The promise of rain couldn’t keep Bike Party from happening last night. Approximately 1,200 riders were counted right after the Winchester Movie Domes.  What could have been a down pour in spots, turned out to be a fantastic ride!  Honestly, the weather couldn’t have turned out nicer.  Many thanks for all the volunteers who posted up on corners and worked many hours behind the scenes to pull off this ride.  And yes fellow riders, we love that you made it out this month!

Highlights included the high energy levels that everyone brought as we rolled past neighborhoods and all over this town.  Music trailers and more systems on individual bikes kept the vibe going.  The Mary Street foot bridge remains an amazing image in my mind.  Seeing a taco truck at the rest stops was truly a bike party first.  And when the occasional spill happened, people stopped to help their fellow riders get back on the bicycle, simply amazing.   We truly hope that Bike Party is able to foster a sense of positive behavior as we hit the streets, meet new people, make friends, and continue to explore the community we are all part of.

Share your reflections here in the comments – if we see any recurring themes, we’ll add to this post.

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What a fantastic ride last night!  Around 1000 people passed the split where the ride took two routes, and a bit over an hour later everyone was back together again near Capitol and McLaughlin.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their chosen route – even the hillsters who looped around in circles climbing above Evergreen valley!  The strong energy, playful spirit, and all-around helpful, friendly vibe made the night amazing.

Volunteers really stepped up, with folks directing traffic right and left and helping to round everyone up at regroups – nice job with the soundsystems!  Big props to the “Bumpin’ Beaners” and the big black soundsystem for great tunes and the help leading us out.  Several volunteers even met up afterward, bringing the community together once more before bedtime.  Share your reflections here in the comments – if we see any recurring themes, we’ll add to this post.

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What a glorious bunch of holiday lights tonight!  Tonight’s ride might not have too many superlatives for it – it certainly wasn’t our longest or shortest in distance, it was neither the best-attended or sparsest (around 950 counted at Central & Westfield), BUT it was quite possibly the best received!  Sidewalk observers and passers-by were in fine form tonight, with holiday cheer shared amongst all.  Our ride encountered literally hundreds of amazing holiday decoration displays, including one on Glen Eyrie that included an entire brass band!  Neighbors didn’t seem to mind the traffic jam for this impromptu block party – this was a piece of San Jose community at its best.

Thanks to the incredibly thoughtful route planners and the many, many BIRDs who helped to direct cyclists at complicated turns.  Tonight seemed to prove that perhaps being a BIRD isn’t a patch or a qualification, but a job anyone can step into at any time.  Thanks to those who jumped right in where needed and helped make the ride great – THAT is the down-home Bike Party community spirit.

One reminder:  bike lights make an excellent holiday gift for casual cyclists and regular riders alike, and if tonight’s ride is any sign, this valley’s cyclists could use a LOT more bike lighting.  Remember, be safe, follow the law, and ride confidently!

Another wonderful ride has carried us to our bedtimes, and asleep with pleasant memories of gliding down gentle grades we go.

Tonight’s ride harkened back to days past in Bike Party lore, with a ridership count of around 600, approximately a sixth of October’s ride and a number we haven’t seen since April.  Apparently the rumors that San Joseans are too weak for drippy or cool weather remain true – we’ll have to find a way around that before we manage to steal Portland’s throne as biking mecca of the West.

The highlights of our ride tonight showed off some of the things we’ve all come to love about Bike Party – the wonderful soundsystems, the mix of new and experienced riders, the many pre-rides and dedicated volunteer work to put up signs and stage a food drive, the parking garage fun, and the wonderful remark on the return trip up Almaden Expressway:  “I smell ham!”  (It really did smell like ham, and some riders really were excited.)  In short, it was the Bike Party many of us love most – zany, personal, communal, friendly, diverse, inclusive, participatory, and unpredictable.

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Monumental. Beautiful. Well-organized. Noisy. Unbelievable. Brilliantly costumed. Poorly lit. Clean.

Those are just some of the words this webmaster has heard about Bike Party tonight – and for those that were keeping score, the good outweighed the bad by 3 to 1. Tonight, our second anniversary ride, struck yet another new mark in South Bay history, as four thousand riders (see count) hit the streets to build community through bicycling.

I’m proud of this city, proud of all of our riders, proud of our fantastic organizers and volunteers, and even prouder of the potential we still have to achieve. A lot of heart and soul (and sweat and lost sleep and sometimes even blood and tears) goes into these rides, and it’s showing. Things that were uncommon just a few months ago flowed smoothly tonight:

• Riders largely kept to the right (when reminded)
• Riders left significantly less trash and/or helped pick up trash
• Turns were marked both by volunteers “posting up” and by signs posted up by volunteers
• Most riders rode responsibly, sober, and in predictable directions
• Soooo many people decorated bikes, rode in costume, or somehow tried on the “Dia de los Muertos” theme

Of course, life isn’t perfect: We still get a lot of complaints from neighbors about noise, we still leave trash at regroups and along the route (because really, we ultimately need to leave NO trace, not just little), and there’s still room to improve our organizing with better communication and more organized volunteers.

But when you allow yourself to sit back and think of the achievement, it’s wild. Think of all of the now-regular riders you know who never or almost never rode their bikes before they started riding Bike Party. Think of all of the friends you’ve met. Think of the impact we’ve had on passers-by and spectators, demonstrating without a doubt that cycling IS an accessible and reasonable method of transportation in this highway-slashed city. Consider on top of it all that this started 2 years ago with 25 riders and it’s still run completely by volunteers with small donations, and it’s even more impressive. It’s worth a huge pat on the back.

Happy Birthday, Bike Party! Here’s to many more!

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We have one word to sum up the night: EPIC.

Yet again, more surprises from the democratic community of cyclists that make up Bike Party:  Over 2,000 of you showed us you were willing to travel to an (for many folks, at least) inconvenient location, take a 24-mile trek to parts unknown and foreign to us with “San Jose” eyes, and enjoy the snot out of it.

This ride’s successes showed the fruit of the hard organizing that our many volunteers have struggled over for the last month, and at the same time we know that we need much more:  MANY more volunteers, MUCH more coordination to help everyone work together, and MUCH more thoughtful communication to keep everyone informed effectively.  Rest assured that these ongoing struggles will be major topics of the Hub meeting (the Hub is the group of “spoke” organizers who coordinate all other volunteers) following this ride.  Likewise, don’t hesitate to contact one of us to get involved.

A special thanks needs to go to our AMAZING route planners and test riders who work super hard to find all the amazing places to go.  We love you (although we all have been grouchy lately), and this ride certainly showed the benefit of amazing route planning.  That 3rd “mystery” regroup was killer!  Of course, a huge shout-out is also due to the Mountain View police, who not only anticipated our ride and publicized it by their twitter account, but showed incredible tact, courtesy, and good planning as they escorted & policed our ride, and in at least one case responded to an injury.

If you would like to share your experiences, the comment section is open.