Slow Roll Week 5: Pride in the CLE

What is Pride? Pride in a place, like living in the patchwork quilt of communities that is Cleveland? Pride in yourself, your achievements, your faith or your convictions? Pride in your community, and its ability to come together to create a stronger, brighter flag out of many colors? These are all valid reasons to be proud in our eyes.

It's not a political position we're staking out. It's just a description of who and what we are. At Slow Roll Cleveland it's right there in our mission statement: "Bridging communities through inclusive social bike rides." It changes a little from time to time, sometimes we emphasize that the rides are free, sometimes we emphasize the the rides are casual, or that they are comprised of large groups, of which you be a part, but we never forget the "bridging communities" or "inclusive" clauses, because that's the bottom line here at Slow Roll CLE HQ. We are a machine made up of its many beautiful parts. If any of those parts fail, the community is weaker and the ride is in danger of falling apart. We view it as a microcosm of life in a big city, or scaling even further out, life as a citizen of the planet.

We don't care who you are or how you choose to identify yourself to the world: as long as you can ride a bike (or a reasonable facsimile) for ten miles at a pace between 6-8 mph on a Monday nights (as many or as few as you choose for six months out of the year), you're family.

And that's why we join with the LGBT Community Center in honoring Pride in the CLE 2023. Because everyone deserves a chance to be part of a community.

Come join us at 7 PM next Monday at Michael Zone Recreation Center Park at 6301 Lorain Ave, off the main parking lot at W. 65th and Lorain. We'll gather at 6 PM, where you can learn a little more about our mission, and we'll have a few special surprises for sale as well.

If you feel like dressing up for the occasion, we won't say no. If you're just there for a regular Monday evening bike ride, that's also just fine with us. We'll be touring the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood and its surrounding blocks, and we'll get a feel for the vibrancy and creative energy that's really pulsing through the sidewalks of this part of town these days.

In addition to the ride on Monday, you can catch a Slow Roll Cleveland contingent at the Pride in the CLE march downtown this Saturday at 10 AM. We'll have more information about that event and how you can participate with the Slow Roll crew later this week.