You are hereAustin Chronicle soliciting votes for "Best Bike Ride"!
Austin Chronicle soliciting votes for "Best Bike Ride"!
I just noticed over on A2W that the Austin Chronicle was soliciting votes for their 2009 "Best of Austin" Awards, and on top of their typical "Bicycle Repair" category they've added a new one:
As all of y'all know there are now officially 5,231 regularly scheduled bike rides in the Austin area, with more new ones being added daily. Though the old favorites like Critical Mass, the monthly Full Moon Cruise, and the annual Harvest Moon Ride are going strong, the new rides like the Thursday Night Social Ride, Midnight Ridazz Pub crawls, or the various neighborhood cruises and have given them a serious run for their money. The field is ripe with excellent candidates, so get to voting!
There are also fields for "Local Blogger" and "Local Blog" votes, which is another place we've really grown in leaps and bounds since last time. Last year the choices were slim, but in the past 12 months we've seen several great new blogs start up such as Austin on Two Wheels, Thy Neighbors Bike, CycleBum, Pedal Bug or any of the other multitude of local cycling-related sites. A2W just solicited votes from their readership for the "Best Blog" category so if you're one of their people and you dig their site throw them a bone. I've already got one picture of me holding a certificate and grinning like an asshole, but I tried not to let it go to my head. If I won another one I imagine I'd become completely intolerable, so if any of the other blogs have touched you in a special way (no not that special way), give them your vote.
P.S. The rules say ballot stuffers will be killed so make sure you only vote once. You've only got until the 21st so don't tarry.
are hard to be mistaken for any others, Mims has my vote. RIDE ON!
As much as I've been loving the Thursday rides, for me it's a three-way toss-up between Midnight Ridazz, Full Moon Cruise and Critical Mass. Soooooo freaking hard to decide.
... since there's so many rides with varying names.
`Thursday Night Ride' is way too vague -- there's several rides that happen that night. Daniel did one, there's a few now, the ACA and similar groups have several, etc.
`Urban Night Ride' -- there's at least two, probably more. Same for `Urban Assault Ride'.
`Moonlight Cruise', `Midnight Ride', `Full Moon Cruise/Ride', `Buck Moon Ride', etc. -- all different names for the same ride. To further complicate things, the `Harvest Moon Ride (or cruise)' is extremely similar, and replaces the Full Moon Cruise that month -- but probably should be a distinct ride. Similarly, the `Moonlight Tower Ride' sounds similar, but isn't -- and there's at least two of those rides done by different people.
"Thursday Night Urban Night Ride by Social Cycling ATX" reeks of excessive corporate branding, but it might be what it takes. But will the Chronicle know that's the same as the `Thursday Night Social Ride' and the `Thursday Night Urban Ride' ?
I guess all I can suggest is when you vote, if your chosen ride has several names used, give them all, or at least the long versions.
Probably the simplest for them to score would be Critical Mass or the Midnight Ridazzz. They could win just because they're easy to count!
And of course all these rides could easily lose if people started voting for `my ride to work' or something similar.
Brooks and I are currently working on just what you are talking about. As we become more organized, so will the names of our events.
That's why I threw out that really longwinded corporate-y name. I recommend everyone copies my suggestion verbatim, IF you like what we do and want to vote.
Then again there's always next year... or not.
See ya'll at the bridge!
Vote for the "Thursday Night Urban Night Ride by Social Cycling ATX" on the Austin Chronicle's "Best of Austin" edition, Best Bike Ride Category.
vote here: http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/bestof/09/
There are a lot of great rides so this one is a tough one, but I agree on the Thursday Night Urban Ride as having the best combination of fun routes, great themes, a good exposure to bike culture, and most importantly, free beer. They got my vote.
Thanks for helping us whore for votes, Jason.
Elliott from Austin On Two Wheels