Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Cleveland Bike Week - Ride of Silence


Peninsula, Ohio
Contact: Mike Petcher
Distance: 12-15 miles
Notes: Century Cycles and the Medina County Bicycle Club invite all concerned riders to join us for a Ride of Silence beginning in Peninsula, Ohio on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 beginning at 7:00pm at the Lock 29 Overflow Parking Lot, just off of State Route 303.

Cyclists will ride south on Akron-Peninsula Road for 12-15 miles at a silent and slow 12 mph pace. It's a cause especially important to the crew at the Century Cycles store in Medina because a longtime customer was killed by a car while riding his bicycle in Medina county in 2007.

Helmets are required. This event is free and open to the public. No registration necessary. For more information, please call Century Cycles in Medina at 330-722-7119.

Cleveland, Ohio
Contact: Lois Moss
Distance: 8 or 16 miles
Notes: Riders will assemble in two locations (downtown near Cleveland City Hall) and the Heights neighborhoods (at Whole Foods Market at the intersection of Cedar and Warrensville Center Rds). Both groups will depart at 6:10pm and ride to University Circle. Along the way, we will pick up additional riders near:
- the Plain Dealer offices
- Cleveland State University
- Cleveland Clinic
- Case Western Reserve University
- University Hospitals
- John Caroll University
- Shaker Lakes Nature Center
Following a brief ceremony near University Circle at 7:00pm, you have three options, all of which will be led by a group guide:
- continue the ride to the opposite end of the route and ride back to your original starting location
- continue the ride to the opposite end of the route and take RTA's Rapid back to near your starting location
- ride back to your original starting location
Map and more info here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=328866017236
All participants must wear helmets. Traffic laws will be obeyed and we will stop at red lights and stop signs to show that we are traffic. If we want respect from motorists, we must show mutual respect for traffic laws.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Cleveland's typically topical when it comes major environmental disasters:


Cleveland is usually very pertinent when it comes to environmental disasters. Most famous for the Burning River (Cuyahoga) which set the stage for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Water Act Cleveland should be back in the news again for being way ahead of the curve.

One of Cleveland's most infamous landmarks is the FREE stamp, a 28 foot tall, 48 foot long statue created by Claus Oldenburg & Coosje Van Bruggen. While currently located on East 9th and West Lakeside Avenue the original location was to be at the lobby of the SOHIO (now owned by BP) Building on public square. According to the artists the statement "FREE" was in reference to the ideals of independence and liberty however during construction of the sculpture British Petroleum (see also the gigantic Gulf Oil Spill currently occurring) purchased SOHIO (Cleveland's Standard Oil) and the new management did not like the idea of pop art at their front door. Some inference can be made that stamping the earth "FREE" was not in the corporate ideology of British Petroleum, a company that makes it fortune by selling minerals extracted from the earth to the earth's inhabitants. Regardless there was much brouhaha and the stamp was redesigned for its new location having been "flung" from it's place of origin.

I like the sculpture.

However, as the news bombards us with tales of the environmental and economic devastation occurring in the Gulf Coast due to a major disaster at an oil rig operated by British Petroleum I cannot help but stare at the FREE Stamp, laying on its side, discarded, and wondering that this long twisted path we are already so far down leads away from the freedom and liberty we profess to love. How fitting that once again Cleveland can so neatly fit into the national consciousness when it come to environmental warnings about our future.

image borrowed from roadsideamerica.com