Please join the Ride for Sylvia this Saturday
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Jim Sheehan
Sep 14, 2012, 1:02:00 AM9/14/12
to in...@ohiocitycycles.org
Friends,
I don't often forward Bike Co-op emails to my personal email contacts, but this is an important event that I hope you will be able to join: it's free, and your presence will make a real difference for the future of cycling here. Please pass this on to your cycling friends and colleagues, and, if you can, wear a white shirt, in solidarity.
Thanks,
Jim
---------
Dear OCBC members and friends;
There are as many reasons to join the Ride for Sylvia this Saturday (details here) as there are reasons to ride; so we hope to see hundreds of cyclists show their support at this free, easy, police-escorted, Ride of Silence for safe cycling in Cleveland (especially since the start time has been moved from dawn to noon: now even late-risers have no excuse!)
A large contingent of riders will not only be heartening to Sylvia's family, who have worked tirelessly through their grief to ensure that her memory will have a legacy here; but will send an important message to decision-makers and the public about the strong future of cycling advocacy in Cleveland.
OCBC's senior trustee, Kevin Senich, makes an excellent case for showing up, and for urging your cycling friends to do so too, in his letter below. I hope you will please pass it on.
I look forward to seeing you at Edgewater Beach at noon this Saturday.
Jim Sheehan,
OCBC director
Why I will ride for Sylvia
On this September 15th I will join a group of bicyclists of undetermined size yet immeasurable faith on a Ride of Silence, to dedicate a plaque and consecrate a corner of Cleveland to the memory of Sylvia Bingham. I will cancel plans to attend an out-of-town college football game; inflate my tires and safety-check my “city bike,” and embark on the most important ride in my memory.
Why will I do this? The simple answer is that Sylvia’s death three years ago was a human tragedy of outrageous proportion that should be remembered. The more complex answer is that I will ride because of what Sylvia means to me; and because I must.
Sylvia is every cyclist who has ever been heedlessly endangered or harassed by a motorist on a public thoroughfare; every cyclist who was ever told, in one way or another, that they do not belong on the road. She embraced an idea I have long accepted as gospel and espoused to all who will listen: that cycling is a clean, healthy, economical – and sensible – alternative to motorized travel. On that fatal morning she could have been in a bus or a car. But, she was on a bike. She was on a bike because she thought it was “good” to be on a bike. She was also on a bike because, in a sense, I – and all of us who ride – told her we thought it was so.
But, was it?
Sylvia’s death did not challenge my faith in the “goodness” of cycling as much as did the reaction of the non-cycling public. Friends and acquaintances from that other creed asked, “What was she doing on a bike in downtown Cleveland in rush hour traffic?” They asked the question as if the answer were obvious. They asked the question as if, by the mere act of being on a bike, Sylvia somehow contributed to her own demise through her own negligence. I can’t fathom the ignorance. The answer is obvious: Sylvia was going to work. Safely. Legally. She was just riding her bicycle.
I must ride – this Saturday, and everyday that I can – because to do otherwise would be to abandon faith and to submit to the tyranny of motorized ignorance asserting that I and my bicycle have no place on our streets. I must ride, because to do otherwise is to confess to Sylvia that she paid in the dearest way for us to accept our society’s mistakes. This I cannot do. Mistakes were made that morning three years ago, but Sylvia’s decision to ride her bicycle to work was not one of them. In a sense Sylvia rode for me, and for all cyclists, that morning. So I must ride for Sylvia this Saturday – not merely to commemorate her life, but to validate her commitment. In the largest sense, we all ride for each other, every time we ride.
Please join me this Saturday to ride with Sylvia’s relatives and friends – and hundreds of others – to honor her life, and remember why we ride.
-- Kevin Senich, Esq.
OCBC Trustee
Please feel free to reply or call if you have any questions, or thoughts.
