It was… interesting. I didn’t quite realize the logistics of riding in a group like that. It reminded me of the time I did the 5 boroughs bike tour in NYC – which was a one-time thing because of the crowds and not being able to actually ride your bike.
MPD had probably 10 or so bike officers out who rode with us… in the beginning they even helped cork intersections and waved us through, which helped a little bit with the flow of the event. There were still lots of clogs and a few very novice bicyclists who couldn’t get going, which cascades pretty quickly – but they were being helped by neighbors. After probably 15 minutes of being helped by the bike officers, they got a call from their Lieutenant, and we had to stop at all the reds. They had some squad cars out along the route and kept repeating over the PA “Stop at the red lights, please!”. Once that started it broke up into smaller groups of about 30 or so people, more manageable, but easier to get lost – I think our group ended up taking a route different from the one published. We should have accessed Kingman Island through the parking lots and avoided Benning Road completely, but with the route confusion at least some groups came down Benning past the parking lot curb cut, and then had to stop (there is construction / 1 lane / no curb cuts) in the street to hop onto the sidewalk. There was an incident that drew fire/rescue, but it looked like a disabled car and unrelated to the ride?
I ran into an old co-worker and an old friend, Peter Lee, who helps out at BicycleSPACE occasionally. I saw someone with a BA jersey on standing next to a tandem, but by the time I finished locking up I didn’t see them anymore.
The hula dancing was pretty hot – literally… it was still upper 80s and felt like upper 90s by the time we left at 11p. Didn’t stay for the fire twirling or whatever, but we had to move my sister-in-law to Va Beach the next day.
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