bike week in da beat

bike week in da beat. its on and poppin’. been mad busy. no time for sleep.

check the bike everywhere BIKE TO HAPPY HOUR event today, Friday, at the corner pug in west Hartford. 5:30 til yer done.


last night was creative cocktail hour at real art ways and, as usual, the bike rack was full…and then some. hopefully will will put in more bicycle parking. ha! i said will twice. there was lots more art this month than the last few CCH's and I was super happy about that. I like the party aspect, no doubt, but i really do enjoy getting there before it gets crowded and spending time time checking out the art. I really liked a few of the pieces. the hanging plexiglass installation was fun to wonder through and I did like the wall of old photos. it was like a peak into someone’s life, their past, and I thought of my own old family photos. the headphone/video/interview pieces weren’t making it happen for me. perhaps on a non-party night and some time to willingly invest, I might like it.

great food too from barca on park street. Jamie gave me a card good for a glass of wine. and then more good food. mmm…..food.

more photos way below after the jump.


this morning was Bike to Work at the old state house sponsored by the CCBA and several state departments. juice and bagels and some crazy bikes too! check ben bare’s ride. two crates! dang that’s sweet. i don’t find the front basket overkill either and I heard some talk about a trailer being attached. I think its just missing a cupholder.



el presidente de china and his folding bike were in the house. check the shifter. WTF? the man is a crazed, unelected, out of control madman with a finger on the button and a beer in his other hand. this is the bike that rides dikes, rides stairs and rode to the dirty water.


Wednesday night about a dozen CCBA members and a few new heads met up at Lena’s for the bike everywhere! bike to dinner dinner. ha! I said dinner twice. we sat outside in the back patio near the new waterfall and enjoyed $2 drafts from the tiki bar. The CCBA kicked in for the pizza and I believe somewhere out there exists a photo of everyone. if a second photo of me flashing ever surfaces, please understand, its just a photoshop job, trust me. it’s a fake I tell you!

want more? click on the read more button for the rest of the story:






i don't remember how we got those to stick to people. thanks for the exposure tj.



the george keller hood was well rep'd. hollerrrrrrr.



there was a really good reason for taking this photo...i think...but i don't remember.



sweet boots! i really wish i got more of the boots in the photo! what was i thinking? what are they thinking?



and what are they thinking? every time i take a photo of three people it comes out strange. i initially just thought it was the staten island ferry, but perhaps its far more wide spread.



i have no idea why we are smiling. we were hungry and walked across the street from the spigot to get wings from wings, but it was closed. but we were there. and happy. but hungry. but happy. the post CCH party at the spigot was in celebration of the birthdays of maura and johnny. happy birthday again y'all!


i think this photo speaks for itself. but i have no idea what its saying.












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Its Bike Week of Bike Month!

its sooo nice outside! don't be a fool...ride a bike!

Wednesday, May 14: Bike to Dinner Lena's at 5:30pm.
2053 Park Street, Hartford, CT 06106

arrive early to drink beer at the tiki bar in back!
and be sure to harass rob about a bike rack!
Lena's / Sully's is the freakin' spot.
come meet fellow bicyclists.
what more could you want!?!?!?

BIKE to WORK. friday, may 16th, Old State House. 7am-9am
bike to work is this friday...not the last friday!
come enjoy a free breakfast and 100 of your newest friends.
its free! even i can afford that.


Friday, May 16: Happy Hour- Corner Pug at 5:30pm
Bicycles and Happy Hour! Celebrate if the weather is good! Drown your weather sorrows in beer if its not so good!
Corner Pug is on the corner of New Britiain Ave and New Park Ave.
they'll have a bike rack out for us!

ps! get famous! help the cause.
this an email forward from Adam Bulger, a writer at the advocate:

I'm a writer for the Advocate, working on a story about different ways of getting around the Hartford area without resorting to cars. I'm looking for comments from people who ride bikes instead of cars (I'd like to emphasize commuting to work, but this will not be the entirety of the article). This will be quick, non-intrusive questions, like why and when did you start riding bikes, what do you like/dislike about it, if you have any interesting stories or experiences or if you have any other observations. I'm happy to hear any criticism about how municipalities/drivers don't respect bike riders, so if you've got axes, grind away.

chillwill was nice enough to forward this on my behalf. If you'd like to respond via email, you can contact me at abulger@hartfordadvocate.com, or if you'd prefer speaking with me, my direct line is (860) 548-9300.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Adam

pps. if you ask nicely, he will also ask long intrusive questions. Read more!

