In late February 2024, I made a belated New Year’s resolution (inspired by the Femme Cyclist podcast episode on goal setting) to ride six different group rides over the course of the year. Why? I’ve been a co-organizer of Wednesday Night Rides, a bi-weekly social bike ride that’s been featured on the Trellis, since its beginnings in 2021. I spend a lot of my bike time on the Wednesday rides or preparing for them. Balancing that work with my family and a full time job means that I don’t ride with other groups as much as I’d like. I’d been wanting to ride all of these rides for months or years – a desire to explore our city, meet new people, and connect with new communities is what got me into social rides in the first place, and what still keeps me going. The FOMO is also real – just look at all of these amazing rides I’m missing! Plus, one of the things I most love about Wednesday Night Rides is that people from all corners of the Philly bike community turn up - folks in road kit, on fixies and gravel bikes, Brompton enthusiasts, you name it. I wanted to return the love and turn up for their rides, too! To the extent that I can, at least – I don’t have a fixie or a Brompton and there’s no more room for bikes in our living room!

Most fundamentally, I knew before I started that each of these rides has its own unique community, culture and way of moving through space together. I wanted to connect with them, learn from them, and deepen my understanding of bike culture in Philly. And have fun!

While drawing up that list, I reflected on whether there’s a difference between ‘social rides’ like Philly Bike Party that emphasize conversation and festivity vs. ‘group rides’ like Aprés Gravel, where cycling kit is more common and athleticism is in some way in focus. Are they different things, or all part of a single spectrum? I’ll confess I leaned towards “it’s all one big community of movement” even before the rides, but I invite you to make up your own mind.

I joined my first ‘resolution’ ride not long after posting my list on Instagram, in a social-media accountability move - people say if you commit to something publicly, you’re more likely to actually do it, right? It was also, along with Northwest Night Rides, one of the easiest for me to join. Wednesday Night Rides is similar to and inspired by bike parties, and there’s a lot of crossover in ridership between our groups. I turned up to Love Park on a mercifully temperate February night for the LOVE ride (Philly Bike Parties always have themes).

Philly Bike Party was, literally, a sweet ride: people brought dates, port, cookies and desserts to share. There was even a guided meditation when we got to the destination, the AMOR statue in Sister Cities Park! I loved it. I was touched by the community and the care that went into crafting a specific, unusual experience that evening. Once I got home and warmed up, it left me looking forward to the other five rides in my future.

Coffee Outside is a ride I wish I could do every week. The idea of chilling on a grassy hill in Fairmount Park for an hour drinking coffee with friends, and then going on a mixed terrain ramble? My idea of heaven. This was a ride I’d been meaning to drop in on for a long time, and I finally had the opportunity to make it the weekend of the Philly Bike Expo.

As you might expect from an easy-going, lightly structured event like Coffee Outside, the feeling was relaxed and kind. My coffee-brewing set-up failed, but a stranger volunteered to make me a cup. The extra big Expo group of several dozen started out on Boxer’s Trail, an unpaved path through the woods in East Fairmount Park. It’s a favorite of mine, the first place I made a bee-line to when I got a gravel bike, and a trail I return to almost weekly. This run, my chain dropped a couple of times, which confused me, until Mike Reali, a steady presence on the Philly bike scene, stopped to help and pointed out a big stick wedged into my drivetrain - there was the problem! After Boxer’s, we hit the Trolley Trail, a 4 mile unpaved loop trail through Belmont Plateau in West Fairmount Park that I’d visited before on foot, but never biked on. A wonderful eye-opener! I loved the flowing trail, and the feeling of weaving through it in a long, serpentine group. I now ride the Boxer’s to Trolley connection at least a couple of times a month.

I think I was present for the birth of Northwest Night Rides. I believe it happened on Wednesday Night Rides’ second #TourdeWawa, while a few of us were standing outside the Headhouse Square Wawa eating hoagies and drinking coffee in the January cold. A few of the folks from Northwest Philly who ride into Center City every two weeks for the Wednesday rides suggested they should start their own ride on the other alternating Wednesdays - and voila! Since then, I’ve thought of NWNR as Wednesday’s sister ride.

It’s a bit different, though! - its own thing. Faster and hillier, for sure. We zipped around the green, rolling streets over and east of the Wissahickon before ending at the Mt. Airy Tap Room. I often feel like people who live in the Northwest must have a base level of cycling fitness a notch higher than us Center City folks living on the coastal plain, just on account of the hills. My casual ride with friends for a beer included 1200 feet of elevation, and 8-10% grades (to be fair, not on the route itself, but on my way there and back). This ride reminded me of one of the things I love about bikes - they reveal the terrain and topography that cars often make us forget. I somehow managed not to take a single picture, perhaps because the ride and after-hang were so lovely that I stayed in the moment. I felt welcomed to a new place and geography.

I’ll be honest, I was a little intimidated when I showed up to this one. Après Gravel is the “beginner friendly” ride hosted by the Philly Gravel Club, and it meets Monday evenings at the Gustine Rec to ride a fixed route through the Wiss. It was the first of these rides that was (or at least felt, at first) more “serious,” in a few different ways - faster-looking riders, mostly in cycling kit, mostly clipless shoes. I rolled up in a T-shirt, my one pair of cycling shorts, and sneakers, so I felt a bit out of place… until the ride started. 

