The Ride with Government Officials and Others (and me)

Today is the ride that used to be the Mayor's Ride to Breakfast but is now the Bike to Work Breakfast with City Manager Ron Carlee, Charlotte Center City Partners’ CEO Michael Smith, local elected officials and private leaders (and Team Dicky).  Our current mayor is an attorney who works for the same firm that I do, but for some reason he's not part of the Mayor's Ride thing.  I was looking forward to seeing him in a helmet.

Unfortunately, our last mayor never got to do a Mayor's Ride.  He got arrested for taking huge bribes so he could  "develop a feminine hygiene product called 'Her' to be marketed and sold in the United States."  I'm not making that up.  He shouldn't be confused with our other former mayor that attended many Mayor's Rides who's looking at possible legal trouble for his involvement in polluting our drinking water with toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, selenium, and other dangerous chemicals from a coal ash pond spill.

Oh, Charlotte.  You world class city, you.

Anyways...

I'm going to the ride anyways.  I always do.

Do I believe it makes a difference?  No and yes.

Our city has come a long way since I moved here in 1996.  Bike lanes, racks on buses and trains, greenways, neighborhood connectivity, a bike share program, Trips for Kids, The Recyclery, a velodrome, bike racks uptown... it didn't happen because people sat on their thumbs.  It didn't happen because we rode to breakfast with a corrupt mayor either. 

But it did happen because people put themselves into it, and I appreciate their efforts...


So I will join them in the kind of solidarity associated with free eggs, bacon and coffee.

Speaking of coffee, I found the solution to the "computer on the Floor 1, coffee on Floor 1.5" at the new house.

So, yeah.  I'm up early today to ride to the ride to the Ride with the Mayor (which is no longer an actual ride with an actual mayor).  I'll be standing in a parking lot in front of Bike Source at 6:45 to begin a slow journey to another parking lot where I'll stand around some more until we ride approximately one mile to the front of the Government Center... hey, isn't that where the mayor's office is?

And then we shall dine on eggs.

You don't have to bring your own plate and travel mug, but I would appreciate it.