Discounts

Become an AS&R member and get discounts at local bike shops and businesses!

Blue Heron Bikes: 10% off parts and accessories.

Marie Bowser Acupuncture: 30% off your first visit.

Bikes on Solano: 10% off labor, parts and accessories.

Quad Republic Skate Co. 5% off SKATES, 10% off parts & accessories.

Offers are valid to members of Albany Strollers & Rollers and their households. Tell your friends!
Contact us with questions.

Events

Sep
11
Sun
Solano Stroll – Volunteers Needed – AS&R is providing Free Bicycle Valet Parking! @ Solano Avenue, Albany and Berkeley
Sep 11 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Come visit AS&R at our information table then enjoy a great stroll up Solano! Or better yet, volunteer a few hours before strolling!

Come visit AS&R at our information table then enjoy a great stroll up Solano!
Or better yet, volunteer a few hours before strolling!

Albany Strollers & Rollers will again be providing Free Bicycle Valet Parking at two locations: 1800 Solano Ave (Wells Fargo) and 1245 Solano (the “Pumpkin Patch” near Masonic.)
We’ll also have an information table by our western lot near Masonic.
WE NEED YOU TO MAKE THIS A SUCCESS!
If you’d like to help park bikes at either lot or volunteer at AS&R’s info table, please contact Amy Smolens.

AS&R's volunteers park hundreds of bikes at two lots at the annual Solano Stroll! Please give us a hand this year!

AS&R’s volunteers park hundreds of bikes at two lots at the annual Solano Stroll! Please give us a hand this year!

All volunteers who work at least a 4-hr shift or pick up & return rental racks will get free lunch provided by a Solano Avenue restaurant, probably Tay Tah or Zaytoon. Whichever one is is, it’ll be delicious!!

AS&R Volunteer Lynn Eve Komaromi takes a well-earned Pad Thai break - thanks, Bua Luang! Please join Lynn Eve and your AS&R neighbors in volunteering!

AS&R Volunteer Lynn Eve Komaromi takes a well-earned Pad Thai break – thanks, Bua Luang!
Please join Lynn Eve and your AS&R neighbors in volunteering!

Have Valet Parking experience?  Mac McCurdy, BVP coordinator extraordinaire, is ready to pass on his trade secrets to train another coordinator. Would you like to be trained by pros like Mac and Sylvia Paull, to fill this important role and add to your LinkedIn bio? And YES, I have a special prize/perk in mind for the person who volunteers for this!
Since 1974 Solano Avenue and the cities of Albany and Berkeley have hosted the Solano Avenue Stroll, the East Bay’s largest street festival! The Solano Avenue Association and AS&R invite you to see what makes Solano Avenue a wonderful place. The Stroll features over five hundred vendors including 50 entertainers (there’s always great music!,) 50 food booths, 150 government and non-profit agencies, 150 juried hand-crafters, a 75 entry parade, state of the art mechanical rides and much more!
Come visit the unique and popular professional services, restaurants, and shops already here on Solano Avenue.

Volunteers Sara, Nick, Sylvia, Ken and Anne beneath the Bua Luang banner after a long & productive day of parking 300+ bikes! Please join them this year!

Volunteers Sara, Nick, Sylvia, Ken and Anne beneath the Bua Luang banner after a long & productive day of parking 300+ bikes! Please join them this year!

250,000 participants and event guests visit from all over the west coast.
This family event promotes the unique traits of Solano Avenue, helping independently-owned businesses, artists, and community organizations to thrive by exposure and fundraising.
Please see the press room to stay tuned-into what’s hot at this years event!
Brought to you by the Cities of Albany and Berkeley; and with the help of our generous sponsors, SAA members, and volunteer board of directors.

