Apr 212024

Earth Day Market Ride 2024

Earth Day Market Ride 2024

What a gorgeous day for the annual event! Unlike last year’s somewhat gray day, this year we got blue skies, sunshine, and warming temperatures. I kept up my streak for #30DaysOfBiking, which is rolling along nicely.

Photo of people with bikes gathering at Roosevelt School. A white woman wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sunglasses stands next to a white man wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt, tan shorts, and a bike helmet. Both are smiling into the camera. Other people stand around the parking lot with their bikes.

People of all shapes and sizes on bikes and trikes of all shapes and sizes met up at designated locations around town and played Follow the Leader to Heritage Park. I rode sweep for our group and got to chat with a woman recently arrived from Peru. This was her first outing beyond the neighborhood where her friend, also on the ride, has been building her confidence. We had everyone from kids on tiny, tiny bikes wearing helmets seemingly bigger than their bodies to their parents pulling the just-in-case bailout trailer to experienced riders in Lycra clipping in.

Photo of 3 people biking in a street with tree shadows stretching from left. Woman in black long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans rides a ride bike with a triangular cargo bucket on the front end of the bike. Center, a woman wearing a pink shirt and dark pants rides an upright bike. Right, a woman wearing a short-sleeved shirt and black capris rides a bike with knobby tires and flat handlebars, wearing a blue backpack on her back.

At the park we sipped coffee, picked up information and buttons showing we’re book lovers courtesy of Timberland Regional Library (thanks Timberland! goes well with my collection of bike books), waited with anticipation for the prize drawings and clapped when kids won two of the prizes including the coveted brass bell, and got our picture taken in a big group photo.

Phot of a LOT of people with their bikes at a park surrounded by tall brick buildings. At left, a woman on a bike with a child seat behind her holding a small child; a bright yellow flower is attached to the seat back. Center, a man wearing shorts with dark skin straddles his bike. Right, a smiling woman with a child in a front carrier space (a bakfiets). Many more beyond them in the sunshine.

From there the brightly colored crowd, bells ringing, rolled through downtown to the Olympia Farmers’ Market, ready to spend the $1 market money tokens each of us had received. Police volunteers held back drivers at intersections as we took the street, illustrating nicely how you can quickly move a few hundred people very space-efficiently in a small amount of time. If we had each been in an individual vehicle downtown would have come to a complete halt for hours, not minutes.

Photo of people riding in two lanes of a city street. In the foreground, two kids on bikes and their dad. Beyond them, more people on bikes, some wearing bright reflective vests. No cars on the street.

At the market I bought a beautiful bouquet, some crimini mushrooms, groundcover plants and parsley for my garden, and a scoop of delicious salted cookies and cream ice cream that I ate sitting in the sunshine. So many happy people enjoying life all in one place—fabulous!

Photo of a large tan barnlike structure with a sign reading Farmers Market at the roofline. Outside the big double doors, people sit at a picnic bench at right. In the center, bikes are parked on both sides of the entry, some with a bike trailer or pannier. A man wearing a bike helmet and backpack sits on the picnic bench.

The event is a reunion, in a way. I saw people I talked with at the event last year, people I work with in my day job who were there as parents with cargo bikes, and colleagues from other state agencies realizing we live in the same neighborhood and could get together for coffee at the delicious local bakery across from our gathering place at the elementary school.

An annual bike event is a beautiful community-building gathering. I smiled all the way home with my pannier full of flowers.

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