Okay, what I have to say about this is too long for my Facebook page and a comic strip isn’t enough. And since this is my blog, I’m gonna talk about it here. (Besides, this is good stuff; you’ll like it.) If you’ve been following my comic, you know that I’ve been advocating bicycle riding ever since I moved to Columbus and had to buy one to get around. As I mentioned last week, we’ve been celebrating Bike to Work Week here with all sorts of events. Tonight I just came from one of the biggest: the Ride of Silence, a mass bike ride all around the heart of the city, meant to memorialize fallen bikers and to remind people that bikers belong on the road just like cars. The link will tell you much more about the international event; I’m gonna talk about what it was like for me.

We gathered around a quarter to seven outside the Statehouse in downtown Columbus. A few words were spoken by Mayor Michael Coleman and by Jeff Stephens, head of the Central Ohio advocacy group Consider Biking. Mayor Coleman has been quite good in his support of the bike community; in the face of steep opposition, he has pushed for a multi-modal transportation system, one that does not exclude cars, but includes other options. Organizations like Consider Biking and Yay Bikes have been part of that campaign here in Columbus, and they do good work. The Mayor was actually part of the ride, along with another local politician, Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, who has been a huge bike supporter here for years.

The ride began around seven. The path took us on a loop through the downtown, then up High Street, the main drag of Columbus, past the Ohio State campus and onto the east side and back south, returning to High Street and ending at City Hall. A police escort cleared a path for us as we rode, sirens blaring periodically. As the name implies, the ride is meant to be silent, in memory of bikers who have been killed in automobile accidents (as it happens, we had three such fatalities in the past year), not only here, but everywhere, past and present. As I said, this is an international event; though it only began several years ago, it has caught on like wildfire.

Imagine it if you can: you’re coming home from work, in your car, or waiting for a bus, or maybe you’re having dinner with your spouse on an outdoor patio, or perhaps you’re on the porch of your frat house with your buddies, or maybe you’re just walking your dog, when all of a sudden you see them… hundreds of bicycle riders led by a police escort swarming down your street, all of them not saying a word. (Okay, honestly, I did see some people speaking briefly to each other, but like, 95% of the ride was silent, okay?) What would you make of it? Would it make you stop and think? Would you laugh? Would you shrug and go back to your iPod? In a town that’s an all-too-typical example of the phenomenon known as “urban sprawl,” one that favors the car and looks down on public transportation, it would make for a startling sight, to say the least. Indeed, the looks on the faces I saw as I went by ran the gamut from admiration to befuddlement to curiosity.

As a biker, albeit a relative-neophyte, taking part in this ride was one part empowering and one part scary. I’ve been on group bike rides in Columbus before, but not like this. This was gargantuan – and this many riders, packed somewhat close together on one side of a road, was a little intimidating. I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong: a flat tire, knocking into another rider, going too fast or too slow. The set speed limit is twelve MPH, so this was not a race in any respect, but it was a strange feeling being surrounded by so many riders. I remember being amused at first when I saw a number of riders using hand signals – after all, we were in no danger from cars and we were all going relatively slow. The more I rode, however, the more I saw it as a great necessity, because between regular bikes, bikes built for two, recumbent (sit-down) bikes, and even bikes towing trailers and passenger cabs, accidents can still easily happen.

The Ride of Silence was a truly unique and original experience. Even though I don’t know anyone who was killed or even hurt in a biking accident, there was still a feeling of kinship in the air, a sense that we are all in this together. Keeping silent was easy for me; I don’t know many people in the bike community yet (at one point on the run I saw my friend Nancy, who looked like she was coming home from work, and I had to stifle the urge to call out her name. I just waved frantically. She saw me and waved back). In the past few months, though, I have made a few friends who have been quite supportive.

So if you’re a car driver and you see bike riders on the streets where you live, give ‘em a break, okay? Don’t forget that they – that we – belong out there, too. Yes, some bikers act wild sometimes, the same as some drivers, and that’s unfortunate because they’re the ones that make drivers distrust all bikers. With a little education, though, on both sides, that can be overcome. It’ll take time, but it’s worth it.