Jun
15
Thu
Community Meeting on Kains/Adams Bicycle Boulevards @ Albany City Hall
Jun 15 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Live on Kains or Adams?
Go to the YMCA?
Do you and your family want to AVOID bicycling on San Pablo Avenue?
Then you’ll be interested in this opportunity for public input on the Kains and Adams Bicycle Boulevards!
I’m sure many of you have ridden the Bicycle Boulevards in Berkeley and seen how more comfortable it is to ride Milvia instead of MLK or Shattuck, Russell instead of Ashby, and 9th instead of San Pablo.
If not, here is info on Berkeley’s Bicycle Boulevard system.
Now imagine if people could avoid San Pablo until a half-block from their destination by riding Kains and Adams
More information is below and a link to the site walk on June 24th is here.

Mar
21
Wed
San Pablo Avenue Improvement Organizing Meeting: El Cerrito, Albany and Richmond @ Elevation 66
Mar 21 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

(photo credit – BikeEastBay)

Join Bike East Bay supporters in your neighborhood to learn about options for bikeways and transit on San Pablo Avenue.

Share your vision for the corridor and get organized for kicking off advocacy.

Bike East Bay is kicking off a campaign for continuous bike lanes on San Pablo Avenue, the major transit and commercial boulevard from Oakland north to Hercules. A safer and more comfortable San Pablo Avenue will connect neighborhoods from east to west and all along the corridor for everyone who bikes, walks, drives, or takes transit.
March 21st, 2018 6:00 PM   through   7:00 PM
10082 San Pablo Avenue
Elevation 66
El Cerrito, CA 94530

(This event is organized and hosted by BikeEastBay who request you RSVP.)

This meeting is at a perfect time for you to attend and then head to AS&R’s Meeting at 7:30!

Feb
6
Tue
Kains/Adams Bicycle Blvds Strategy Meeting @ Zoom
Feb 6 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

The Adams/Kains bike project is in the County’s and City’s plans for addressing alternative transportation along the San Pablo Ave Corridor in Albany. As the pilot project approaches the 1 year mark it has gone well in many ways and is valued infrastructure to help the City meet its climate goals and help people get around with fewer cars or no cars now that the state’s and city’s zoning has been changed to allow any housing big or small to have zero parking spaces. One sticking point with the city has been the parking direction. The pilot program has reported no collisions on Adams/Kains. Many blocks in Berkeley for ~50 years have had the same traffic flow as we have now on Adams/Kains where public data shows no injury accidents have been reported in the ~9 years since data has been collected. Literature opposed to the Adams/Kains project warned of the extreme dangers to residents, delayed emergency response and promised “chaos and carnage” if it was implemented but we have seen none of that. People who helped distribute that literature have said at public meetings “things are fine the way they’ve always been” while ignoring the city’s climate goals and new zoning that removes off-street parking requirements.

“Houston, we have no problem!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet despite all of this data for Albany and Berkeley streets, the City of Albany has said from the beginning that it eventually plans to ticket people parking in the contraflow direction and has made no indication that it plans to do like it does with so many other laws on the books – de-prioritize enforcement.  Since cars in the pilot project still only enter from one direction into each block that would mean half the cars on each block ticketed or forced to make 3-point turns on narrow, congested streets.
Aside from the city’s parking issue, some drivers still aren’t aware of the internal two-way driving patterns – aren’t aware that cars can go both directions within each block.  And all cyclists aren’t aware of the Bicycle Blvds as an option. Both of these issues are exacerbated by the fact that navigation apps don’t send cars that are already on Adams/Kains in the new direction and they actually divert cyclists around Adams/Kains in the new direction!
Additional signage (two-way arrows on the road) and updated mapping apps showing current legal patterns would help awareness. These are crucial for north-south travel along the San Pablo corridor and must be saved!
The Bicycle Blvds may go to Council as early as May, so AS&R needs to prepare a strategy for proposals for adjustments to Adams/Kains in case the city does decide to go forward with ticketing half the cars on the block with the current traffic flow. At our most recent General Membership Meeting last week, we set the evening of Tuesday February 6 for a Zoom brainstorming discussion about this important project. This is literally Albany’s only Bicycle Boulevard (yes, other streets may be marked with that name but have no supporting infrastructure) so please SAVE THIS DATE TO HELP SAVE THE BICYCLE BOULEVARDS!
We will send a Zoom link to the GREENways list.
Please RSVP or send any questions to amy@albanystrollroll.org .