local Ride of Silence seven p.m. Wednesday, May 16 in front of History Museum
On Wednesday, May 16 from about seven p.m. to about eight p.m. there will be somewhere between fifty and a hundred people on bicycles riding in a procession along certain roads through Clayton and University City.

This is the local staging of an annual event called the "Ride of Silence," remembering cyclists who have been injured or killed on the roads, and making a visible statement to motorists that cyclists are entitled to, and will, share the roads.

There is no formal organization behind this ride. St. Louis is one of several hundred communities worldwide in which the ride will occur.

At this point, the route we are planning to follow is:

from in front of the History Museum in Forest Park, west through the park to Forsyth, into Clayton, north on Old Bonhomme to Delmar, east to
deBaliviere, and back to the History Museum.

In general, these roads are wide enough for cyclists to share comfortably with motorists, and we will be urging people to ride in single file, so there really should be no need of a police escort. So although I have alerted the police departments in Clayton and U.City that the ride will be occurring, I have specifically not asked for an escort.

The idea of the Ride of Silence, as the name suggests, is for the cyclists to ride in silence, with information to be conveyed to motorists and passersby through flyers, t-shirt slogans, armbands, etc., rather than through verbal interactions. In other words, this is intended to be an orderly, not an unruly, event.

The route is short and the pace is modest, in order to accommodate the casual, non-athletic cyclist.

Please pass the word.

rawillis3 (at) juno.com

http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php