All geared up!

Our town is hosting Oaklavia this Sunday -- an event that involves blocking off city streets in the downtown area so that people can come out and play together -- using human-powered transportation like bicycles, roller skates, skate boards and their own feet.

The event is modeled after Ciclovia -- a similar program that was started in 1974 (!!) in Bogota, Columbia. The intent was to "conquer" otherwise dangerous or busy traffic lanes for a single day so that the community could re-purpose it for leisure, recreation and sport. The word "conquer" was used in a translation of copy from the Ciclovia website which was originally written in Spanish, but I think the idea is spot on. In some urban places (like Oakland), the community and neighbors need to (on occasion) take back space in order to enjoy the city, celebrate community and promote a healthy lifestyle.

In anticipation of this joyous celebration, we dug into our storage space and pulled out our cobweb covered and dirt encrusted bicycles. It took a little soap and water, and a fair amount of elbow grease to get them in shape for a prime time appearance. The tires also needed a little attention from Joe Blow, but now we're all pumped up and raring to go!

The route features a lot of interesting things to do and see...in particular, I'm excited to see scraper bikes (see my previous post), hoop dancing, unicycle basketball, circus spire performers, and rumba dancing. Oh, and I'm hoping I might talk John into stopping at Primo's Parillas food truck for some Argentinian slow grilled tri-tip. After all, one can really work up an appetite cruising the streets on two wheels.