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Posts Tagged ‘events’

 

 

Ride with us in celebration of Mothers of the world and women who bike throughout the world. This Sunday our Women & Bicycles program is joining  BikeArlington and Black Women Bike DC to commemorate Mother’s Day and CycloFemme, the global celebration of women bicycling.

The Mother’s Day Picnic Ride begins in three locations throughout the region and we’ll all meet up at Hains Point for celebratory laps and picnic snacks. To get a better look at the ride routes check out our event map. This is a family-friendly, co-ed “sun dress” ride. We’re inviting the whole family to share the bike love and for the men out there, we encourage you to show your support by wearing your favorite sun dress!

To learn more and share with friends, visit our event page.

Ride with the Marlyand group
Please join WABA at the Silver Spring Metro Station at 12pm. We’ll go for an hour-long leisure ride through the city and meet up at Hains Point. After the picnic, you’ll have the choice to take the Metro home, or return to Silver Spring around 3:30pm.

Ride with the DC group
Meet up with the Silver Spring convoy at 12:45pm at the Columbia Heights Civic Plaza (14th St NW and Park St Nw)

Ride with the Virginia group
Please join BikeArlington at the Ballston Metro Station at 12pm. We’ll go for an hour-long ride on some of Arlington’s off street trails and bike lanes through the city, and we will end the ride at Hains point. After the picnic, you’ll have the choice to take the Metro home, or ride home with us.

New to bicycling?
Fantastic! We’re so glad you can join us. Group rides are great opportunities to hone your bike skills through experience and through conversation. We will start and end the ride with a quick skillshare on bicycling and city streets.

What to bring
Your bicycle and helmet are required for this ride. We also suggest bringing water, sunscreen, a picnic item to enjoy by yourself or share, clothing (your sun dress!) that will keep you comfortable depending on the weather, and bring your friends and family. We will have a bike pump, and basic repair tools at the start of all the rides.

 

 

What is Cyclofemme?  They’re a socially-driven grass-roots celebration of women on bikes, “We are of a growing community, for a growing community, and 100% volunteer-based. Our annual Mother’s Day ride unites riders, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity or bicycle preference to share in the joy of cycling.”  CycloFemme is a day of action, a day to follow through with our pledge to get more women on bikes, and a day to hail the growth of the bicycle movement.  In just one year CycloFemme has gone from 163 registered group rides throughout the world, to 227 rides, and we’re so happy to join in on the celebration. #WeRideTogether

If you haven’t yet bought your tickets for BikeFest, WABA’s annual celebration and fundraiser on Fri., May 3, do so now!

Buying a ticket to BikeFest will help to grow our advocacy, education, and outreach efforts throughout this year and beyond. All registration proceeds and contributions made at the event will directly fund WABA’s mission of spreading the bike-love and making cycling in the D.C. region safer.

Purchase tickets today for our speakeasy-style party with casino games, a live band, food and drinks, bike-themed raffle prizes, vintage bike art for auction, and more—they’re only $55. (WABA members get discounted BikeFest tickets at $45.)

Here, we’d like to say thank you to BikeFest’s sponsors: Boeing, Chipotle, New Belgium Brewing Company, Signal Financial, Toole Design Group, CH2MHill, Entertainment Sound Production, and EcoPrint. Read about all the sponsors below.

 

The Boeing Company is BikeFest’s lead sponsor. We couldn’t throw a great party without it!

Chipotle Mexican Grill has is BikeFest’s gracious food sponsor. Chipotle is providing an upscale (but still Chipotle-style) buffet with tacos and taco salads, a financial sponsorship, and raffle prizes.

New Belgium Brewing Company and WABA first paired up at last year’s inaugural Tour de Fat, and New Belgium is back for BikeFest. All beer to be sold at BikeFest is donated by New Belgium; brewery representatives will be on-site at the event to let you sample beers and talk hops and brews.

 

Generous sponsorships from Signal Financial Federal Credit Union, Toole Design Group, and CH2MHill have made BikeFest possible.

Entertainment Sound Production has donated the stage and sound equipment for the evening. EcoPrint, which handles the majority of WABA’s printing needs, has provided an in-kind donation of BikeFest posters and rack cards.

Thank you to our generous sponsors for supporting us and our bicycling mission. We’ll see you at BikeFest!

The cherry blossoms are on their way out, but smart-cycling season has just begun! Join us this Sunday in Alexandria for a Confident City Cycling class and get ready to ride with confidence this summer.

Participants of all levels are encouraged to attend our Confident City Cycling classes, which have options for multiple skill levels ranging from simple bike handling skills and using trails, to learning avoidance maneuvers and riding with traffic. Follow this link for more details and to register for the Confident City Cycling class this weekend.

Or check out our education calendar for more classes this season.

