Day of the Dead Ride 2015 Pittsburgh

Sun 11.01.2015 13m

I'm involved in a bike activism group called 412Flock! which was sort of resurrected out of the dying remnants of a previous group called Flock.

When we decided to invest the time to keep 'Flock' running for a year, and continuing to offer welcome, safe, slow, silly rides in streets with traffic we emphasized making new outreaches to communities not traditionally embraced by mainstream advocacy.

Back in January I said, Day of the Dead ride! We had a few 'new-to-us' rides: Cinco de Mayo, Gay Pride, a Cosplay Ride, stuff like that. And in December there's a Chanukah Ride.

As Nov.1 approached, a Pittsburgh cyclist named Susan Hicks was gruesomely smashed between two cars and killed. She was waiting in the lane, behind a stopped car, for the light to change. There was another car behind her. A third car rammed into the trailing car, sending it smashing into Susan and the car in front of her.

What a tragedy. It's a six-lane road and we can't find enough space to make cyclists safe. There was some thought of: how do we do a Day of the Dead ride so soon after a killing? But we decided to open the ride with a DOTD altar in memory of Susan Hicks.



Folks got dressed up and really got into the spirit of the event:



We ended up at New Amsterdam, because: mural!


Tremendous soundtrack from Spotify. Another thing I love about the folks who come out on these rides: nobody talked about the Steelers or the day's game. Nobody said if they won, or lost, not anything. I love that.