‘Kidical Mass’ returns to Ballard

Geeky Swedes Ballard

“Kidical Mass,” the family-friendly, law-abiding bike ride first rolled through Ballard last month with 73 people and 59 bikes.

This Saturday will be their second ride. The group will meet at Salmon Bay School at 10:30 a.m. then head out at 11 a.m. through Ballard to meet up with the Burke Gilman extension and ride to Golden Gardens. Julian Davies, the organizer of the event says, “The combination of quiet, reasonably flat residential street grid and lots and lots of parks makes Ballard a family cycling paradise, hoping to highlight that for folks on the ride.” (Photo: Petra Franklin)

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

7 thoughts to “‘Kidical Mass’ returns to Ballard”

  1. Here's the trip report from their first trip, on Bike to Work day:
    http://totcycle.com/blog/kidical-mass-ride-repo…

    I was skeptical about it, but it sounds like it went off without a hitch, from the riders' perspective, anyway. They didn't mention how they fared with 75 riders navigating the intersection by Fred Meyer, which is normally overflowing that time of day.

    Kudoes, and good luck with the next rides!

  4. Thanks all! It's true, that intersection wasn't fun, but we just crossed in small car-sized groups so we wouldn't block things for the other road users, and waited up on the other side. The Market Street and Stone Way crossings similarly took a few stoplight cycles. I didn't hear about any motorist grumbles from our “crossing ambassadors”, so I hope it worked reasonably for the other traffic.

    This ride will not involve any major crossings, just meandering through the neighborhood on quiet streets, crossing 24th at a light, and so on. My stress level should be considerably lower.

  5. Flat? It is not either! Granted, if you're in reasonable shape (I'm not yet), the hills are manageable, but as a recent bike-purchaser I can attest that it takes at least some weeks of training before you can actually USE a bike to get around in Ballard. Whereas in a truly flat area, you could easily bike to the store and back with much less effort than you'd use to walk the same distance, even BEFORE you got back in any kind of shape (making it much easier and more immediately rewarding to take up biking).

  6. This seems an appropriate time to tell this story.

    I live on 28th Ave which is fairly wide. A few weeks ago my husband and I were out for a lovely stroll. Some guy comes cruising south on 28th on his bike with a baby carrier towed in the back. He's going unbelievably fast and he's talking to the carrier. He's saying get ready for the bump. We have speed bumps on my street. He flies over that thing and the carrier lands and starts to careen then falls over on its side. The man stops and asks the kid in the carrier if he's okay. He then starts to ride again.

    I felt like I was watching it in slow motion it was so extremely frightening. I'm sure this clueless guy is a rarity. I really hope most families ride very carefully with those things.

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