Saturday, May 7: Biketrain to the Blessing, with bonus Bishop!

Washington DC's first-ever Blessing of Bicycles will take place on Saturday, May 7, 2016, and you are invited to escort the Episcopal Bishop of Washington in a special bike ride to the event! The Church of Ascension and St. Agnes, an Episcopal parish located near Logan Circle in DC, is holding a brief, non-denominational service to honor and bless those who ride bicycles for recreation, health, and transportation.

Kidical Mass DC will escort Bishop Mariann, a keen cyclist in her own right, in a fun downhill ride from the National Cathedral to Ascension & St. Agnes. The biketrain will begin at the Cathedral at 9:30am and will stop at All Souls Church in Woodley Park and at St. Luke’s Church in Logan Circle before arriving in time for the 11am blessing ceremony.

This is an easy, no-drop, family-friendly ride (did we mention it's downhill?) for people of all ages and skill levels. You can view a map of the route here.

Meetup times are as follows:

• National Cathedral (3101 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016): 9:30am
• All Souls Church (2300 Cathedral Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008): 10:00am
• St. Luke’s (1514 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20005): 10:30am

September 19: MASSIVE International Bike Ride

The international family biking movement is uniting on a single day to celebrate the joy of biking with children, and the DC area is leading the pack! 

On Saturday, September 19th, Kidical Mass groups from Hungary to California are hosting rides to demonstrate that biking with kids is easy, safe, healthy and FUN. With seven groups in the area, the Greater Washington region boasts the highest concentration of Kidical Mass groups in the world, and every one of them will be joining Kidical MASSIVE.

Kidical Mass DC will take an easy ride from Stanton Park on Capitol Hill through the National Mall and down to the Washington Monument, where we will meet our sister rides Kidical Mass Arlington, Kidical Mass Alexandria, and Kidical Mass Falls Church for a pizza party!

Details below:

Update from the organizers

Friends, you may have noticed that this website has been dormant for some months now. This past February, the family of organizer Megan Odett was struck by an unexpected crisis when one of the Odett children, known in social media as KidA, was diagnosed with childhood leukemia.

We're happy to report that KidA is responding well to treatment and that the biking community in DC and elsewhere went above and beyond to help the Odetts during the dreadful first weeks after KidA's diagnosis.

For obvious reasons, we were not able to sustain our usual schedule of events this year. We hope that as KidA's ongoing treatment becomes less intensive this winter, we'll be able to resume awesomeness-as-usual next spring with the ABC's of Family Biking and a full calendar of family-friendly bike rides for kids of all ages.

In the meantime, please stay tuned for news about the one ride we will be doing this fall -- the first international Kidical MASSive ride. On September 19th 2015, families around the United States and the United Kingdom will ride together in spirit to demonstrate that kids are traffic too. Many of the Kidical Mass groups in the Greater Washington region will participate in this ride, so check back for more information and to find a ride near you!

If you want to check in with the Odetts personally about KidA's recovery, you can email Megan at the Kidical Mass DC email address. The Odetts are grateful to accept all forms of well-wishes, prayers, and healing thoughts.

Saturday, October 25: Cider and doughnuts and COSTUMES!

Bust out your superhero capes, dust off your magic wands: it’s time to celebrate Halloween, bike-style! Join us on Saturday, October 25 for a bike ride, costume contest, and cider-and-doughnuts party hosted by Capitol Hill Bikes.

We’ll do the ride as a progressively-advancing bike train with meetups in Columbia Heights, Brookland, Eckington, and Capitol Hill. First meetup is at 10:00 am at Columbia Heights Plaza.

The celebrity judge for our costume contest will be none other than Gear Prudence, the Washington City Paper’s tongue-in-cheek bicycle advice guru. Prizes -- generously supplied by Capitol Hill Bikes -- will be awarded for best bike-based costume, as well as other categories that we will probably make up on the spot. :-)

Read below for more details.

Sunday, September 14: "Best of both worlds" Kidical Mass DC & Kidical Mass Arlington meetup ride!

It's time for the Greater Washington biking community to experience two great tastes that taste great together!

There are those times in life when two forces rocket towards each other, only to meet in the middle with an incredible explosion of AWESOME CUTENESS and CUPCAKES. On Sunday, September 14th, the incredible adorability of Kidical Mass Arlington will cross the bridge and join forces with the amazing delightfulness of Kidical Mass DC to circle the Washington Monument.

And eat cupcakes.

It will be awesome.

When: Sunday, September 14, 10:00am (roll out 10:15am)

Meet: Stanton Park on Capitol Hill (West side, about where the Google Maps dot is). I will be biking in from Brookland via the Metropolitan Branch Trail, so e-mail me if you're interested in riding together from points north.

Distance: 2 miles (one way)

Difficulty: easy! We will ride with traffic until we get to the National Mall, then we'll switch to a path on the Mall

Saturday, July 19: Popsicles and Playgrounds!

***UPDATE***
I'm delighted to share that thanks to the generous support of Wash Cycle Laundry, a new bike-based laundry-delivery service in DC (!), you can purchase Pleasant Pops at a discounted price of just $2 each. They'll be accompanying us on the ride with one of the nifty electric cargo trikes (!!!) that that use to pick up and delivery laundry.

For our last ride of the summer, we’ll cool off with refreshing gourmet popsicles from Pleasant Pops and then head up to the Petworth Playground to enjoy their splash park. This ride will offer a great chance to practice biking on all kinds of different streets and infrastructure--bike lanes, sharrows, and calm neighborhood streets.

We’ll meet early at 10:00am to beat the heat at the Columbia Heights plaza, across from GALA Hispanic Theater. From there, we’ll bike to Pleasant Pops in Adams Morgan, where you can buy a popsicle to cool you off (and a sandwich to eat later, if you’re so inclined) before we leave for the next leg -- a trip up to the Petworth Recreation Center and Splash Park -- a personal favorite of the Odett household!

Details:

Sunday, July 6: POOL PARTY!

Have you been on a waiting list for a membership at the PG Pool for approximately 87 years? Are you tired of sending your kids out into the yard with a hose to get their fill of water sports? If so, then rejoice, for Kidical Mass DC has the perfect bike ride for you!

All-around awesome mom Elizabeth has scored us a coveted pool party spot at the PG Pool (just over the line in Prince George’s County) for Sunday, July 6. Though there is normally a fee for non-members to attend parties at PG Pool, thanks to the generosity of BicycleSPACE’s yoga program, we are able to offer this party FREE to all Kidical Mass riders.

The details: