COVID-19 Birthday Bicycle Party: Keep it Rollin'

If your family has a birthday coming up, prospects for celebration look bleak. No one is congregating. Extra trips to the store are discouraged. Gift-giving could mean giving illness. Even online ordering has its risks and could be delayed—bad news for overwhelmed folks who feel fortunate to have a general idea that it is apparently April now?

One answer: a family biking birthday ride! Message friends and neighbors around your neighborhood and ask them to be at their front porches/balconies/windows during a limited time window (11-noon, for example). Decorate your family's bicycles with colorful items you have around the house, such as tissue paper, streamers, and ribbons. We used wax paper and a sharpie to make a personalized flag.

Then, get a little exercise* and take your bicycle party on the road! If you have a portable speaker, play your kid's favorite movie soundtrack or Spotify's "Happy Birthday" playlist (remove the one explicit track if desired). It isn't just festive, it also helps your friends hear you coming. Instead of giving gifts, they could decorate their window or put some balloons or streamers out if they happen to have some on hand. They could shake bells to help you feel like professional athletes!

If you ran out of cake ingredients, why not stop by a treat shop for take-away as part of your ride? Chocolate Lab has been doing amazing work supporting health workers during the pandemic, and their treats are delectable for all ages. Duffeyroll is another great option. What's your favorite local sweet shop offering carry-out right now?

You could also include your local bicycle repair shop on your route (they qualify as essential businesses). Pick up some extra inner tubes, tires and maybe some fun lights for the birthday biker! Bike Shop Girl Family Cyclery is accepting appointments. Bikes Together has two locations. Velosoul recently moved to Englewood and is open with limited hours. SloHi Bike is currently swamped with repairs, but accepting appointments starting April 21.

If you have a stash of party hats, you can wear them right along with your helmet! The Governor of Colorado and the CDC are recommending everyone wear cloth face coverings while not at home. Cardboard is a reasonable alternative for single use (I got the idea from an online meme and recognized it as a clever no-sew option). I taped over the gaps on mine.

Image of me wearing a blue party hat over my nose and mouth along with my helmet.

I guarantee you'll make some folks smile. Ok, they're laughing. At you. And it is totally worth it.

Happy birthdays, my friends. Better days and group rides are ahead of us!

*Outdoor exercise currently qualifies as essential activity in Colorado. While I strive to provide only accurate information here, pandemic restrictions and recommendations change frequently. Follow both the letter and the spirit of the most up-to-date restrictions for your city and state.

I've Learned Some Things

Last week, I sat down with Steve Staeger of Next with Kyle Clark along with two other bicycle advocates: Rob Toftness (@NoSquish on Twitter) and Nicole McSpirit (@GoingDutchDen on Twitter). It was a great time to reflect on what has changed in Denver's cycling advocacy over the past few years.

For one thing, there is now A Thing called the Denver Bicycle Lobby. This is a group of individuals who take time out of their day on a regular basis to engage in cycling advocacy. I've learned a lot about what bicycle advocacy entails since starting this blog, and I intend to outline some of those lessons in this post and others.

Spoiler alert: None of it is as fun as being on TV. Most of it IS more effective.

One of the most important things advocates do is attend public meetings. Public meetings happen all over the city with surprising frequency. They often occur at times that are inconvenient for families, there isn't always much advance notice, and they are packed with people who are more eager to speak than listen. Picture NextDoor IRL (in real life).

Public meetings are my personal nightmare—except that they are a critical component of effective change. They are intended to be an arena where stakeholders can both learn and teach. With mutual respect, neighbors can point out details that experts might have missed and collaborate on solutions that improve quality of life for everyone.

Without mutual respect, neighbors shout down public servants and each other while stubbornly resisting change they don't yet know they want (more on that in a later post).

As much as I loathe public meetings, I have seen some form of positive result from each and every one I've attended. Once, it was an idea for a red arrow in place of a standard red light at a dangerous intersection where right turns on red are deadly. Ideas like this might seem like insignificant minutia, but these ideas save lives and come from people who care. Just as importantly, these ideas are heard by people who have the expertise to implement them as effectively as possible. We need more people showing up at these meetings ready to listen, trust, and collaborate. If we all show up in good faith (no matter how difficult that may be), improvements happen.

It took me too long to realize that I can and should take my kids to public meetings. Fellow parents—hear me out! I've attended public meetings where no children were present, but temper tantrums erupted from half of the adults in the room that would put a threenager meltdown to shame. Don't worry about your kids disrupting the meeting! Their presence just might remind the adults to set a decent example.

Worried about depriving your kid of their childhood at in interminable public meeting? Pack a picnic! Bring a coloring book! A board game! Heck, bring your kids' friends along and call it a play date! Most importantly, only do what you can do. If it works for you to bring the kids for the first 15 minutes and then leave, your presence is still valuable. If you get the kids to bed and then draw straws with your spouse over who shows up late to the meeting, that's better than not showing up at all.

I strongly recommend attending your first public meeting with no agenda whatsoever. You'll see some familiar faces and lots of new ones. Get a feel for who likes to talk and who likes to listen, who is constructive and who isn't, who riles people up and who calms them down. Then comes the hardest part: be one of the calm, constructive listeners who keeps showing up. Your kids won't be the only ones taking cues from your example.