Join the WABA staff tonight, Tues., April 9 at 6 p.m. at the WABA office (2599 Ontario Road NW). All interested in participating in the 2013 Climate Ride should attend: Past climate riders, members of Team WABA, and Climate Ride staff will provide an introduction, including fundraising tips and training advice. RSVP here so that we can order enough pizza!

We’re beginning to profile those who have already joined Team WABA. Maybe you’ll be next!

If you aren’t attending tonight’s MoveDC Ideas That Build workshop in Ward 6, come to our volunteer happy hour at Smith Commons!

Whether you’re a bike ambassador, an assistant at events, a committed office volunteer, or a future volunteer, we want to thank you for your help. Join us and our friends from New Belgium and Smith Commons for an evening of beer and bicycle cheer. There will be a beer-tasting challenge with a chance to win a New Belgium bike, and brewer Matty “Smooth” Gilliland will be in the house. A dollar from every pour of a New Belgium brew will be donated to WABA.

Smith Commons is located at 1245 H St. NE. Happy hour starts at 7 p.m.

The weather never made good on its threat of rain last Sunday, but  riders of the 2013 Vasa still braved cool temperatures and gray skies to come out for WABA’s sold-out first ride of the year.

Our Vasa ride is modeled on the Swedish Vasaloppet, the longest, oldest, and largest cross-country ski race in the world that’s held on the first Sunday of March; that Vasaloppet was first held in 1922 and was modeled on a route taken by King Gustav I in 1520. WABA’s own Vasa lets participants choose from 15-, 30-, and 60-mile routes that run through the District and Montgomery County.

Kind Snacks sponsored the event, and brand representatives were on hand to offer riders granola and bars. Bike ambassadors greeted riders at a surprise pit stop halfway through the route at Potomac Villages. And the House of Sweden provided a beautiful space for the ritualistic post-ride consumption of blueberry soup—or blåbärssoppa. Many thanks to Kind and House of Sweden for their support of our event, and to our crew of ride marshals for keeping riders safe.

We kept up with Vasa riders throughout the day on social media. Click here to see tweets and photos sent during the ride. For more recaps, check out the accounts of some local bike bloggers. Portajohn, Chasing Mailboxes, and A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel all attended, and had very kind things to say about the blåbärssoppa. Several attendees also took some great photos.

Were you unable to participate in Vasa 2013? We hope to see you next year! Remember, WABA members get early access to registration for our events, so join today if you haven’t already. Your membership supports great events and great bike advocacy.

See photos from the Vasa Ride below the jump. More photos are on Flickr. Did you take any photos during the ride? Add them to our Flickr group!

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The 2013 Vasa Ride is tomorrow!

We’ll see you at House of Sweden (2900 K St. NW) at 7:30 a.m. for check-in. The rides begin at the following times:

8 a.m.: 59-mile Vasa ride begins
8:30 a.m.: 31-mile Halv Vasa ride begins
9 a.m.: 15-mile Kort Vasa ride begins
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Blueberry soup served at the House of Sweden

You must arrive 25 to 30 minutes prior to the start of your ride to sign in and collect your cue sheet. Registration will be open until 9 a.m. Helmets are required, so don’t forget yours!

More information about the ride can be found here.

Vasa is sold out, so if you’re really jonesing for blueberry soup, we hope you’ll be able to join us next year.

Here are a few other things to remember:

• You must sign yourself and only yourself in. If you registered a friend as a guest, they are listed under their own name and must sign themselves in.
• There is no designated pit stop; you may stop wherever you want, whenever you want. Please prepare accordingly.
• Don’t forget to hydrate before, during, and after the ride. Bring the water you’ll need.
• We’ll have masking tape and markers for you to identify your lock, which you can lock at the start and retrieve at the end.
• Seriously, you need to wear a helmet.

We are sad to learn and to announce that there will be no 2013 Bike DC ride.  Despite a nearly yearlong effort by the event operator, it was not possible to secure the necessary approvals from the Mayor’s Special Events Task Group and the National Park Service to hold the ride.

The inability to secure permits also means the inability to secure sponsors or sell tickets to pay for the significant costs of holding such an event. Therefore, it is impossible to proceed.

This is a significant blow for WABA’s work to promote bicycling in the DC region. Bike DC is the region’s primary opportunity for residents of all ages and abilities to ride bikes on streets closed to automotive traffic. It’s critical as an entry point to attracting new people to bike regularly for transportation. Canceling Bike DC is a step in the wrong direction for biking in the region. We know this, and we know that this leaves the D.C. area without a significant, closed-streets community ride or open-streets event.

This is also a significant financial blow for WABA. As the beneficiary of Bike DC, the event is one of our primary fundraisers and a key opportunity to grow our membership. Nonetheless, we will continue to grow bicycling in the region and continue to push for the trails, infrastructure, and protections for bicyclists to make every ride as safe and comfortable as a closed-streets ride—while also pushing back against the permitting rules that have ceded so much of our public space to automotive traffic that community bicyclists cannot enjoy streets car-free for even one morning.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our many other events, classes, meetings, clinics, or volunteer nights throughout the season, and we appreciate your ongoing support as we continue to serve our mission while working to overcoming this community-wide and organizational setback.

 

 

Team WABA will once again participate in the Climate Rides, the largest environmental charity bike rides in the U.S. Cyclists participate in this “green conference on wheels” by raising money for beneficiary organizations and riding five days through beautiful coastal scenery. Combine your passion for biking with making a concrete difference by signing up for the Climate Ride today!

Climate Ride California is May 19-23. Beginning in Eureka, the route continues along the North Coast, enters the wine country of the Russian River Valley, and crosses the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco.

Climate Ride NYC-D.C. is Sept. 21-25. Riders depart Manhattan by ferry and head south through New Jersey, the Delaware River Valley, Pennsylvania’s Amish country, and Maryland’s horse country, ending on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

These rides are fully supported and include accommodations (with hot showers!), meals, road support, luggage transfer, bike mechanics, expert guides, and a nightly speaker series dedicated to issues like sustainability, climate change, and building a green economy.

The $75 registration fee includes a Climate Ride 2013 jersey, a personal fundraising page, fundraising support, training tips, and access to a nationwide network of climate riders. You must raise a minimum of $2,400 to participate in the rides. The rides are capped at 200 participants each. Learn more at climateride.org.

Ride for WABA and Support Our Advocacy
For the third year, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association is a beneficiary of Climate Ride. If you select WABA as your beneficiary when you register, we will be the recipient of the funds you raise. Your participation in the Climate Ride advances our work!

…And Get a Free Team WABA Bike Jersey!
Join Team WABA to connect with other members who also want to see a healthier, more livable, and bicycle-friendly region. If you register and donate 100% of your fundraising to WABA, we’ll give you a WABA Climate jersey, feature you on our blog, help coordinate training rides, and sponsor happy hours for WABA team members to network and share tips. If you donate at least 50% of your fundraising to WABA, you can purchase one of our jerseys at cost.

We hope you will consider joining Team WABA. Contact captain Gina Arlotto in our office at (202) 518-0524 x204 with questions.

Register for the 2013 Climate Ride here. See you on the ride!

Climate Ride Meet & Greet
Tues., April 9 6pm
Join the WABA staff for a meet-and-greet on Tues., April 9 at 6 p.m. All interested in participating in the 2013 Climate Ride should attend: Past climate riders, members of Team WABA, and Climate Ride staff will provide an introduction, including fundraising tips and training advice.

Location:
WABA Office
2599 Ontario Road NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
RSVP here (so we don’t run out of pizza!)

Following a successful match-grant fundraiser and a generous grant from the League of American Bicyclists, WABA’s Women & Bicycles program officially launched on Sun., March 3 at Busboys & Poets. The party followed a group ride hosted by Black Women Bike and preceded the League’s Women’s Cycling Forum, a kickoff to its yearly National Bike Summit.

Over 150 people filled Busboys’ Langston Room: Women who ride bikes in the D.C. area had the chance to hang out with attendees of the National Bike Summit and talk about what other communities are doing to get more ladies on bikes.

WABA’s Women & Bicycles program has been in the making for several years. A December 2011 Women’s Forum hosted by WABA clarified a number of issues that have kept some area women from cycling as much as they might like to; from there, Women & Bicycles began to take shape.

The program will run from April to October and is based on the involvement of 10 “Roll Models.” Those role models, who we’ll introduce here soon, have been asked to pull from their personal networks women who are hesitant to bike in D.C. and its suburbs. Through a series of private small-group events and public rides and workshops, the Roll Models and Women & Bicycles coordinator Nelle Pierson will teach the basic skills needed for cycling from point A to point B.

At Sunday’s kickoff, Portland, Ore.-based author and activist Elly Blue spoke of the importance of community and why it matters. Blue noted that when she first attended the National Bike Summit, its attendees were largely male; the increasing inclusion and presence of women at local and national levels indicates that their interests as cyclists are being taken seriously. Veronica Davis, of Black Women Bike, reiterated the necessity of inclusivity in bike advocacy.

We can’t wait to share with you the progression of Women & Bicycles. Its first event is on March 30. For more information, visit the Women & Bicycles page on our website and watch our blog for updates on how you can get involved. If you’d like to interact with other D.C.-area women who bike for fun and transportation, check out the Women & Bicycles Facebook page.

See photos of the ride and the party below the jump (there’s more on Flickr!). Did you take any photos of either event? Add them to our Flickr pool!

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