The 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour

The Beat was well rep’d this past weekend by a hardy group of current and former Hartford peoples converging in the rotten apple in what was prolly the most blogged event in the long, extinguished history of the Triple B. Woo-haa!

El Cinco Burros! There is far too much to think of organizing into a digestible meal of a post; so instead I shall cook up a stew free of high-fructose corn syrup and full of beer and pedaling…lots of pedaling. I suppose about now is a good time to explain that the 5 Boro Bike Tour is a 42mile car free ride with 30,000 of your closest friends though all five boroughs of NYC including riding on the FDR, the BQE, and crossing the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge. In case you can’t do the math, that’s over 60,000 bicycle wheels spinning and avoiding NYC potholes!

El Presidente de China has well educated y’all about the ride from the Beat to Dirty Water, so I’ll just curse him one last time for that one massive hill and mention again…shorter isn’t always better; like cock size for example. Otherwise, besides the evil hill, and Klan drive, the ride was pretty nice and scenic. Doing 30mph down a hill through the Waterbury ghetto is also worth a mention I reckon.


In this exciting photo one can barely see the bikes of Chill Will and El Prez de Cheeenay with all the action going on riding the train to Bridgeport. Though no accommodations for bikes, this train was all good. On the train from B-Port to NYC we had them in the middle doorway of the car which was a pain depending which door opened. The idea of spending a few days in the city with my bike and living out of my messenger bag made me as happy as the lack of Metro-North in Hartford pisses me off. Amtrack sucks. Go fuck yourself with your overpriced tickets!!!!

Upon arriving at Grand Central we were greeted by Shoupy, the Shoup Shoupsta! I am not sure if he rode there from Ann Arbor, but he very well might have. El Prez decided against the formal motorcade and instead bombed the crap outta Broadway; speeding through the traffic, checking cabs and leading us quickly and dodge-ily to the Brooklyn Bridge. We soon split, to meet up later; as I was going with Shoup to Park Slope to his friend Megan’s apartment, who was hooking us up with a spot to crash. Thanks again Megan, good lookin’ on the couch…very comfy! And puffin' on the rooftop was sweeeet!


Shoupy and I met up with el Prez much later in Bed-Stuy at a party with some of el Prez’s administration, lots of bikers, assorted hipsters, and three fireman with large iron tools suitable for hunting wild boar. We drank, talked and tried not to inhale burning particle board before retiring early as we were to assemble the Beat Crew at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge at 6:45AM the next morning. Shoupy and I arrived at 7:15AM the next morning! Our crew of about a dozen soon took off for lower Manhattan.


Lots of people. This was the first taste of the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. As the day progressed the sun burned away all the clouds…and a few faces too I imagine. The day turned out wonderful.





Real men wear leg warmers. Later, in a bizarre twist, Shoupy removed his shorts and finished the tour in bike shoes, leg warmers, a hand-carved wooden cod piece from Turkey and his tour vest. Sexy? Yes, of course! But somewhat disturbing to the elderly and those younger than them.


A media circus surrounded El Presidente de China through most of Queens and was quite a spectacular sight. I was harassed for my crate of bootlegged bananas that I was selling 3 for $10 or one for free.


Welcome to Brooklyn! Woo-haa! I had a freakin’ good time chillin’ here the night before as well as the ride through on the tour. The only sucky thing was walking my bike for 45minutes in a bicycle traffic jam on the Bronx-Queens Expressway where four lanes became one. This was where the ride officially became the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. The car traffic jam on the other side was moving more quickly! The trike next to me had a louder stereo system than the cars! It was total fuckin' bizzaro world!!!

Eventually we were able to pedal again and riding on the highway along the water with a cool breeze felt great. Crossing on the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge is always super cool. Guinness and grinders at the irish pub was even better.


Taking pictures of groups of three on a ferry always has funny results. See above!


And again if you need further proof!



