Hey everyone!

It is the last Friday of the month! We all know what that means! This is the glorious day when bicycle riders all over the world take to the streets to exercise our rights to the road.

Here in Baton Rouge, we congregate at the LSU Clocktower at 5:30 and ride from there. Our route will take us all over the area. Starting this month is a new post-mass tradition! Travis and Mid-City Bikes is hosting an after party! Hopefully in the future, we can show bike movies, have a bike kitchen, and talk about how awesome it is to ride bikes.

You guys ride safe, and I'll see you at the MASS!!!!!!!

For Baton Rouge, check out this link.

http://criticalmass.wikia.com/wiki/Baton_Rouge,_LA

More Polo, and more!!

New Orleans does bike polo right! Went down again this past weekend. Jeff, Russell, Lando (sp?), Frasier, Paul, myself, my friend Mark, Jace (sp?), and more whose names I forget, were all there and played until dark. Those guys know how to relax and have fun.

In other news, BRASS has its monthly meeting tonight. 4th Thursday of the month, unless otherwise stated (brsafestreets.org) If you are in the least bit interested in bicycle or pedestrian issues in Baton Rouge, please come to this meeting! Terrace Branch of the EBR Public Library from 6:30 to 7:30PM.

In other news, BREC has a special presentation regarding the future development of trails and paths in East Baton Rouge scheduled for Monday, January 26th 2009. It will be in the ballroom at the main BREC office (6201 Florida Blvd) starting at 6PM. It is extremely important that we pack this ballroom with bike dudes, biker babes, bicycle jocks and riding chicks, parents toting kids in trailers, mountain bikers, BMX riders, track aficianados, casual fun time in the neighborhood riders, daily commuters, even those who don't ccurrently own bikes but someday might buy one and could possibly see themselves wanting to ride on the Baton Rouge streets.

PLEASE spread the word on this meeting. The greater the turnout, the greater the impact it will have. You are requested to RSVP if you know you will be able to attend. RSVP to Claire Selleck at 272-9200 ext. 420 or to cselleck (at) BREC (dot) ORG

That's all for now, have a great day!

I went to New Orleans this past Sunday with my friend Ben. He and I heard about some pick up bike polo games that happen every Sunday at 2pm. We drove down, headed in the general direction of where we thought the games happened (we forgot to bring the address with us) and rode our bikes the few blocks from the car to Robert's on Annunciation.

Bike Polo is the most fun I've had on a bike in years. It was competitive, fast paced, intense, and best of all, the folks who organize the games were super friendly. We literally rode up, not knowing anyone, and said Hey! We're from Baton Rouge, heard about Sunday polo and would like to join in. They briefed us on the rules, and we were in the next game. It was incredible.

So, Baton Rouge!!! Let's get some polo together. It is incredibly easy. I have all the tools we need to make our own community mallets. All we need, is enough people to chip in some money so we can purchase the materials. We could totally organize our own Sunday pick up games. Then, in the future, we could play against New Orleans! Or Pensacola! Or Portland! or Milwaukee! Or Chicago! Or Madison! Or NYC! Or Seattle! Or Vancouver! Or Calgary! Or Atlanta! Or Orlando! Or Huntsville! Seriously! Let's do this! If you are interested in Baton Rouge bike polo, email everybodybike gmail com

Some neat things

While riding around Baton Rouge the last several months, I have had several incidents with drivers cutting me off, yelling indecent things at me, waving at me with one finger, telling me to get on the f*ing sidewalk (of which there are none most of the time,) and other rude, inconsiderate, and mean things. These have been vastly outnumbered by good rides where people just give me my space, respect my choice to ride, and leave me alone.



One incident has stuck with me, though. I was riding at night on a two lane road and was signaling that I would be turning left into the parking lot of my apartment complex. A guy behind me in a BMW apparently thought I was signaling him to go around me or something, and as I was about to turn into my destination, he went screaming by me. I had adequate lighting on my bicycle, and was most likely visible. However, I wonder what may have happened if I had a better set of lights on my bicycle. I recently stumbled upon a light set manufactured by http://www.rockthebike.com/ called the Down Low Glow.

I think this product has a pretty creative and ingenius design. It has a rechargable NiMh battery and comes in six colors. You can choose one tube or two tubes of light. As you can see in the top photo, you could even outfit the red bar across a rack as a defacto tail light. I am seriously considering purchasing a set of the two bar lights so that when I ride at night I am easily seen. The system they developed to tie the lights to the bike (removable!) is similar to the removable fenders I have from Planet Bike that are amazing and very easy to use. I am highly debating purchasing a set of these...

Bikes and Stuff

Welcome to the first post on the new EveryBike blog.
The purpose of this blog is to present relevant information regarding bicycles, commuting, new technologies, news stories, advocacy issues and whatever else is important to the greater public. In particular, there will be news about the progress in the greater Baton Rouge area, as that is where I am located at the moment. I hope you enjoy what you see in the coming posts. Please feel free to link to this blog, quote this blog, pull any information you want from this blog. If it is here, it is for your consumption. Thanks for visiting!