Only 1 week to go! We’re celebrating CycloFemme, Mother’s Day, autumn and the joy of Op-Shopping and coffee drinking in a leisure ride through the Northern suburbs.
Riders of all capabilities, age and gender are welcome – fancy dress and Sunday bike optional…
Thanks to the great people at St Ali there will be Coffee Prizes to take home for the best dressed rider, sweetest lady-like bike and the ultimate bargain find, nominated at the end of the ride at St Ali North.
BYO: working bicycle, drink bottle, carry bag and helmet (KeepCups, baskets and panniers are highly recommended)
Let us know you’re coming and RSVP to events@thesqueakywheel.com.au.
Details: Op Shop Coffee Ride
Meet: Sunday 12th May, 10am at Auction Rooms, 103-107 Errol St, North Melbourne
Finish: around 2pm at St Ali North, 815 Nicholson St, Carlton North
P.S. The City of Melbourne is looking for THE Melbourne bike rider, a photographer will attend the ride and take some snaps (please advise on the day, if you don’t want to be photographed).
Happy Riding!
You are new to Melbourne or don’t feel confident riding your bike in CBD’s traffic? The Move Mindfully team is taking you out on a FREE bike tour exploring the city’s best Cheap Eats, Shopping, Arts & Culture and Shopping destinations in a leisure 2,5 hr bike ride (with coffee stops along the way…) and showing you how to tackle Melbourne’s traffic. Blue bikes and blue helmets will be provided, courtesy of Melbourne Bike Share. Due to popular demand, we are also offering a Beginner Bike Skills Training on Saturday 4th May for those with no or little bike riding experience. So, no excuses: on y’er bike and RIDE!
Let us know you’re coming and email Ben via info@thesqueakywheel.com.au
Bike Tours
Saturday 27 April: 10.30am – 1pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 3
Saturday 27 April: 2m – 5.30pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 4
Saturday 4 May: 2pm – 5.30pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 5
Learn how to ride a bike
Saturday 4 May: 10.30am – 1pm: Bike Skills Training
Meet: 15 min before start at Federation Square, Melbourne Bike Share Docking Station, cnr Flinders St / St Kilda Rd (next to Melbourne Visitor Centre)
Bring: water bottle, light luggage, lunch (or some coins for getting coffee along the way), camera, rain jacket in case it looks promising (we’ll ride in light rain or drizzle)
Bikes and helmets will be provided, you’re welcome to bring your own along, just let us know!
International Students ESPECIALLY welcome!
Ladies (and manbassadors) this is for YOU! In honour of CycloFemme, we’ll be taking you out for a leisure Sunday ride, bringing together some of the best things in this world: Bikes, Op Shopping and Coffee! …maybe even cakes…
We will be pootling along the inner north bike paths, visiting a few op shops and stopping at bicycle-friendly cafés along the way.
Riders of all capabilities, age and gender are welcome – the ride will be at a pleasure pace and taking in no more than 10km!
St Ali Signature Coffee Prizes for best dressed rider, sweetest lady-like bike and the ultimate bargain find!
BYO: working bicycle, drink bottle, carry bag and helmet (KeepCups, baskets and panniers are highly recommended)
Let us know you’re coming and RSVP to events@thesqueakywheel.com.au.
Details: Op Shop Coffee Ride
Meet: Sunday 12th May, 10am at Auction Rooms, 103-107 Errol St, North Melbourne
Finish: around 2pm at St Ali North, 815 Nicholson St, Carlton North
FREE
CycloFemme is a socially-driven-grass-roots celebration of women on bikes.
Their mission is to create a unified voice for women in cycling, encouraging and empowering more riders. By highlighting the health and environmental benefits, community building and positive social impact that bike riding can have on our world, CycloFemme hopes to engage more riders.
You’re a student, just arrived in Melbourne and overwhelmed by the opportunities Australia’s cultural capital has to offer? You are lucky! The Squeaky Wheel is taking you out on a bike tour and shows you not only the hottest spots for Eating, Arts & Culture and Bars & Nightlife in the CBD but also how to move mindful in Melbourne’s city traffic on a bicycle. Thanks to Melbourne Bike Share, you don’t even have to worry about your mode of transport: bikes and helmets will be provided!
If you haven’t been on a bike for quite a while and don’t feel confident enough to go out onto the streets yet, you won’t miss out. Join our bike skills training and experience the joy of getting back on a bike from our team of accredited bike education trainers – your Move Mindfully Guides.
Meet us at the Lord Mayor’s Welcome Event on Queensbridge Square from 2pm-5pm this Saturday to sign up or send an email to Ben via info@thesqueakywheel.com.au, stating which session/tour you would like to attend. (E.g. “Move Mindfully Bike Tour 3″ or “Bike Skills Training Session 2″, depending on which day or time suits you best, see below)
Move Mindfully Bike Program Info
Location: Queensbridge Square, Melbourne Bike Share marquee
Time: 2pm-5pm
FREE
Bike Skills Training (for beginners, inexperienced bike riders):
Location: RMIT basketball court, meet at Melbourne Bike Share station Swanston St/Franklin St
Saturday 13 April: 10.30am – 1pm: Bike Skills Training Session 1
Saturday 13 April: 2pm – 5.30pm: Bike Skills Training Session 2
FREE
Move Mindfully Bike Tours (taking in Shopping, Cheap Eats, Arts & Culture, Bars & Nightlife and Student Secrets destinations):
Location: CBD, meet at Melbourne Bike Share Station Federation Square, corner Flinders St
Saturday 20 April: 10.30am – 1pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 1
Saturday 20 April: 2pm – 5.30pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 2
Saturday 27 April: 10.30am – 1pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 3
Saturday 27 April: 2m – 5.30pm: Move Mindfully Bike Tour 4
FREE
By popular demand, there will be 2 more tours on Saturday 4 May.
Move Mindfully Bike Tours are staged in partnership with The City of Melbourne and Melbourne Bike Share, and act as bicycle orientation for up to 60 International Students recently arrived in Melbourne. Move Mindfully is a program that encourages courteous and considerate on-road behaviour.
After 4 weekends of bicycle loving, Melbourne Bikefest 2013 has drawn to a close, and we are getting all misty eyed thinking back over the 7 years that have passed since we first staged a bicycle event in Melbourne.
A lot has changed in that time, we don’t need statistics to tell us that many more people are riding bikes in our urban areas – we can see them with our own eyes! We are also hearing the voices of bike riders more often and in more places; discussions around riding (positive or otherwise) fill the news and media; and in the cultural and commercial sphere, representations of bike riders are everywhere.
We have worked hard to re-position bikes and their riders as everyday citizens, people who eat, drink, cook, dance, make art, enjoy music, work, vote, make good and bad decisions, live and love just like anyone. We have also worked hard to connect the many disparate micro communities of bike lovers to create a louder voice through Bikefest – the so called Squeaky Wheel to niggle at the mainstream notion of bike riders as misplaced athletes clogging up the roads.
And we’ve achieved our aim! (Or at the very least pulled up beside it at the lights). In many ways, the Melbourne we first approached with a bicycle themed offering 7 years ago has gone – replaced by a more bicycle-confident, bicycle-connected and bicycle-curious community.
So, in 2013, in the warm embrace of this two wheeled hug, we’ve decided it’s the perfect time to change paths. We’re not exactly sure where the new path will lead us (although we’ve got a good idea of where to start), we may need to ride a while to clear out the cobwebs – don’t worry we’ve got plenty of squeak left in the wheel! But we want to say thank you for riding with us to here.
So however we see you in 2014, we’ll see you with a smile.
x
The Squeaky Wheels
