Ride of Silence

5.19.2010

 

On the eve before the Big Event we're at 295 rides world-wide on all 7 continents in 22 countries and all 50 of our United States. Thank you all for your incredibly important roles in making this all possible as volunteers who often spend a considerable amount of personal funds to support your events.

If you happen to be aware of other events happening in your city/ community not listed on our database please submit what you know using our form; we'd love to know about every event happening & reach 300 events world-wide.

We've just received some of the best of news as well as some of the worst and we'd like to share it with you as an encouragement and reminder of why what we're doing is so important.

First, here's a link to Congressman Earl Blumenauer's (3rd District, Oregon) performance earlier today on CSPAN demanding attention to bike fatalities (May 18, 2010, YouTube video). This short video is truly inspirational, giving our efforts national level support from one of the biggest bicycling advocates we have in Washington, DC. Earlier this spring he also wrote a very powerful endorsement calling our event the "National Ride of Silence". Just as an idea, reading Earl's endorsement before or after your events might give your participants much needed comfort and confidence in the direction of our government.

The very sad news comes from our neighbors to the north in Montreal, Canada, where in just the past few days they've experienced 2 horrible road tragedies claiming 4 bicyclists, 3 in one crash alone. This news article gives the details which you might want to share in brief at your events tomorrow.

Finally, an important reminder from a very weary webmaster: PLEASE submit your POST-event reports using our online form. Please DON'T email them to me. Our form allows you to submit your written report and links to photo galleries, videos, news stories as well as attach up to 10 of your better photos.

Let the Silence Roar!

Tim Potter
Webmaster