Grease Rag Ride & Wrench

Grease Rag friend Karen Hollish, reporter for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, wrote a great article about the Skill-Share.  The photo portraits of Lee and Carly are really sweet.  Read it here!

Only the most brutal, ice-encrusted conditions can keep commuter Lee Penn off her bike.

"If my pedals can't clear the snow pack," she said Sunday, "then I pull out my skis and ski to work."

Penn was one of nearly a dozen hardy commuters huddled at Sunrise Cyclery for the second annual Winter Skill Share. The event was hosted by Grease Rag Ride & Wrench, a social, supportive group for women, trans and femme bikers.

During the warmer months, Grease Rag puts on casual group rides and communal wrenching sessions. And now Grease Rag gives us a primer to staying warm, safe and upright on our bikes this winter.

It’s that time again- Grease Rag Ride and Wrench!

Grease Rag will be on Thursday, December 2nd
(This event takes place the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month)
Meet at Sunrise Cyclery (901 W. Lake St. at Bryant Ave.) at 7PM, wrenching ends at 9PM!

• Our 2nd Annual Winter Skill-Share on Sunday, November 21, 12-3 PM was a great success!  Upcoming recaps will be posted over the next week or so.  Some photos and a great article at the TC Daily Planet are already up.
• The Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee is seeking new volunteer members to help ensure that Mpls keeps and improves its status as a bicycle friendly community, and they are seeking WTF applicants!  This is an unpaid position, bicycle parking is provided, meetings are monthly (TBA).  The deadline for applying is Friday, December 10, 2010.
• Support Grease Rag:  Buy a Minneapolis Presents calendar at Sunrise Cyclery- $15.  (Also available online for $18)  They make great gifts!

WTF Appreciation!  (Because we appreciate you...)

• Big greasy hugs to all that have supported us by buying calendars for your homes, your cubicles, your bike room, your friends, and the special WTF cyclist in your life.  We are so thankful!  Tell your friends.  =]
• Our winter skill-share was well-attended, despite the dangerous, icy conditions.  I think that just speaks to how hardcore Holly, Heidi, Ari, Alicia, Jennifer, Karen, and Julia are for coming out.  Also a big thanks to our facilitators, Kat, Shayne, Lee and Carly!
  

Hope to see you!

Some of you may recall the last Grease Rag event, the Pedal Party at Bike-in-a-Box, took place in June during a huge rainstorm that completely flooded Lyndale Ave. and other parts of Minneapolis.  In keeping with our tradition of pairing natural disasters and Grease Rag events, we had a nice ice storm the night before our 2nd Annual Winter Maintenance Skill-Share.

That said, all of you that came out are tenacious!  Way to conquer the elements by not letting some glare ice keep you from Grease Rag.  I think you are awesome, and you deserve some credit:

Thanks for showing up, Holly, Heidi, Ari, Alicia, Jennifer, Karen, and Julia!  (You are all going to be bad ass winter riders, I can tell.)

Grease Rag also owes a big shout out to Sunrise Cyclery for the space.  Thank you for letting us take over!

The skill-share facilitators did an AWESOME job of making winter riding accessible and interesting.  Over the next week the facilitators will be posting some "recap" articles running through the basic points that we covered as a refresher for those of you that showed, and a starting point for those of you that couldn't make it.

I have been SO lazy about photo posting to the blog, lately.  Of course you can always find the latest Grease Rag photos in our Flickr group, but I also like to post them here occasionally.

Please check out some photos I took of the Minneapolis Presents calendar release party at One on One.  (Buy a calendar at Sunrise to support Grease Rag- they make excellent gifts...)

As a WTF in the 21st century, I sometimes take for granted the paths that have been paved for my bike and I; and I'm not just talking about bike lanes and paths.  The advocacy work to create bike friendly cities deserves a round of applause, but that is a subject for another day.  I specifically wish to reference society's mindset about women/trans/femme individuals and their bikes.  Second wave feminism, gender-bending, queer theory, these have all played their part in how I can be in society today.  Throw in the empowerment of a bicycle, the freedom it gives, and you have a whole new recipe for awesome WTF.  Or at least I thought it was new.

Maybe I'm the only one who goes about life thinking I'm a "21st century-er," riding my bike where I need to go and making a place for myself on the streets, but maybe there are others out there who feel this way too.  For those of us who, like me, are less in tune to the history of it all, I present to you Annie Londonderry.