I was home sick from work today (and actually slept right into the afternoon), so although I've got a couple posts in draft stage, I thought I'd post about an idea I literally just had that may not only encourage biking, but raise money for charity.

I can't help but think of Portland when I think of organized rides. It seems to be a biking wonderland for cyclists interested in biking around their city in groups. If you take a look at the Rides & Events Category of BikePortland.org, you'll see fun looking things like The Worst Day Ride, rides celebrating the birthday of a riding club, and the Super-Legal Ride, amongst countless others (there were at least 3 rides on New Years Day alone!)

I've gotten all sidetracked looking at all those links (plus I'm watching Law & Order, plus my Tylenol Cold pills are severely shortening my attention span...), but here's my idea, in point form, since I'm very scatterbrained:

• Set up a monthly ride that goes on the weekend, so you can get families and kids and people that don't bike-commute to work to take part.
• Organize it somewhat like the Toronto BikeWeek GroupRide, where a group of cyclists will start at Yonge & Lawrence, meet up with others (coming from the east and west) at Yonge & Bloor and go on to City Hall for some snacks.
• Finally, we legitimize it, get media and politicians behind it by getting a $2 or $5 donation per rider for charity.
• The charity can be the Canadian Lung Association, who already runs something similar called BikeTreks, 1-2 day rides through rural Ontario.

I honestly believe that something like this will not only help remind people that streets aren't just for cars, and encourage people to use their bikes on our streets (instead of just recreational trails) but also help raise money and awareness of air pollution problems for the Lung Association - not only a worthy and "feelgood" cause, but something media outlets will do stories on.

I guess I'll start looking into what will be involved in getting this going, although that could be the pills talking. Haha. It's not like I have a lot of extra time hanging around.

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