#coffeeoutside!

#coffeeoutside attracts a crowd

The view from the ground of a #coffeeoutside meeting in Edmonton is pretty cool.  I also imagine the view from above. 

I see bicycle commuters pointing in from all directions of the city toward Faraone Park, or Government House Park, or to the gazebo at McIntyre Park in Old Strathcona, moving along the spokes of road and path toward the hub of our Friday morning community meeting. 

We are a loose affiliation of people who love bicycles and coffee and the outside and what Edmonton is becoming as it becomes a little more tolerant of those who go no car or low car.

It's a good scene

As many Fridays as we can get a quorum (on some days that has been a gathering of one), we start in a park outside over coffee. Some bring coffee in thermoses. Others take some morning warmth from the communal thermos. Others fire up miniature stoves and brew on the spot. We're on the verge of one of us roasting fair trade beans right there. We believe this is allowed. Some can talk the high talk of bicycle specs, others can't. It doesn't matter. Some can talk about planning and bylaw stuff, others just want to have fun on their pedal commute. Sometimes, someone will tell a story. Some have been known to quote a line from a favourite poem.

We are women, we are men; we are young and not as young.

(And, yes, Bruce, some of us choose the clearly superior three-wheel craft to make our way around! :) 

We work in all kinds of jobs. We know each other by name or by Twitter handle. 

Stove, kettle, Aeropress

We met online, tired of being told or feeling that we were alone, I think, and we organized, if it's an organization at all, under the #yegbike hashtag. Under that makeshift roof, we've hatched rides and fundraisers, traded one liners and pics, and talked about what it is to move, like a sentence across a page, on a bicycle. 

The #coffeeoutside gathering is a chance to keep it real. After all, you can use 140 characters to describe the smell of coffee outside in the morning, but, really, unless you're Joyce, you can't really make anyone smell it. 

And coffee in the fresh air does smell better than anything else you're going to smell that day. 

So, join us. This Friday we're at the gazebo at Faraone on the north end of the High Level Bridge from about 7:15 AM til 8 AM. Tell a friend, bring a friend, make a friend. All you have to do is be able to talk about coffee or the outside. Check that. You can be quiet and just take in the morning sky, if you want!

When the bells on the legislature building start tolling, it'll be time for hugs and handshakes (and on days Calico Baking underwrites the event, an extra delicious pastry) and promises that we'll do it again the next Friday. 

Then, we'll set back out on those different spokes towards different days and destinations, with one thing in common: the warmth from coffee inside that lasts longer than the actual coffee outside.  

Christmastime #coffeeoutside!