More information and registration information can be found at: www.goba.com

Last Friday, May 20 was Bike To Work Day around the world. I happened to have the day off that day, so I decided to take a ride up to downtown Cleveland to check out the city’s official Bike To Work Day celebration.

I have ridden through and around the various roads and streets in the Cleveland area over the years, but I had never made the trip by bike from my home into the city. I did a quick check on Google Maps with Biking Directions the day before, and it did not seem nearly as long or as complicated as I expected.

I left home at 6:00am early in the morning. A thick fog covered the region, making visibility a little sketchy out on the roads, and requiring frequent wiping of my glasses, but otherwise, the weather was quite agreeable.

I stopped a few miles into the ride to meet a friend, and the two of us made our way into Cleveland from his house. Most of the route involved just following Miles Road west to Broadway Avenue, and then Broadway all the way into the city. I saw a few neighborhoods that I have never had the pleasure of visiting before, some of which were what some people might call a little “sketchy,” but at the 7:00-8:00am hour, they were nothing to worry about, even for a couple of middle-aged suburban white guys.

The fog burned off about halfway through the route, and the last few miles provided a new and spectacular view of the downtown Cleveland skyline. We arrived at the festivities, located near the Cleveland Bike Rack, the new bike commuter station, located just behind Quicken Loans Arena. The Bike Rack and event co-organizer ClevelandBikes had hoped to provided tours of the new facility, but the completion and opening were delayed. But, we were able to peek into the windows and see the rows of multi-level bike racks and rental lockers that will be available.

We enjoyed some coffee and snacks provided at the event, chatted with some other attendees, and checked out the other bikes. Then, we headed over to the Tremont neighborhood to get some breakfast at Grumpy’s Cafe. After enjoying some delicious pancakes, instead of re-tracing our original route back to downtown and home, we just dropped down to the end of W. 14th Street and hopped on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail through the Steelyard Commons shopping plaza. At the end of the plaza, we took the Jennings Road/Harvard Road connection to get back on the Towpath proper, until we jumped off the Towpath and onto Alexander Road, which led us back to our respective home neighborhoods.

A geographically-dispersed group of software developers, known as Automattic, are the people behind the platform known as WordPress.com, which this blog uses. They’ve planned an event, dubbed the Automattic Worldwide WP 5K, encouraging all of their staff to run, walk, or bike at least 5 kilometers today. Other WordPress bloggers and any other interested friends were invited to participate. My ride today qualifies as my contribution to the worldwide effort.

Another WordPress.com promotion started at the beginning of this year, and was aimed at getting bloggers to blog more often. I’ve been trying to participate in “Post-A-Week 2011″ and have been successful so far, although some more ambitious bloggers are doing “Post-A-Day 2011.” This post lets me mark off the notch for this week early for a change.

All you have to do is ride your bike every day in April. It doesn’t matter how much you ride each day–do a short spin around the block just for the sake of riding! If you can ride to work or school, do a long training ride or group ride, all the better!

Sign up to let the world know that you’re in: just go towww.30daysofbiking.com and fill out the online form. If you use Twitter or other social media, post daily updates on your daily biking experiences. Use the hashtag #30daysofbiking to automatically include your updates in the worldwide feed! Also, see the 30 Days of Biking page on Facebook!

Yesterday, I got started in the spirit of “around the block just for the sake of riding” by taking a short break during work to test-ride the Raleigh XXIX singlespeed mountain bike with belt drive. Today, I took a road loop on the Surly Cross-Check around Twinsburg, Aurora, and Bainbridge Township, for a total of 26.5 miles. I plan to ride to work tomorrow, so I’m off to a good start on the 30 days.