Jim Sheehan
Director, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op
1840 Columbus Rd
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216 830 2667
OhioCityCycles.org
I don't often forward Bike Co-op emails to my personal email contacts, but this is an important event that I hope you will be able to join: it's free, and your presence will make a real difference for the future of cycling here. Please pass this on to your cycling friends and colleagues, and, if you can, wear a white shirt, in solidarity.
Thanks,
Jim
---------
Dear OCBC members and friends;
There are as many reasons to join the Ride for Sylvia this Saturday (details here) as there are reasons to ride; so we hope to see hundreds of cyclists show their support at this free, easy, police-escorted, Ride of Silence for safe cycling in Cleveland (especially since the start time has been moved from dawn to noon: now even late-risers have no excuse!)
A large contingent of riders will not only be heartening to Sylvia's family, who have worked tirelessly through their grief to ensure that her memory will have a legacy here; but will send an important message to decision-makers and the public about the strong future of cycling advocacy in Cleveland.
OCBC's senior trustee, Kevin Senich, makes an excellent case for showing up, and for urging your cycling friends to do so too, in his letter below. I hope you will please pass it on.
I look forward to seeing you at Edgewater Beach at noon this Saturday.
Jim Sheehan,
OCBC director
Why I will ride for Sylvia
On this September 15th I will join a group of bicyclists of undetermined size yet immeasurable faith on a Ride of Silence, to dedicate a plaque and consecrate a corner of Cleveland to the memory of Sylvia Bingham. I will cancel plans to attend an out-of-town college football game; inflate my tires and safety-check my “city bike,” and embark on the most important ride in my memory.
Why will I do this? The simple answer is that Sylvia’s death three years ago was a human tragedy of outrageous proportion that should be remembered. The more complex answer is that I will ride because of what Sylvia means to me; and because I must.
Sylvia is every cyclist who has ever been heedlessly endangered or harassed by a motorist on a public thoroughfare; every cyclist who was ever told, in one way or another, that they do not belong on the road. She embraced an idea I have long accepted as gospel and espoused to all who will listen: that cycling is a clean, healthy, economical – and sensible – alternative to motorized travel. On that fatal morning she could have been in a bus or a car. But, she was on a bike. She was on a bike because she thought it was “good” to be on a bike. She was also on a bike because, in a sense, I – and all of us who ride – told her we thought it was so.
But, was it?
Sylvia’s death did not challenge my faith in the “goodness” of cycling as much as did the reaction of the non-cycling public. Friends and acquaintances from that other creed asked, “What was she doing on a bike in downtown Cleveland in rush hour traffic?” They asked the question as if the answer were obvious. They asked the question as if, by the mere act of being on a bike, Sylvia somehow contributed to her own demise through her own negligence. I can’t fathom the ignorance. The answer is obvious: Sylvia was going to work. Safely. Legally. She was just riding her bicycle.
I must ride – this Saturday, and everyday that I can – because to do otherwise would be to abandon faith and to submit to the tyranny of motorized ignorance asserting that I and my bicycle have no place on our streets. I must ride, because to do otherwise is to confess to Sylvia that she paid in the dearest way for us to accept our society’s mistakes. This I cannot do. Mistakes were made that morning three years ago, but Sylvia’s decision to ride her bicycle to work was not one of them. In a sense Sylvia rode for me, and for all cyclists, that morning. So I must ride for Sylvia this Saturday – not merely to commemorate her life, but to validate her commitment. In the largest sense, we all ride for each other, every time we ride.
Please join me this Saturday to ride with Sylvia’s relatives and friends – and hundreds of others – to honor her life, and remember why we ride.
-- Kevin Senich, Esq.
OCBC Trustee
Please feel free to reply or call if you have any questions, or thoughts.
Jim Sheehan
Director, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op
1840 Columbus Rd
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216 830 2667
OhioCityCycles.org
Susan Kaesgen
Sep 14, 2012, 5:28:42 PM9/14/12
to ocbc-a...@googlegroups.com
See you there, love mom
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