Philly '07 Photo Log
After returning to NH from Prince Edward Island, I caught a bus down to Philadelphia (a total pain in the ass to try to get my bike into a bike box for the trip, had to remove all the racks and even the fork). I had to change buses in Manhattan, which made me glad I'd decided not to actually visit NYC. Despite growing up near Philly, I'm a true midwesterner, the east coast freaks me out. I was going to visit Halima and Imad and the kids: Bassam and Eman. Halima is like my sister and I hadn't seen her in way too long.
I originally thought I'd stay just 4 days, head out to Bike!Bike! in Pittsburgh and home from there, but it was great being with Halima again, so I returned after Bike!Bike! and spent another two weeks in Philly. Bike!Bike! is an annual conference for community and recycled bike shops. People came from all over the states, Canada, and a few other countries to share ideas and ride bikes. Gear Up was there from Mpls and I helped Claire and Kari facilitate a workshop on accessibility and equality in the cycling community. We got to distribute the second issue of our feminist bike zine, Dames on Frames. (First issue is also cool. It's set to print double-sided.)
Dames: Kari, me, Claire. Check out Claire's upcoming tour of South America.
And Cali:
Thanks to Kari and others for all the Bike!Bike! photos. The conference was held at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and everyone teamed up to give us really great food throughout the weekend. Bike parking could occasionally be an issue.
We ended up getting a great place to crash with Ashley, in her loft in an old factory. Here she is all fixed up for the Saturday night party at Freeride.
There was a rooftop garden with flowers and tomatoes and cats, and a great view. You see strange things from rooftops.
There was lots to do at the conference, including our workshop,
A special discussion just for female-identified conference-goers,
A bike tour of Pittsburgh's bridges, which ended at a film festival under one of them,
And a party at Freeride, which included a foot-down contest (winner pictured below).
I also ran into Ignacio from Bikes Across Borders in Austin again (in foreground),
But left before the final group shot photo was taken...
Because I got a ride home to Philly with the friendly folks from Neighborhood Bike Works and the divine Bike Church. Back row: Mike, Carina, ?, Ricky, Kat, Matt, Dave. Front row: Ben, Eian.
Matt and Eian ended up showing me around Philly the next couple weeks, which was great. We even went to see the Madison Cup, a track bike race at the Lehigh Valley Velodrome.
A few weeks later, Eian flew out to Mpls as the start point for his bike tour back to Philly, and I rode with him as far as Madison, Wisconsin. We took "the great river road", highway 35 in Wisconsin along the river, to a series of rails-to-trails, including the Elroy-Sparta Trail, which has three really spooky tunnels. We carried all our own gear and camped where we could along the way. It was about 270 miles and we biked it in 5 days, doing about 50 miles a day. When we were quite close to Madison, Eian's friend Emily picked us up, made a great pasta dinner, and taught us how to play bones!
Here are some images from our trip:
Two happy bikers:
