Yesterday I led a Kidical Mass ride to the new Ballard Greenway (along NW 58th St) and it was a blast! We had about 50 riders, many of whom were kids on their own bikes. Seattle Kidical Mass rides often only have kids as passengers/attached on trailer bikes, which I think is mostly a result of our busy streets and hilly terrain…though it could also be that bigger kids have more activities on weekends and choose soccer/baseball/Lego club over group bike rides. Oh, we also had two dogs along for the ride! One in a bakfiets (with bigger kids riding alongside) and one in a Snoozer Sporty Pet Bike Basket on a front rack with kids in rear seat and alongside solo.

When I saw just how many little riders we had along, I got a bit nervous about the length and elevation gain of our route (my kids and I test rode it Friday and they had quite a bit of trouble) so we shortened the route from 3 miles to 2, with a big stop at Ballard Corners Park.

And the smaller route meant we were back with almost an hour to play before the ribbon cutting! Riders big and small had fun getting Undriver Licenses, riding the Dutch Conference Bike from Dutch Bike Co, making smoothies with the Cascade Bicycle Club bike blender, dancing along the A-1 Piano street keyboards, and riding the bike rodeo–I wasn’t the only one quite taken by the teeter totter! It was amazing! (Not that I tried it personally.)

And come 3pm, the kids patiently lined up to listen to speeches and cheer the ribbon cutting with Jennifer Litowski of Ballard Greenways, Cathy Tuttle, Executive Director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and Mayor McGinn.

Here’s Cathy’s short video of ribbon cutting and zooming kids:

And many of us left with new big flags! Babette came equipped with bamboo stalks (the idea was to pull the leaves off, but we went for the natural look), attached to frames with two very tight zip ties and choice of colored streams for the top, held on with a bit of tape and a rubber band.

I’ve got additional pictures (with tons of the teeter totter!) on Flickr.