I’ve put the Blue model on the Official RocBike Cruiser. I used the Cruiser on Wednesday but it is now available for anyone to borrow, especially on Wednesday nights. Send me an e-mail at adam.durand@gmail.com and let me know if you’d like to take it (and the Down Low Glow) for a spin.

Some downtown riding

Viewing the Falls in close quarters

Hanging out at the playground in Manhattan Square Park

It was a great cruise. We’ve decided that April 30th will be the first officially promoted Rochester cruise of the season. Spam your friends! We hope to see you there!

The rest of the photos are at Fort Orange Cycling.

My new Down Low Glow bike lighting system arrived this afternoon, and I took my first cruise tonight with the stylin’ Packet Boat (Xtracycle). I’ll have some pictures in the morning.

My driveway is about five feet long, and I had not reached the end of it before two cyclists stopped me. The guy in the lead said, “Man, I thought I had some lights, but this is the ultimate!” We chatted for a few minutes about Xtracycles and DLGs.

Then it was off on the inaugural GlowMotion 08. Here’s a sampling of the feedback from people on front porches, sidewalks, park benches, bar decks, and on the street in general:

• “Look at this motherfucker!”
• “Dude, is that a moped?” (Me — “It’s a bicycle!”) “It’s a bicycle! Ha ha! Cool!”
• “Nice glow!” (I swear that wasn’t scripted. She actually yelled “Nice glow!”)
• “Nice bike!”
• “Phat bike, man!”
• “That’s gotta be a fun ride!”
• “Cool pimped-out bike!”

I thought the Xtracycle was a conversation starter. Add the Down Low Glow and you’ve got yourself the ultimate bike advocacy tool. Who wouldn’t want to ride a bike that looks that cool? And I’m a geek. Imagine what it would look like with a rider as cool as the bike. Dangerous, even!

Get yours today! You’ll be glad you did.

(Derek, if you read this — my wife said today, “I think I’m changing my mind about getting an Xtracycle.” Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah! My evil plan is working!)