3rd Annual "Try-A-Bike Jamboree"

For the third year in a row, Flock-O-Cycles has organized and hosted the Try-A-Bike Jamboree as a Bike Fest event.  They gather together all kinds of bikes and volunteers and let people try different things.  Most of these are privately owned bikes.  Their very generous owners stand by and watch while people experiment with them.

This one is reverse geared for steering.  Turn the handlebars left and the bike turns right.  Turn the handlebars right and the bike goes left!  This was one of the more unusual offerings, and meant for the more adventurous.  Obviously it has no real use outside of being a conversation starter (or a way to set someone up!).  Interesting none the less.

There were several different types of recumbents available, and they seemed to be the most popular choices while I was there.  Dan was kept busy explaining the different styles and adjusting the bikes for each rider.

His patience was amazing as he moved pedals and handle bars every few minutes.  He also spent a lot of time jogging along side anyone new to recumbents until they could get going.

This Cruzbike model felt especially twitchy.  With all the gears up front it took some getting used to.  Each stroke of the pedal had a tendency to turn the front wheel.  Not everyone was able to get the hang of it.  Some of us (ahem) figured out pretty quickly that this just wasn't the bike of our dreams and quit before we wrecked it.

There were plenty of other options to try, like folding bikes.

Electric bikes, cargo bikes...

I saw both kids and adults riding in the front of that one and they all looked like they were having a great time.

You can see in the background that they also had some bikes for the youngest riders to try.

The tandems had a lot of interest.  They also had just regular bikes so people could try a fixed gear, single gear, step through or other more common options.

There were unicycles of just about every size imaginable.  Those were for the more adventurous in my book.  Or at least for the less balance-challenged among us.

Finally, they offered the Port Authority bus rack demo stand so that anyone could take a minute to learn how to operate them.  They really are simple to use, but there's a real awkward moment when you're standing in front of a bus load of impatient people trying to figure it out for the first time.

Thanks to everyone that brought their bikes out so the rest of us could have some hands-on with something a bit different.