Much, much later, after learning the 7:20 train didn’t exist and I’d be taking a 9:07train back to CT, I decided to scoot on down to the west-side to watch the sun set over Dirty Jersey on the Hudson. I soon found myself pedaling unexpectedly through Times Square. Sunset, libations and a chance to rest and relax on the riverfront was a wonderful way to finish my visit to NYC.

On the train ride back from Bridgeport to Dirty Water I had to again store my bike in the middle doorway of the car, but this time the conductor made everyone get out the end doors and never opened the middle doors. Thanks dude! Metro-North is pretty good. Amtrack, not so good.



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How to get i84 the hell outta hartford!?!?!?

Hartford Public Library, Tueday, april 15th. 6pm to 8pm. in the X room.

With the Connecticut Department of Transportation currently considering options for the I-84 highway viaduct that stretches through Hartford, come hear about the success that Milwaukee had in removing its highway and how Hartford can learn from this success. Speaker: John O. Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and currently President & CEO of Congress for the New Urbanism.

above copied and pasted from the HPL website.

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Can I get a quote?

Yessss you can!

"Come hear about the success that Milwaukee had in removing its highway."

That's freakin' great! Its sounds like it was a tumor or something, prolly cuz it is. i84 twists and turns dangerously as it snakes through the city cutting it in half like a dirty, smoggy knife. I am all for rerouting the interstate through existing highways and removing the tumor that is the Aetna Viaduct. The area would now finally have a much-needed major East-West greenway corridor from East Hartford to Farmington. Ride to EMS or Westfarms from downtown Hartford almost all the way on a car-free greenway. Yes!

Even if I wasn't interested in the possibility of removing car induced tumors, I’d attend solely because I want to see the X room. The X room! Is it experimental? Revolutionary? I will report back. Read more!

CCBA Annual Dinner 2008

Wednesday was the perfect evening for a great bike ride to Manchester from Hartford along the streets and bike paths. Josh, Breandan, Krash, Rick and Joel and I met at 5PM on the Founders Bridge and took off without the pre-party brews i accidently left at work in the lunchroom fridge! ARRGG!!! The notes posted on the CCBA website were long but worked well and soon we were navigating the streets of East Hartford and made it onto the bike path just in time for a flat.

The flat tire provided a great opportunity to enjoy a fine bottle of wine and find out who carries spares and tools and who doesn't! I also noticed the few bits of trash that were around were mostly glass bottles and plastic bottles, no cans! no cans at all! there was a lot of broken glass on the trail though. earliera woman riding the other way warned Rick about it and didn't make eye contact with anyone else...and Rick got the flat! was it a hex? a coincidence? we will never know!

Many rights and lefts later, we turned right onto Adams Street and soon took over the lane to make a left into the Adams Mill Resturant (i told you lots of rights and lefts!). We locked up our bikes to some farm machinery and walked inside to the dinner, well, to the bar for drinks i should say. To our dissappointed surprise, we seemed to be the only people who rode? huh? but that was fine, we drank, bid on silent auction items, mingled and enjoyed dinner and a few speakers.





The ride home was more fun. We made a quick stop at a gas station for sundries and then took off with blinking red lights and white headlights shinning the road ahead...until mine fell off. That was pretty much the end of my light shining, which was good, especially when we got to the dark bike path. Who wants to see all that ugly broken glass when you can just speed through it, hurtling through the darkness!?!? no worries though, no flats from glass; it was as if we were lifted! and flying high above the sharp, tube eating menaces! now, that one, dark, curve where we all sped off the path, noooo problem.



speedbumps. now that was a problem. this time Joel was hissing. we stopped just inside a parking complex and quickly had lights pointed towards a removed wheel. Such skill and teamwork was displayed that some dude in a nearby second floor apartment watched us intently and maybe even video taped us. wow. maybe its all on youtube!

Back in Hartford, i snagged the forgotten beers from the fridge and we chugged them while pondering about the recently burned-down Virgin Mary Shrine. Why ohh why?

A few sprinkles of rain encouraged us to get going and Krash lead us on a fun route through the southend and eventually down Washinhton Street. Josh took off down Park Street to go home. The rest of us ride till two of us split down Russ and two continued down Capital Ave; all with the intention of a quick afterhours at my house.

All in all a great night. thanks for ridin' all.

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