Two meetings in two locations are scheduled:

April 13, 2011, 6:30pm
Highland Square Branch Library
807 W. Market St.
Akron, OH  44303

April 27, 2011, 5:30pm
Kent Free Library
312 W. Main St.
Kent, OH  44240

If you’re like most people, you’re probably thinking, “I’d like to help, but who has the time?” Fortunately, there are two things you can do to help, even if you don’t have the resources of a full-time, or even part-time advocate:

1. Join your local bicycle advocacy organization or cycling club. Even if you don’t have the time to devote to be actively involved in the organization’s activities, the act of your joining means one more name on the roster, and numbers mean a lot to local officials when they make decisions. Plus, the 15 or 20 bucks of your annual membership fee helps a lot for all of the organization’s little expenses that add up, like web hosting fees and photocopying. And who knows, you may end up making a new friend or riding partner in the meantime.
2. Sign the Pledge at peopleforbikes.org. This organization hopes to raise the profile of cycling on a national level by showing the world just how many people care. You are welcome to sign the pledge whether you ride on the roads, or are a mountain biker, commuter, or ride just for fun. Over 200,000 people have already made the pledge. It’s easy, it’s free, and it makes a difference.

Ohio and other parts of the Midwest enjoy a position in geography that makes us not more than a couple day’s drive from every population center in the eastern United States. That makes Ohio a good choice as a base for warehousing and distributing products made elsewhere around the world. Many of the most well-known names in today’s bike industry take advantage of this by having distribution centers located in Ohio. These include Raleigh USA (in Pataskala), Bianchi USA, Seattle Bike Supply (in Reynoldsburg, distributors of the Redline, Torker, and Lapierre bike brands), and Specialized.

Specialized is based in Morgan Hill, California. They operate a warehouse serving the western US from Salt Lake City, Utah. In December of 2010, Specialized moved its eastern distribution center from Grove City to Groveport, Ohio (both on the outskirts of Columbus), in order to expand their warehouse space and implement other features to make their distribution process more efficient. The company held a grand opening and open house reception on February 11, 2011, and I was among those from the local bike industry and media who were invited to attend.

I drove to the Groveport facility past row after row of mostly featureless buildings, I presumed most of which were in the same business of storing and distributing products. The Specialized building was at the end of the drive on which they are located; fortunately, they had signs and flags posted outside to let everyone know that we were in the right place. I walked in and was greeted by some of the staff, one of whom handed me a bag of schwag, which contained a Specialized Riders Club jersey, a water bottle, a book commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Stumpjumper mountain bike, a sticker, and copies of the Specialized 2011 road and mountain bike catalogs. The bag itself was a re-usable grocery bag (in Specialized red, of course).

I was immediately able to join one of the tours of the warehouse, which was led for my small group of three by Jared, one of the warehouse staff. Jared walked us through the stacks of bicycles, clothing, components, and accessories that were stored in rows of shelving units at least three, sometimes more, rows high. Jared explained that about one-half of the available space is used for bicycles, about one-quarter for what they call “equipment” (anything not a bike), and about one-quarter is currently unused.

The bicycles arrive on one side of the building, and are also shipped to bike stores back out from that same side, using either FedEx Freight or FedEx Ground. The equipment arrives on the other side, and is shipped back out on that side using FedEx Ground. Here’s the equipment side, where orders going to bike shops are packed up and prepared to be shipped out:

The warehouse area was about 63 degrees, but Jared explained that was for our benefit; it’s usually kept colder to save energy. The overhead lighting is controlled by motion sensors, so that lights are only activated when needed in an area of activity. Another energy-saving measure is the use of large industrial ceiling fans, which help to keep the warm and cool air circulating, cutting down on the amount of re-heating that needs to be done to the air (or re-cooling in the summer).

I asked Jared about the employees’ bike commuting habits; he explained that there were quite a few that went to work by bike in the old Grove City location, but now many of them live further away, plus with the cold weather and snow this time of year, there were not many people riding their bikes in. The access road to the industrial park is not very bike-friendly either, with a 55mph speed limit and little to no shoulder, much less any bike lane or trail. Once they get more settled in the new location and the weather improves, they hope to take steps to more actively promote bike commuting. I did notice that they had showers in the restrooms.

Back in the reception area (the staff break room), I enjoyed some refreshments and talked to some of the other guests. I spoke to Lynette Carpiet, a journalist with Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, the bike industry trade publication. She flew to Ohio just to cover this event; being based in southern California, she marveled at how anyone could think of riding in our winter weather!

