On July 3, 2009 the Spoke n’ Heart Collective began their 662-mile journey from Eugene, OR to San Francisco, CA for the first ever Bicycle Leadership Training. Along the way, the riders led workshops to cultivate social justice organizing and learn how to successfully organize bike trips for social justice in their own communities. Education, community activism, networking, and outdoor adventure all rolled up into one amazing ride. Below you can read a selection of stories from our days on the road…

Sunday, July 5, 10 am- We are in Eugene, eating the best breakfast of our lives!!  It is Sunday morning and we are less than an hour away from the open road.  We’re sitting around the table at the house of our new friends, the incredible, fabulous, wonderful, ultra generous Sue and Steen, covered with gold glitter. If we didn’t like biking so much, we would stay here forever.

Last night, we played midnight soccer and twilight croquet in the park across from Sue and Steen’s house, eating amazing barbecue and watching the fireworks over the treeline.  There was also a pinata/crown for Paris, and some fire dancing by Nora to “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey.  While Paris is the one who actually knocked the pinata down, she only won on a technicality so we’re not sure it actually counts.  (but she actually wore the crown, so she’s mostly forgiven.)  She claims she was just taking care of business.

We’re group blogging…so Nora is doing the secretarial work and transcribing some of the stream of consciousness conversation that happens around our breakfast table.

Paris says we’re at day 1, these women are so dope and fierce, and my heart is so happy and full.

Zahra is overwhelmed with JOY as she sits sipping tea, thinking about what to say.

Jill’s throat is tired from all the screaming and laughing.

Tonight we’re camping at Lake Creek Falls, and Paris has challenged Zahra to a mud wrestling contest in the falls. Now people are placing bets, and Paris is mad that we’re all putting our money on Zahra.

“Why do you think she can take me?” Paris

“She just seemed really confident” Deepa

“I know how to distract you” Paris

“I love you Paris, even when I beat you” Zahra

“I can wrap it up, my legs will just crush you” Paris

“We;re all ready to watch you work it” Erin

“Elizabeth, do YOU put money on me?” Paris

“I think my money is on Zahra – Paris has a puncture in her heel” Elizabeth

“oooOOOOOOOoooo” Everyone

“I’ll put my money on you, Paris” Zahra

The mud wrestling happens tonight.  Two will wrestle, one will win.  We’ll let you know who was the victor and who…wasn’t the next time we blog.

Sunday, July 5, 3 pm- the bad news is, we’re still in Eugene. The good news is, we’ve had an incredible afternoon, full of road magic and new friends. On our way out of town along the fern ridge bike trail we passed Pauls bicycle way of life, and decided to stop so Erin could look into tightening her rack. Because her bike, yoko sassafrass, is a racing bike, she doesn’t have places to attach a rack on the frame. Instead, she got a rack that attaches to the seatpost. Unfortunately, the rack wasn’t stable and looked pretty unsteady for the kind of ride we have in store. We stopped to consider our options. Then, magically, Jeffrey came by and Paris, ever resourceful, asked Jeffrey if he had access to a bike trailer. It turned out he did, and Jeffreys Dad Ned Christensen actually donated his trailer to us so that Erin O and yoko can roll down the road in glorious safety.

It feels like an auspicious beginning of the ride, and we are just about to roll out of the city again.

Paris’s ears hurt from smiling, which I think sums up the tone of the ride so far.

Notes and errata; cucumber, peanut butter, avocado, and mustard sanwiches are delicous (or some might say Jillicious.) But there is a running debate over whether msg or date balls are a better addition.

Tuesday, July 7, 8 am. Today is Jills birthday, so we are celebrating all day, rolling down dunes at jessie honeymoon state park, singing jill songs of love and appreciation. We rolled in last night bathed in glow of the honey colored full moon, howling like banshees.

We didn’t get around to leaving yesterday until the afternoon, making it our sexond day in a row that we got into camp after dark. It was just too difficult to leave the watering hole/waterfalls at lake creek.

The kickit crew ran into some youths (who dusted them on their bmxs) who were on their way back from the city council meeting, where they won their campaign to reinstate boikes in the skate park. Mike, nick, and jenna inspired us as dedicated activists, and it reminded us that we don’t need to visit organizations to meetg activists- we run into them doing what we’re doing.

One crew went to the bike shop, which was open because Tim, the owner, came back to reopen “bicycle and guitars”, his bike store, after the city council meeting. He is also, along with some friends, working to repaint the bike lanes because the city doesn’t do it. Thanks for helping get our bikes fixed, Tim! And Erin got the work it award yesterday for getting Tim to open the shop after hours.

Elizabeth just told the story of the exploding whale of florence, which if you don’t know about, we recommend youtube-ing. Just search for florence and whale. But we don’t recommend it for those with delicate stomachs!

Friday, July 10, 8:15 am. We are at humbug mountain state park, eating breakfast so we can go to the tidepools before we ride out. Right now, paris and elizabeth are discussing riding into the bay when we get back so that this trip will go on forever. Elokin thinks that a unicorn and a narwhal, which are our power animals, will save us and take us to a place where we can bike tour forever.

Speaking of narwhals vs. Unicorns, we’re taking a poll;
Which is your favorite? Narwhal or unicorn?

Please respond in the comments so that we can settle it once and for all.

The narwhales vs. Unicorns debate may be the one thing that will drive us apart, so we need your help.

Last night we met a group of youths – we’re talking jumior high aged- who are riding from seattle to san francisco. They totally kicked our asses yesterday- we rode about 40 miles, while they rode 60 and got to camp before us. A lot of us are really excited about facilitating bike trips for youth, so it was great to meet them.

We’re working on incorporating social justice into our trip in creative ways, because we’ve found that its really hard to dedicate time to workshops when we have full days of riding. Two days ago we talked on the road about our definition of social justice, and yesterday paris shared a song about who we are and where we come from. Sitting around the fire, we shared some small pieces of how we see ourselves, our families, and our experiences.
This understanding of ouselves leads to an understanding of each other, which is the starting point of understanding social justice. We are all walking contradictions, and doing social justice works there is so much pressure to be authentic, to fully love out our social justice values and principles. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of recognizing that we are all human beings and honoring and accepting the cpomplexities of our identities without having to understand them. The answer to the question “who are you” is so dependent on where we are and who we’re talking to. So often, we’re defined by what we do, and that so rarely captures the present reality of who we are. We struggle to come up with questions that allow us to connect with people in the present moment.

We think about questions like “what do you love?”

There are so many dynamics present in how we describe ourselves to each other.

Our question of the day is “what social identity is really present for you right now?”

Want to answer it with us?

July 12th, Arcata, CA

how many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

what, you don’t know?

we’ve arrived at our halfway point, at Nora’s aunt and uncle’s house in Arcata, loving being inside.  Our theme today was D.I.Y./Take Care of Yourself (AKA Be Your Own Hipster).

Confused yet? So were we. In fact, we processed our confusion so much that we had to rent a U-Haul to get to Arcata on time. We’re considering starting our own chapter of P.A. (Processing Anonymous).

So many of our conversations are only really understandable if you’ve spent the last week with us, which pretty much limits our intelligibility to the 9 of us.  we have the day off tomorrow, so we’re planning a retreat and as much fun as possible.

Right now we’re trying to decide what to do. Paris wants to rock out, Jill wants to watch Shakira videos, and the dance party is long, long overdue.

We have to start dancing now or nothing will ever happen, so we’ll write more in the morning.