TC Tweed Ride | May 19th | 4:00 at the Open Space

Time to dust off that old schwinn and your seersucker knickers, folks!  Vintage is the style, and meandery is the pace.  Start to find that summertime spirit with this leisurely community ride around our historical downtown! Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Tweed Ride TC, which drew close to 100 participants, this year’s event again centers on a leisurely bicycle tour (five miles or so over two plus hours) of Traverse City’s central neighborhoods with stops for refreshment and conviviality. Participation is free, open to all, and requires no registration. For 2012, Tweed Ride TC has happily accepted the generous invitation of The Outre Lounge at the InsideOut Gallery for the post-ride social, which will commence approximately around 6:30 p.m.

ABOUT THE TRADITION OF TWEED RIDES:

A tweed run is a group bicycle ride, usually around the center of a city,  in which the cyclists are invited to dress in traditional cycling attire, which gives the event its unique vintage style. While tweed is not mandatory, it is always encouraged. In terms of style, think “jaunty”, “natty”, “snazzy”, or “handsome”.  Please, no lycra.  While the event encourages interesting and unusual urban bicycles, all sort are welcome. The first tweed run was in London on January 24, 2009, organized by London Fixed Gear and Single Speed, an online cycling forum. Tweed rides have since been in various places including San Francisco, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Madrid, Sydney, and Tokyo. At last count, there have been nearly 100 such events worldwide.

Tweed Ride TC may have the distinction of being the largest “per capita” tweed ride, with the greatest participation in respect to total population.