I sidled up to a group of a few guys, and noticed that one of them was none other than Ned Overend, the mountain biking legend. I asked if it was okay to get a photo with him, and he obliged; he was quite friendly and down-to-earth. We chatted a bit, surprisingly not about his illustrious racing career, but about cycling advocacy. We said he was really impressed with all of the work various groups do all around the country to improve bike access and awareness.

The formal part of the event started after everyone had their chance to take the warehouse tour. Kim Peterson, Specialized’s National Director of Distribution, introduced Jesse Rogers, the manager of the Groveport distribution center in which we were sitting. Jesse is the oldest employee at Specialized, having run the Ohio distribution center from its various different locations since it was first established 29 years ago. He described how the process was run at the very beginning, and how it has evolved and become larger and yet more efficient over the years.

Other speakers included the eastern regional sales manager for Specialized, a representative from the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, a representative from the business development office of Groveport, and Ned Overend, who talked about how the feedback from professional racers sponsored by Specialized goes directly into the product design and development process. Finally, a drawing was held to give away a Specialized Roubaix road bike, and the winner was Matt Ford, an employee of one of the Bike Source stores.

For the final event, the group assembled outside the front door of the building for an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Thank you to Specialized for their invitation to this event. You can see more photos in this slide show:

I attended my first-ever Critical Mass ride last night. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Critical Mass concept. Like many cyclists who ride sometimes for recreation and sometimes for utility, I agree with the message behind the event, but question if this is the best way to deliver the message. But whatever my feelings, I figured that as one who promotes the bicycling lifestyle, I should check it out for myself. At the very least, I saw it as a good excuse for a few dozen (or a few hundred) people to get together in the city to have a good time, and nobody can argue against the idea that Cleveland can use more of that.

My girlfriend and I loaded our bikes on the car (yes, probably antithetical to the spirit of the event) and drove to the Tremont neighborhood, the eventual ending point of the ride. We made the 15-minute spin over to downtown and Public Square, just in time to say a few hellos and get started at 6:30pm sharp.

The Halloween Critical Mass ride in every city tends to bring out a large crowd, and Cleveland was no exception. The variety of costumes being sported was second only to the variety of bicycles. Some of my favorites were a woman dressed as Fay Wray, complete with a giant King Kong hairy hand wrapped around her body, a guy on a tallbike dressed as a masked wrestler, a Supergirl and a Wonder Woman, a stuffed dinosaur, and two guys as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, who battled with their light sabres as we rolled through the streets.

Unlike the the Critical Mass rides in certain other cities, the Cleveland ride has a reputation for maintaining the peaceful nature of its demonstration. The police were present at various points throughout the route as we pedaled east along the Euclid Corridor through the Cleveland State University campus, back past Progressive Field and through Public Square again, through the Warehouse District, then over the Detroit Superior Bridge into Ohio City, then eventually to Tremont. It was not apparent whether the police were present specifically to monitor the event, or we just saw them as they were making their regular rounds around town. At a couple of intersections, they even helped direct traffic for us to help us to keep our whole group together.

We did get a fair number of honks in protest from the drivers that were being held up at intersections, but got just as many (if not more) honks of support from other drivers.

It was a fun and unique experience for my girlfriend; her most memorable comment was, “I was just called a freak for the first time in my life.” At the end of the ride, we enjoyed a pizza and a beer at Edison’s pub.

As I’ve reflected on the event afterwards, I still have my mixed feelings about it, but also have a little more respect for it as a valid form of peaceful protest. Among the diverse crowd, there were many who, like myself, were just there to have a good time. However, I became more aware that many of them live the bicycling lifestyle not because they feel it’s the best choice they have, but because it’s the only choice they have. I have a renewed appreciation for somebody who demonstrates to defend their lifestyle when the only choice they have is their lifestyle or no lifestyle.

There’s a saying that’s becoming more and more popular in all advocacy circles lately, “The world is run by those who show up.” Critical Mass is a reminder to the rest of the world that when necessary, we have a lot of people who are willing to show up.

See clevelandcriticalmass.com for the movement’s own words.