EV/LES Bike Friendly Business District Launches This Saturday! RR Will Be There!

This Saturday, September 22, at 11 A.M., Transportation Alternatives will launch the East Village and Lower East Side Bike Friendly Business District with a bike tour starting at Veselka (144 2^nd Avenue) and featuring stops at local hot spots like Pushcart Coffee and the Nuyorican Poets Café. Revolution Rickshaws is proud to have underwritten production of the BFBD map, copies of which will be available on Saturday.

According to Transportation Alternatives, the BFBD “is a network of more than 150 businesses and cultural institutions dedicated to promoting safe bike riding and better bike infrastructure in their neighborhood.” RR says, right on! Already, we’ve noticed an impressive level of trike action in the East Village and Lower East Side; we hope to see an exponential (okay, we’d settle for geometric or arithmetic) uptick, as the BFBD turns up the bike buzz.

Birdbath brings trike love – and fresh snacks! – to the High Line.

RR and the EV/LES go way back. In 2007, Birdbath’s parent company, City Bakery, became the first business in NYC to lease one of our freight trikes; five years later, you’ll notice not one but two Birdbath-branded trikes tooling around downtown. (Back when I worked as a cargo courier for RR, I used to stop at Birdbath on First Avenue for a muffin boost on my way uptown; they let me have the 25% discount even though I wasn’t technically on a bike.) About a year ago, S’Mac got into the freight-trike game, and has been rolling on three wheels ever since. When Veselka Two opened on the Bowery, an RR pedicab provided shuttle service between the mothership and and the new location. A few years ago, yours truly pedaled one pickup-trike load of compost and another of partially decayed leaves (from Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park, respectively) to Sauer Park (at Avenue B and East 12^th Street). That’s the most organic delivery job RR has ever done – with the exception of rising at 4 A.M. to distribute raw organic juices for Organic Avenue, back when they were headquartered on Stanton Street.

A load of leaves awaits pedaling from Washington Square to Sauer Park.

Finally, where would RR be without our ultimate best bike friend forever, Bfold? RR purchased both its company Bromptons through Bfold, and depends on the fine folks there for timely, impeccable service.

Go, EV/LES BFBs! We hope to introduce many more of you, in the years to come, to the joys of life in the trike lane.