It’s probably been about a year since I have posted on rocbike, so here’s a collection of the fun group rides I did in 2009.

In March I headed up to Monson, MA to join up with fellow ratrod bikers for a swap meet and cruise. Monson kinda sucked for cruising so we packed up and went across the border to Willamantic, CT, where we had lunch and continued to ride.

full photo set here

In June I was on vacation so I ended up bringing one of my custom vintage bikes up to Rochester to join up with the old cruising crew, with a lot of new faces since I left town. One of the nights we went way out on the canal trail.

full photo set here

There’s a few local guys that go on custom vintage rides in downtown Hartford, so that happened at least a few times this summer.

June:

full photo set here

August:

full photo set here

Also in August, a few of us joined up in New London for a custom-vintage ride.

full photo set here

In September, I was back on vacation, and I did a tour of NY state, starting with a stop in NYC. Me and my friend Otto cruised from Queens to Brooklyn.

full photo set here

After NYC I was back up in ROC for two more days of cruising with the ROC cruise crew.

Wednesday:

full photo set here

Thursday – we rode up the Genesee river trail to the pier at Charlotte:

full photo set here

And the last group ride I did this past year, a custom-vintage cruise in New Haven, in October:

full photo set here

Hoping that 2010 is as full of fun bike rides! Happy New Year!

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

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!

Come one, come all, to the first officially promoted cruiser ride of the season!

Meet at 8:00pm at Monty’s Krown, or join us an hour earlier at Dog Town just down the street. To learn more about the cruises, visit the RocBike Cruise section!

photo by Whittiker Owens.

Last sunday I was lucky enough to find myself in Rochester, with friends, a bicycle, and a boombox. Unfortunately I am back in another state now, but the cruise goes on in Rochester, check them out on wednesday nights:

www.flickr.com/photos/whittikerowens/2404142061

Today was an awesome day for bike riding, weather-wise. And Joey was in town, which made being on a bike even more awesome. Here are some photos:

A bike commuter spotted on the way to Brian’s house! WOW! Although some nice panniers would take the load off this fellow’s back. 

Joey was posing for a photo shoot when I got to Brian’s. The subject matter frightened me. 

We rode around on back roads mostly. It was cold, but the sun kept us warm. 

Traffic was light on this Sunday afternoon. 

We tooled around the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s parking lot, just because we could. 

And the obligatory timed photograph to finish the ride. 

Joey’s left us for a career in Connecticut but Brian and I remain to carry the Wednesday Night Cruise torch. We agreed that it’ll be too darn cold to start those cruises back up until at least next month. But when we do, we’ll let you know about it, because we’d love your company. We’ll even spam you about it if you join the RocBike Facebook group.

Today Joey spilled the beans about leaving Rochester with the world’s longest paragraph, and last night we celebrated Joey’s new life with a Cruiser Ride!

It was a very cold cruise, and bikes were malfunctioning left and right. Bike seats were wigging about and literally falling off, wheels were making strange noises, and Joey nearly crashed the official RocBike cruiser into my Down-Low-Glow-equipped commuting bike! But all was well, and even though I skipped out a little early I took some photos and video to share:

The video features two minutes of silence at the end in remembrance of Joey:

Joey’s Last Cruiser Ride from Adam Durand on Vimeo.

Jason Crane asked me to pick up this bike from the 2nd hand bike mission (I am not sure what they call themselves now, but they sell some bikes to fund the non-profit) while we was out of town. That was over a month ago, Jason’s been really busy with the move and hasn’t had a chance to pick it up. I hate seeing a good bike not getting used, so I have decided to designate this bike the Official Rocbike.com Cruiser until Jason comes back for it. It has already made its appearance at a few of the Wednesday Night Cruises, as well as Critical Mass and on a couple Bike Photo Tag missions. If you want to take it for a spin join us any wednesday night for a cruise! I am sure that Jason would approve.

We were a bare-bones group this week, but doesn’t mean it was any less fun. Some caliente music was keeping us warm as we made our way through our routines as rolling creatures of habit. Here’s the Breakdown: Dogtown, Monty’s Krown, Rolling Around Town, Snow Falling Down, Looking Like Clowns. Standard Wednesday Night Cruise. We even hit up our favorite Footbridge over 490. It was almost impassible, as we expected. We did however stop and do a bike lift for the evening 490 traffic. We did a little exploring for hidden routes through the Park Ave neighborhood. Then skipped LUX for a change and got a 6-pack of a beer with a dog biting a bicycle tire on the label. These frosty libations were enjoyed in my humble abode while we watched cartoons and played 2-player Tetris with the friendly neighbors.

As always, an open invitation to join us any Wednesday. We’re a fun group who likes riding bikes and listening to music, while visiting some of our favorite watering holes. No agenda, just cruising!

Pics by Adam, video by Joey