I’d describe the mood as “pleasantly goofy.” We rolled conversationally up the entire length of Forbidden Drive, at one point stopping to carry our bikes single file through a pretty big fallen tree. When someone suggested that the downed tree was a good opportunity for a “nutrition break” another rider replied “nutrition? This is a Snickers bar,” which cracked me up. After exiting the Wiss up a steep hill full of rocks, we made a delirious descent down Manor Road and then back along the Towpath, where I had a great conversation about bikes and fatherhood with another rider. I loved the route, it expanded my world - I’d never climbed that hill up to Northwestern Ave, or zoomed down Manor.

Philadelphia author Catherine Price wrote a book called “The Power of Fun” that defines fun as the combination of connection, playfulness, and flow. The Gravel Espresso ride, run out of PAPERtrail Bike Cafe in the Wissahickon, might not sound ‘fun’ at first glance: the route is designed around two notorious climbs, the first from Forbidden Drive up a steep, rocky hiking trail to Summit Ave, and the second up cobblestoned Port Royal Ave. Yet this ride isn’t about suffering, quite the opposite.

I was the only first-timer in a group of perhaps 30, which startled me. While there were plenty of people in full cycling kit, there were other folks like me in sneakers, a couple with backpacks, and a few on mountain bikes. A slightly quirky crowd for a slightly quirky ride. The pace was never pushed (except at the end, when those who want to race for the finish), and this is very much a no-drop ride, with regathers and applause at the top of each hill. This was undoubtedly a social ride, full of joy and welcome - and fun!

One of the horizon-expanding moments for me on this ride was when the small group I’d followed up Port Royal took an off-route loop around the Upper Roxborough Reservoir, which I had no idea existed. Over ceremonial shots of decaf back at the cafe, I talked with PAPERtrail owner Paul about an idea for a Wednesday Night Rides x Gravel Espresso crossover event, connecting these two nodes of the social ride spectrum. I hope we can make it happen. While people might think these two Wednesday night rides couldn’t be more different, I think they share a combination of openness and tight-knit community that resonates with me.

If Gravel Espresso was a shot, Full Moon was the chaser. But one that eluded me for some time. I’d meant to go in October, but after waiting in a very long line at an open house on the Spruce/Pine bike lane safety improvements, I’d missed the ride. I’d meant to go in November, but had to travel to Michigan to help my mom after she broke her arm. December was my last chance, and when the full moon arrived on Sunday the 16th - it rained. Monday? More rain. Finally, on Tuesday the 18th, the skies cleared and warmer air rolled in, making for an unexpectedly fine evening to ride bikes.

Full Moon is (to the best of my knowledge) one of the longest running social bike rides in Philly, and certainly the latest. It starts at… well, the ride was set to start at 8:30, but it’s very social. We hung out on the Art Museum steps, chatting in small groups, waiting for latecomers, some folks enjoying beverages, until by group consensus we rolled out around 9:15. The serpentine route hit just about every worthwhile holiday lights display in South Philly. We made the midpoint at Mifflin Square well after 10 and stopped for another half hour, and didn’t ride through the giant, light-bedazzled ring at Jefferson Plaza to end the ride until 11:30. While that made for a late night and a little less sleep than usual, the ride was a great opportunity to chat. The feeling was like hanging out with friends while happening to be on a rambling bike ride. I caught up with good friends, connected a bit more deeply with acquaintances, and met a few brand new folks.

There’s a non-profit in Chicago called Equiticity that uses group bike rides and walks as tools to work towards racial equity. They call their events “community mobility rituals,” a phrase that blew my mind when I first heard it, because I realized that’s what our social and group rides are at their core. Each ride has its own elements of ritual - whether it’s a shot of espresso, a post-ride beer, applause at the top of a tough hill, or guided meditation under a LOVE sculpture - and most importantly, we move together. We are truly traveling miles in each others’ shoes (clipless or not!). That was undoubtedly my biggest takeaway from this exercise - that these rides are each individual threads within a fabric of movement and connection.

This has easily been my favorite New Year’s resolution ever. Setting this goal inspired me to go further, to new places, and to meet new people - essential human satisfactions. I’d encourage anyone to go to a few rides in the next year that they normally wouldn’t - the crossover and connection between communities feels fantastic, and further strengthens the bonds of our rolling community and our city. I’m already thinking about my cycling goals for 2025, whether small (more family rides and one-on-one rides with friends), medium (a wheelbuilding class and more new-to-me social rides like the Belmont Races and Philly Bike Train), or large (Cape May Dyno?!).

If you've got 2025 bike goals you'd like to share with The Trellis community, you can do so in the form below!

Heartfelt thanks to my partner Edyta and my kids Tomas and Halina for supporting me in these adventures. Thank you to all of the ride leaders and organizers of these rides. I know the work and care that goes into planning and running rides like these. I may be missing a few (any omissions are mine alone), but deep thanks to: Janice at Philly Bike Party, Zach and Ello at Coffee Outside, Michael and Jake at Northwest Night Rides, Trong at Apres Gravel, Paul at Gravel Espresso, Carl at Philly Full Moon Bike Ride.