This past sunday my husband greg, his brother tim and I all participated in the Sonoma County Bike Expo in downtown santa Rosa. Sonoma county is a very bike friendly place and there a lot of avid bike riders, bike shops and bike enthusiast all around the various little towns. I wasn't sure what to expect from the event but we decided to participate since both Greg and Tim are really into biking and I have started to get into the sport. We started out early fin the morning at around 8:30am for the bike around town. There was a group of about 100 people including a couple town mayor's, county officials etc. We were led about town by the Sonoma County Bike Coalition for a fun 10 mile ride around some of the streets of Santa Rosa. Our bike leader spoke about proper hand signaling, proper use of the bike lanes and proper bike etiquette. It was nice to have those reminders set forth before we embarked on the ride through the streets. We stayed mostly in the bike lanes give or take a few blocks here and there and it was a very family friendly ride as there were several small children on cute little bikes leading the pack. (On a side note I was very impressed that these little kids were able to do the ride with no complaints.)
After the ride about town we ended up downtown in a parking lot that had been blocked off and had 20 or so bike oriented booths set up. All the bike shops had a booth showcasing bikes and products, many of them offering deep discounts on stuff they were selling. There were some local food vendors, of course New Belgium Brewery (which is employee owned and all about bikes) were there selling beer and doing fun silk screens etc. There were bike ramps set up for racing, there were young guys doing tricks on tiny bikes. There we a bunch of old school bikes that had been restored for sale. There were also a lot of swap meet type booths where you could get used bike parts on the cheap if you were looking for something specific. I ended up buying a new seat for me old school cruiser that my brother in law bought me at a yard sale. (I can't wait till it is all fixed up so I can ride it around town with Lola in the front basket)
We spent a couple hours down there just wandering around, having lunch, chatting with other local bike owners and having a very nice Sunday afternoon in our community. I was impressed at how many people showed up with their own bikes and were wandering around checking out what the community had to offer. Overall it was a super fun, low key time and it inspired me to get out more and ride my bike which is something i have been working hard to do since I moved here. Hopefully this will continue to keep me motivated in this green activity which is so good for me and so good for the environment. Write in and lets us know how often do you use your bike?
Until next time, Consume More and Buy Less.
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Melissa
This sounds like it was a lot of fun! I visited Sonoma last year for my family reunion. I'd heard it was very low key and peaceful as you descrived so we looked into the vacation rentals in Sonoma County which were gorgeous, and booked it the next day. I love how quaint, and overall clean it was there. And I also love the fact you are on a green movement, more people need to give back like that. Maybe next time we visit we'll run into something cool like a bike expo, that would have been perfect!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!