2019 Kidical Mass Season!

The 2019 Kidical Mass season is here! We’ve got three fun rides on our calendar and hope to see you there!

Rides are free and all are welcome. We ride as a leisurely pace and kids riding their own bikes are encouraged to participate. We stick to low-traffic neighborhood roads with routes totally 1-3 miles on average.

The idea behind Kidical Mass is to encourage kids and families to bike on city roads and experience using a bike as transportation. We’re here to answer questions and provide community. For more info, please read our guidelines before joining a ride.

See you on your bike!

2018 Kidical Mass Ride Season!

Join us for our 2018 Kidical Mass 2018 Season:

Rides are free and all are welcome!

April 21 – Ride to the EcoFair | Meet & greet at Roosevelt Park followed by ride to EcoFair at City Park. Ride departs at 9:30am

May 5 – Ride your bike to Ames Kiwanis Bike Rodeo held at Meeker  Elementary from 9-11 am | No formal group ride | See this Tribune article about a past bike rodeo for what to expect

May 9 – National Bike & Walk to School Day! Ride or walk to school with your kids!

May 12 – Mayors Ride | Kidical Mass & Ames Bicycle Coalition are joining mayor Haila for the annual Mayor’s Ride – 9 am start at City Hall!

May 14-18 – Bike to Work Week | Watch our Facebook pages for info on the week-long events!

June 2 – Summerfest ride | Meet & greet at Brookside park, ride departs at 3pm from Brookside to Summerfest

June 16 – Duckworth Wearing Kids Races | Organized by Ames Velo | Details to come!

July 4 – PARADE! Ride with us in the annual City of Ames 4th of July parade!

August 11 – Ride to Farmers Market | Meet & greet depart at Brookside park, ride departs at 9:30 from Brookside to the Ames Main Street Farmers Market

Aug. 25 – Back to School Ride | Brookside to Meeker playground, ride departs at 9:30am from Brookside

October 27 – Halloween costume ride | meet at Brookside and ride to Wheatsfield for treats, ride departs at 10am

ALL RIDES SUBJECT TO CHANGE DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES.

WE’RE ALSO ON TWITTER.

Final Ride of 2017 Season

Thanks to everyone who rode their bikes with us this season! We’ll be back with a 2018 schedule by Feb of next year. Watch this space and our Facebook page for updates.

We ended our season with a chilly ride to Brookside Park followed by Trick or Treat’ing at Wheatsfield Coop. Despite the cold, we had a happy and willing bunch of riders eager to show off their costumes.

Thank you to ALL OF YOU who come out to ride and contribute in big and small ways to making Ames a more bike-friendly community!

Ames Bicycle Coalition will continue to work on bike advocacy efforts all year long, even during the winter when our social rides take a hiatus. Stay in touch with ABC meetings and updates by liking us on Facebook. See you all in the Spring!

Happy cycling!

Ames Kidical Mass rides for 2017 – Join us!

March 25-Start Brookside park 10 AM ride to Ames Eco fair city hall.

April 22 -start Brookside Park 10 AM. Earth day ride with Ames BiCYcle Day Group – ride the full ride (8 miles) or a shorter version – your choice!

May 6 – start Brookside Park 9 AM, ride to BIKE RODEO at Ames HS

June 3 -start Bandshell park 2:30 PM and ride to ISU Summer Fest in campus town

4th of July ride – ride in the Fourth of July parade downtown -Details TBA

July 29 -start Brookside park 10 AM ride to downtown farmers market

August 19 –back to school ride TBA

Sept 16 – start Roosevelt Park 10 AM KIDICAL MASSIVE

Oct 28 -Halloween ride! Costumes encouraged! Meet at Brookside Park and ride to Wheatsfield for treats. Ride departs Brookside at 10:45am. Trick or Treat at Wheatsfield begins at 11am. Stay for treats and hot beverages to warm up!

ALL RIDES SUBJECT TO CHANGE DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES.

WE’RE ALSO ON TWITTER.

KIDICAL MASSIVE

It’s the second annual Kidical Massive!

Kidical Mass groups all over the world are holding a ride on Sat. Sep. 17th! We’ll be riding at 3:30 (start at Stuart Smith Park on 4th Street) to the Ames Public Library, where we’ll have our own bike-themed story time organized by the awesome children’s librarians. Come ride with us!

So far there are rides taking places in all of these cities:

Eugene, Oregon
Richmond, Virginia
Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
East Lansing, Michigan
Tallahassee, Florida
Madison, Wisconsin
Tacoma, Washington
Portland, Oregon
Salt Lake City, Utah
Providence, Rhode Island
Walnut Creek, California
Stockholm, Sweden, Europe
Sale, Manchester, England
Seattle, WA

Safe Routes To School Action Items

Following Tuesday’s Safe Routes to School Community Meeting, we sent the following email to everyone who attended:

**

Dear neighbors and friends,

 

Again, thanks to those of you who were able to attend the Safe Routes to School meeting at Ames Public Library.

It is a beginning.  We have a lot of work to be done.  After our Tuesday evening meeting, I followed up with Sandra Looft (Kidical Mass) and Sarah Cady (Ames Bicycle Coalition) and we decided to focus on three items that came up on Tuesday evening that have potential for more immediate results.

 

1. Look into the crossguard issues–how to get more cross guards and keep them placed in key locations consistently. 

Talk to the police who organize this and look at how some other communities nearby have good outcomes.

2. Find a solution–temporary at best, for getting kids across Duff Ave. at 20th St. safely from east to west and west to east.  It will be great when there are more major infrastructure changes made.  For now, it just seems that some sort of safe crossing there is reasonable and necessary.  

 

3. Find parents at the elementary schools to get involved with the “walking school bus”  concept. Start with this and build up to biking to school safely.  Get teachers and PTO on board too.

 

 Any and all suggestions and hands-on support are welcomed!  For me, it’s all about making Ames a better community for all of us.

 

Elizabeth Wentzel

Ames Bicycle Coalition

Ames Kidical Mass

ewentzel@gmail.com

 

October 5th is International Walk/Bike to School Day!  More to come!

Safe Routes to School

Since we posted our June update, we’ve hosted a number of really fun bike rides, you can see photos and ride updates on our FB page as well as on Twitter.

Another thing we’ve been working on in collaboration with the Ames Bicycle Coalition has been our Safe Routes to School initiative. We want to see more kids biking and walking to school in Ames. To that end, we’re doing a number of things and YOU can get involved:

• organizing “walking school busses” to Ames schools (one already goes daily to Meeker)
• working with the city to improve infrastructure and make walking, crossing busy roads, sharing a lane when biking, etc, more SAFE and possible
• collaborating with the schools to encourage kids to stay active, healthy, and engaged in their communities

If you want to play a role in this, please contact us! We’re always looking for volunteers. You can email our Kidical Mass organizers, Sandra and Elizabeth, at:

rmlooft [at] gmail.com & ewentzel [at] gmail.com

If you want to learn more about Safe Routes to School as we’re applying it to Ames, listen to our interview on KHOI.

Find us on FACEBOOK and TWITTER for regular updates and news!

Video: June Ride to Summerfest

We had a great time riding to Summerfest in Campustown in June. Instead of our usual post with photos, we have a short video from June’s ride. Take a look at what you can expect if you come out to ride with us: it’s on our Facebook page!

Updates on future rides and events are always posted on Facebook and Twitter ! 

 

2016 Ride Schedule!

We are ready for another season of fun rides! Join us for the 2016 Ames Kidical Mass rides. Our rides are FREE, friendly, and family-oriented. We ride at a pace that accommodates cyclists of all ages and skill levels and we end at family-friendly destinations such as parks, the Ames downtown farmer’s market, coffee shops, etc. The goal is to get families and kids out and riding. We want everyone to feel comfortable taking the road and navigating Ames by bicycle.

This year we want to coordinate our rides with some of the fun events all over Ames thus the schedule will vary a bit.  Many rides will begin at Brookside but not all.  Check FB for updates too.   Mark your calendars for the following Kidical Mass rides:

Saturday 5/14/16 10:00 Brookside to TBA
Saturday 6/4/16 there will be 3 rides!! all starting at 2:30pm with final destination Campustown for SummerFest event with many activities for kids on bikes:
1. Bandshell Park, 2. Ames Middle school and 3. Moore Park as starting locations
Monday 7/4/16 Ride in the 4th of July Parade–start time TBA
Saturday 8/6/16 10:00 Brookside Park to Downtown Farmers Market
Saturday 8/20/16 Back to school ride Brookside to Meeker Elementary School
Saturday 9/17/16 10:00 Brookside to TBA
Saturday 10/29/16 10:00 Brookside to Wheatsfield. Halloween Ride.Cancelled!

Questions about our rides? Learn more about them on our ABOUT page. Check out additional family cycling sites and blogs HERE and find us on Facebook for up-to-date information on each month’s ride.

Happy cycling!

2015 Hallowe’en Ride!

Happy Hallowe’en cyclists!!

We had a great ride this morning! Costumes, cool fall weather, a park stop, and cider + treats at Wheatsfield Cooperative! Thanks to everyone who came out for it. While it was a bit chilly, the fun ride and great company more than made up for it.

Even though we had planned on this being our last ride of the year, everyone today agreed that we’re just not ready to stop riding yet so there might be one more ride this year: a holiday Jingle Bell ride! More costumes, lights, bells, & hot chocolate. So if you missed out on today’s ride, join us next time. Ride details to come!