San Jose Bike Party enjoys successful Buy Nothing Day ride

San Jose's Bike Party group, organizing rides in a Critical Mass style sporadically since the 2004 Halloween Bike Party and consistently since September 2005, has once again gathered to show the streets of downtown San Jose a new meaning of "party." This past Friday, the small group of cyclists gathered once again near Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, catching some attention with a Channel 11 news interview that made it to the evening news.

We had another successful ride on Friday - about 15 people showed up at the park downtown just after 5:30pm and we departed for a few jaunts around downtown after we all got together. After looping through downtown we headed West on San Carlos, making our way out through the Burbank district to Valley Fair and Santana Row - we ended our ride with about 7 of us at Santana Row and got a nice chance to play on one rider's tandem and another's fixie in the parking lot.

We got positive responses from most pedestrians (there were many downtown since this Buy Nothing Day also marked the opening of San Jose's Christmas In The Park display and the Downtown On Ice rink), who smiled and waved. We also got some attention from a Channel 11 TV crew there to film the downtown festivities who knew of our ride and interviewed at least one rider, making it to the evening news. Though a few drivers acted like stereotypical San Jose dragracers and nearly ran someone over, the vast majority were courteous and accomodating to the unusual bicyclist presence, which usually took one lane, and occasionally an entire street (especially narrow streets, where passing would be dangerous).

We're planning another ride for New Year's Eve Eve, keeping with our schedule of riding on the last Friday of each month, and beginning to organize a more stable group - an e-mail list is in the works. Try this link to subscribe to the list in a few days: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/sjbikeparty