First Friday ArtRide: The Fossil Fuel Free Ride July 3

As you can see from many recent posts on this blog, I am hoping to relocate to Sonoma County in August as the Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. (Watch my video here; please vote to put a poet in a vineyard!)

As you can see from the adjacent poster, it sure looks like Sonoma County has a happening BIKE CULTURE! Yay! They even have a Fourth of July Bike Festival! (at least they did last year!)

Our First Friday ArtRide: The Fossil Fuel Free Ride may not be as big of an event as the one up north, but I swear we will be three times as crazy and have two times as much fun next Friday if the past six rides are any indication! (I tell ya, I am still recovering from the Santa Convention!)

For the ride next Friday, we’ll meet as usual on the Promenade outside the Artists Union Gallery. You can check out the art or duck into Aloha for a quick drink before we hit the Bike Path at 6pm. We’ll ride up the River Trail awhile then travel in a pack around downtown, stopping at various galleries. Follow us to the after party where we will enjoy beer from Anacapa Brewery, food, live music, art installations, film and more for a small donation to cover the festivities with any extra money being donated to the Ventura Bicycle Union.

Saturday July 4 is the annual downtown Ventura Push’em Pull’em Parade which is an amazing spectacle. The first year, when we pulled our 8 month old in a wagon, and rolled down Main Street in a mile long 4 lane wide stream, I realized that by becoming a mom I had joined something huge, that while I often felt in a minority, there were many many many of us hidden behind our suburban doors. And if we mobilized, we could truly have an impact.

The research bears this out: the research claims that if the “soccer” moms adopt a practice, the world (at least US consumer culture) will follow.

That’s one of the reason that we moms are really reaching out to other families on these bike rides. Most rides and political actions are taken by adults, and often young adults at that. We want to show that bike riding is multi-generational, fun and SAFE. And we are!

Please join us! If not in person, in your heart, or by organizing your own fun art rides. And if not this ride, maybe the next: The Animal Fair Ride in August, The Full Moon Critical Manners Rides in September, the Mustache Ride in October…

Send a note to FirstFridayArtRide (AT) gmail DOT and let us know you want to join up!