Wow, Totally Free Four-Month X-Country Tour Offered in the Current "Adventure Cyclist"



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NYC XYZ

Guest
The ad says "we're going to pay for all your meals and your
transportation to origin and from destination." It promises "three
RVs" and a "hot shower each night" for "forty miles per day" from the
end of May through the middle of September.

Who the heck has the $$$ for this, and what's the great cause?

Hmm...it's called the "21st Century Paul Revere Ride" and "tremendous
TV, radio, and newspaper coverage" is expected....

And there's some guy called Frosty Wooldridge peddling his website!

Biking has always been an inclusive thing to me...I've never met
unfriendly cyclists -- even Helmet Nazis are only mildly chiding. Even
a hothead like me can put aside personal animosities when enjoying this
activity. Indeed, the freedom of going where you want to go at your
own pace makes for the kind of happiness which allows one to more
easily overlook one's pet peeves and forget one's enemies.

But this frosty wooldridge fellow has got me unnerved, posting an ad in
the "liberal" mag "Adventure Cyclist" (last issue they reported on a
"graffiti artist" riding to D.C. -- no doubt to perpetuate his ****
there! -- and this issue they've got a big story on Dr. So-n-So from
some minority health org cycling for black health or whatever it is) in
their "Companions Wanted" section with an incredible offer...and you go
to his site and there's nothing about the ride -- you'll need to google
that separately -- but it's all about the dangers of continued
immigration, legal and illegal!

I dunno, but I'm a bit unnerved...I don't mind the political
bullshitting that sometimes occurs on group rides, but this is so
organized, having secured six-figure funding already...and it unnerves
me to think that there would be a great many bicyclists out there who
are...well...I dunno...feeling like many other bicyclists don't belong
here!

One of the great things about the annual Bike New York Tour is how you
see EVERYBODY...I was chatting with this old fifty-sixty-something
transvestite at the startline...during the ride I saw that skinny
Puerto Rican lady with the ghetto blaster on her bike again...and lots
of folks just tagged along, usually neighborhood kids and bike
messengers who didn't pay...and the hated NY Pig Dept., and there's
always someone with a giant Old Glory affixed, and the usual
Wonderbread suburbanites (one of whom just littered right in front of
me)....

So, like, I dunno, but I'm thinking of all the illegal Mexicans here
who ride bikes and I've always found a certain comfort in that (and say
what you will about Mexicans, at least they have families; it's nice to
see dad playing volleyball or soccer while the mom's doing the BBQ with
the eight kids running around laughing -- straight out of Normano
Rockwellez), and this "Paul Revere Ride" makes me remember the things I
take to bicycling just to forget. It's like an Iraqi vet coming home
to find nothing at the cinema but action movies full of violence...bit
weird.

I remember as a messenger that when I'd crashed into another messenger
(both of us no helmets -- ha!) the first thing that occured to us was
to see whether the other was all right. I didn't realize it at the
time, but now I always remember that, touched how friendly a community
we seem to be. I've always found I could just go up to someone on a
bike and chat. So this "Paul Revere Ride" -- in "Adventure Cycling"
magazine, of all venues -- is just rather jarring. Yeah, I know we all
have our own lives outside of cycling -- most bike messengers seem big
on weed, to my dismay -- but...I dunno...I guess it's like the weird
feeling of being all happy on your bike, only to step into your typical
LBS where the staff is taciturn and vaguely annoyed.

Anyway, I wonder how many of these Paul Reveres will be on recumbents!