San Francisco Bike Blog

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (sfbike.org) has a calendar of events called the Chain of Events. Today, after work, there was a Streetside Outreach event where they gave away free bike bells:

SFBC Streetside Outreach: Free Bike Bells!

Wed., Jul. 16 | 5-7pm | Fox Plaza (Market near 9th/Larkin)

Ding! Ding! Get a classy FREE bike bell when you roll on by the fabulous SFBC Streetside Outreach Team. (Thanks to SFMTA for donating 800 bells!) While you wait, catch up on the latest SFBC advocacy work and enjoy the good company of your fellow cyclists! Want to be a Streetside Outreach Team Volunteer? Contact kate@sfbike.org.

I got there right at the end, so I missed out on the bell, but I did find out they’re $6. I guess SFMTA must sell them? I want one for my new bike - I think we should all have them so we don’t scare pedestrians when we zing by them at many miles an hour. Just being courteous.

The Streetside Outreach program looks pretty cool:

Take the Bike Word to the Street!

Join the SFBC in reaching out to city cyclists–out on the streets! Do you have an hour or two before or after work? Want to foster the bike movement and make your commute matter?

Let’s hit the streets and capture the energy and spirit of Bike to Work Day. Meet cyclists, chat about pressing bike issues and tell riders about SFBC’s progress on improving bicycling conditions in SF. Free give-a-ways, hot bike topics, good bike cheer. Help us bring bike energy into our commutes!

Part of the purpose of this blog, of course, is to provide a ‘virtual town hall’ for bicyclists to meet and talk and share and learn and grow and work together, and I think that having a ‘physical town hall’ is just as important. These Streetside Outreach events can serve as that real physical town hall, even if their primary purpose is to generate excitement about biking, in general, and about the SFBC.

If you need to talk to someone who really knows what’s going on in your town, just cruise on down to the next Streetside Outreach and have a chat. You can also try to reach some folks online and then plan to meet up with them at the next Outreach event. Easy. Meeting with other bike advocates face to face is a good idea for lots of reason — it can help create stronger trust and closer working relationships between advocates, you can throw around some ideas and get opinions and critical thinking from people from different walks of life, and you can help keep each other informed and inspired.

I like the idea that the SFBC is not afraid to say, “Listen up, rider people riding by, we’re doing awesome things for bicycling in the city, and you should support our efforts by joining up and getting involved.” The lesson is that even if you’re awesome, you still have to go out of your way to tell folks why you’re awesome. And don’t be bashful about it. People are busy - you have to reach out to them, grab them by the collars, tell them you’re awesome, explain to them why you’re awesome, and ask for their support.

I also really like that this is something that even a ‘rarely or never’ or ‘first time’ volunteer/advocate can get involved in. Just a couple of hours - ride down after work, hang out, move some chairs around, do some setup, talk to a few folks, do some cleanup, ride home - and you still have time for your nightly blogging. 

Good job to SFBC and all the volunteers who made the event happen today. And thanks for helping me find a nearby cafe! I got some good work done.