DNCycle

In case you've been living in a cave for the last week, the Democratic National Convention dominated much of the news and lifestyle of Philadelphians over the last few days. If you know me, you already know what I think, and I'll keep my political opinion off this blog post. Sort of.

The event led to an innumerable amount of protests, some of which I attended, all of which were peaceful. In fact, I heard of very few incidents as compared to when the RNC was here years ago. My favorite was the least protest-like, and in fact, it was not labeled as a protest by the event organizers.

It was called RideDNC, and it was a ride down the entire length of Broad Street. Hey, any excuse to ride to promote cycling awareness and safety, I'm in. Unfortunately, I also had a softball game that evening, so I was a little late to the party:

I really just wanted to take a picture of my makeshift Bernie Bike.

If things had gone according to plan, I would have made it to the start point at Cheltenham Avenue just as the ride began at 7:30. Of course, we started late and the game dragged on until almost 8, meaning I would have to blend in mid-pack, but at least we won!

I ended up getting to the corner of Broad & Spring Garden Streets just as the lead pack moved through. Perfect timing, eh? It's tough for me to take pictures with my phone while in motion, but this was friggin' awesome:

Yes. Scratching your armpit is awesome.

I knew two of my friends would also be joining midway at Dilworth Park. I found one on the way:

He's gonna kill me for posting this

We then trekked southward to search for more friends:

The ride itself was a pretty good pace, much faster than I expected, but definitely what I preferred. All told, I logged about 6 of the 12.5 miles, but bear in mind that I also logged well over 15 miles earlier that day while working and commuting. It was a great scene at the end of the ride at the corner of Pattison & Broad, where everyone gathered for hugs and handpounds:

There was a party too, but no beer. No thanks.

And, I finally found the other friend I was expecting there too!

He was hunting for Pokemon.

As I mentioned above, the after party wasn't really to our liking, so we decided to venture up to East Passyunk Ave, which happened to be having a street festival and/or block party, whichever term you prefer. Literal dancing in the streets and such:

Trust me. They're dancing.

I can't wait until Open Streets PHL returns this year. Riding down the end of Broad Street with no traffic was surreal, to say the least. I didn't view this ride as a protest, but rather a simple exercise of raising awareness. There were plenty of messages being thrown around and all in good fun, but the core of it was about 1,000 cyclists taking over one of the busiest streets in Philadelphia just to say "we're here." I love that. Would totally do it again.

As for the DNC, good riddance. I'm ready for life to return to normal here in Philly, whatever that means.