This ride was part of Bike Month in Austin - Bikes Across Borders is a organization that takes old bikes and makes them work and all then carry's them down to Mexico and whatnot for folks to ride as transportation. very noble. they were also collecting donations, in exchange for fun blinky lights, for the BIKER DOWN FUND. this is for bikers that go down and have no insurance. again: noble.

so we all met up, lee brought his roomate robby and some friends that live close by, shannon and her son hunter. it was nice to meet them. we hung out while folks decorated their bikes and more and more people showed up. finally right about dark we took off for the Capitol. greg got off work and joined us shortly after we left.

now this was cool: we lit up the streets with the bike trailer boom box and all kinds of blinky lights. there had to be around 100 bikers. and ALL kinds: 2 tall bikes came out, some chopper bikes, i saw a few awesome xtracycles, cruisers, fixies, BMX and everything inbetween.

so we ride taking up a full lane of traffic and it's a good. the ride was just to make the presence of bikes known on the streets - to share the road - for bike month. most folks loved it and waved - cars were tolerant.

one woman yelled out: "what are you riding for?"
this guy riding replied back: freedom.

nicely put.

we did encounter a hummer, on a corner so she got some boos and 'ditch the hummer and ride a bike' ... but she was good hearted about it all. maybe she heard the message...maybe not.

so we rode down congress to the capitol - hung out there a while - then started back. we got harrassed by a policeman. i suppose he thought he was doing his duty. but, thing was: the ride so far had gone off without a hitch. no big whoop. people let us ride and we let people drive around us. no worries. well then he came up and was pushing us into one lane....and while doing so almost ran over a few bikers. sigh. he stopped one dude and yelled at him a bit, then got in his automobile and headed off. we were almost to Daily Juice anyway. silliness.

Daily Juice handed out free watermelon and pineapple juice - it was a great ride.