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

May
8
Thu
Bike To Work Day @ AS&R Energizer Station
May 8 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Not many Energizer Stations could boast a Mayor handing out bags and swags. Ours could, as Peggy Thomsen volunteered all morning! courtesy Nick Pilch

Not many Energizer Stations could boast a Mayor handing out bags and swag. Ours could, as Peggy Thomsen volunteered all morning!
courtesy Nick Pilch

It’s the 21st Annual Bike to Work Day in the Bay Area, a party on wheels!!

As usual, there will be coffee, snacks, swag, bike goodies, the famous Bike to Work Day musette bags, fun and lots of good conversation & information so come on down on your way to work!

Riders were happy to see staff from both Blue Heron Bikes and Wheels of Justice there for safety checks. courtesy Nick Pilcn

Riders were happy to see staff from both Blue Heron Bikes and Wheels of Justice there for safety checks.
courtesy Nick Pilcn

Great news – the staff of Blue Heron Bikes and Berkeley Bikes & Skateboards will be there with work stations checking your bicycles for safety and road-worthiness as they have in previous years! Thanks to Rob, Winston and their co-workers for spending time with us all!

Donations of food and drink have been rolling in from Albany Fresh Produce, Kim’s Café, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Monterey Market, La Farine, Safeway, Andronico’s, La Val’s…more to come, I’m sure!
Thanks to those businesses for supporting the community!

Plenty of food, thanks to the generous supporting local businesses! courtesy Francesco Papalia

Plenty of food, thanks to the generous supporting local businesses!
courtesy Francesco Papalia

We need help at our Energizer Station (back at its usual location of the Ohlone Greenway and Marin) and preparing for a big celebration.
If you’d like to help out, please contact Nick at nicky@mindspring.com or leave a comment on this post.
Thanks!!

More info at http://ebbc.org/btwd

Share this on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/events/257209727792108/?source=1

May
16
Mon
Free Bike Commuting Workshop @ Berkeley Main Library, Community Meeting Room, 3rd floor
May 16 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

WomanBikeCommuterWant to ride to work but aren’t sure how to start?  Learn how to get ready for the road with in this FREE class given by AS&R’s partner, Bike East Bay!

Learn how to outfit your bike, fit a helmet, avoid common crashes, get a green light at traffic signals, and more. For adults and teens, no bike required.

This indoor, 1-hour class is made possible via a partnership with the Berkeley Public Library with funding from Alameda CTC.

The class is FREE but registration is required – please register here to take advantage of this great opportunity – thanks!

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!

May
10
Thu
Bike to Work Day – Volunteers Needed! @ Albany Strollers & Rollers Energizer Station - Ohlone Greenway & Marin Avenue
May 10 @ 6:30 am – 9:30 am

Come join our annual rolling party, Bike to Work Day!
photo courtesy Nick Pilch

Join us for the 25th Annual Bike to Work Day in the Bay Area, a party on wheels!!

As usual, there will be coffee, food, swag, bike goodies in the famous Bike to Work Day musette bags, fun and lots of good conversation & information so come on down on your way to work!
Here’s a short VIDEO that AS&R member Francesco Papalia took so you can see how fun the morning is!

Don’t miss rolling down to see all your friends and neighbors!
Photo courtesy Nick Pilch

The staff of Blue Heron Bikes and Berkeley Bikes & Skateboards will be volunteering their time, checking your bicycles for safety and road-worthiness as they have in previous years! Thanks to owners Rob Allen & Winston Jamison for spending time with us all!
Local business Kim’s Cafe  (thanks, Cathy!!) and Royal Ground Coffee (thanks, Mike!) are again donating home made pastries & beverages for our Energizer Station. Trader Joe’s El Cerrito, Barney Butter non-GMO almond butter from the Central Valley, Semifreddi’s in Alameda and GU Energy in Berkeley are also giving us generous donations. Safeway on Solano and Sprouts at University Village are donating gift cards for groceries, too!
SO YES, WE NEED YOUR HELP IN DISTRIBUTING ALL THESE GOODIES TO 600+ CYCLISTS!
Local businesses BLUE HERON, BUA LUANG, TAY TAH CAFE AND FERN’S GARDEN ARE ALL  DONATING SPECIAL GIFT CARDS OR COUPONS FOR OUR BIKE MONTH VOLUNTEERS, IN APPRECIATION FOR YOUR TIME AND SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY!!!

Plenty of food and drink for everyone, but we could use people to pick it up and hand it out!
photo courtesy Francesco Papalia

WE WILL NEED HELP AT OUR ENERGIZER STATION BEGINNING AT 6:30 a.m. through wrap-up at 9:30, as well as preparing for a big celebration.

We will need help stuffing the musette bags with goodies beforehand, picking up food & coffee early morning on the 10th, and handing out swag, food and counting cyclists all morning at the Energizer Station.
Want to help get donations of food, beverages or $ for food & bevs?  If so, please contact Ken McCroskey at kenmccroskey@gmail.com or Amy Smolens at calamari@alumni.duke.edu or leave a comment on this post.
Thanks!!

Stuffing bags for everyone who rolls by is FUN!! If you can help, please email Ken at kenmccroskey@gmail.com – thanks!

Stuff to stuff!
photo courtesy Amy Smolens

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 .