First Sunday in June, Any Sunday in August 

Ride the Drive has been a popular event in Madison since August 30,2009.  That was the first one and Madison loved it!  It was inspired by the Ciclovia in Bogota, Colombia. They close some city streets for people to ride their bicycle,  roller skate and use all forms of travel and build a festival around it. In recent years, they have the first one downtown, part of the route going under the Monona Terrace.  People can then look closely at the mural that is under there.  The 2nd one is now in August, rotating to different parts of town.

Ride the Drive Downtown 

Let’s first look at scenes from the June event, the best attended one.  Some funny bikes too, here is a bowling bike. Also a TINY bike.

A Penny-Farthing bike.

And the best bike of all, The Capitol Pedaler!

Even a performance by The Greasy Gears!

We continue on to Olin Park, which has a great view of the Madison skyline by Lake Monona and another activity stop. We saw a cool homemade vehicle made by some young guys, cool! I don’t see any pedals on it 🙂

All that riding made us hungry so we had lunch at this cute burger truck on the right, the Slide Food Cart. Great food!  We enjoyed a slider with homemade potato chips, which tasted real great.  For those of you watching your sodium, they are made unsalted!  The also cater and are on Facebook.

The fun continues down John Nolan Drive, we head toward the Capitol, going under the Monona Terrace.  So much fun! And a final row of booths.

I like this rainbow B-Cycle bike 🙂 The have stations all over Madison to rent a bike.

Up at the Capitol there are more booths and in the past live music.

Here is one shaped like Wisconsin!

Just Coffee delivers throughout Madison on a special delivery bike.  They sell fair-trade coffee.

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Ride the Drive – Northside   8-12-12

This is where we live!  It was so much fun having ride the drive in our own neighborhood.  This is also the first time we got to ride the Capitol Pedaler. We paid only $5 and got a great ride,  plus some pizza and treats to eat!

They took our picture before we got started. I am the 4th on the left, Al is in the far back seat.

What a great time, and we cheered and waved at people going by. We even sang to the mp3 player they had on board.

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Ride the Drive – Eastside  8-24-14

Last year there was a West Side ride but we couldn’t make it. This year the 2nd ride was on the Eastside of Madison. It was a short 2-mile loop that we rode twice. As we approached Fair Oaks, we were serenaded by the Bird Band.

There were two fun stops on the route, Olbrich Park Village and a sandwich board listing all the activities.

Al trying his hand walking on stilts.

The other stop was at O.B. Sherry Park, one we have not been to before.

Ride the Drive is such a good time, come if you can. Its fun for the whole family!

Related articles

• Wisconsin: Madison (alisnotlost.com)
• Madison committee to consider paying employees to bike to work (host.madison.com)
• Bicycle with Ciclovia (bicycle-love.net)
• Another thought while riding my bike today. (pedaltothepeople.wordpress.com)
• Pedaling on Open Streets (independent.com)
• Ride the Drive info
• HPVC Madison
• The Greasy Gears Bike event performers
• Penny farthings gaining a new following (radionz.co.nz)
• 10 Slick Concept Bicycles Of The Future (mukeshbalani.wordpress.com)

• Penny farthings gaining a new following (radionz.co.nz)
• 10 Slick Concept Bicycles Of The Future (mukeshbalani.wordpress.com)
• The Capitol Pedaler