Glenn Kubish

Under the right influence, pedalling along the grid of Edmonton streets can make the bicycle rider feel more than a bit like a musical note. And the right influence was in the air last night as we joined an Edmonton Bicycle Commuters ride to the Winspear Centre for a night of Gershwin music. It's an annual event, but the first time riding with Shelagh that I felt part of a dotted (helmeted) half note. The women on the tandem were two joined eighth notes. The dude on the folding bike? A definite sixteenth note. Together, we rolled adagio along the measured blocks of the city, resting at lights, talking to each other, read by folks on the sidewalk as time took us by. I added a few lyrics: Kickin the clouds away with a nicely composed group, including George and Ira! Chris Chan composed the ride to the Winspear Centre in the key of B icycle. We headed home happy in Edmonton as a way to say thank you to the musical folks on the ride I moved along with. When we rode h...

Today's late-afternoon ride was a lot of things. It was thrilling. Hundreds of cyclists took over the streets of Edmonton, moving en masse through red-lit, corked intersections, across the suddenly carless High Level Bridge, down Whyte Avenue as pedestrians took photos, waved, pointed and wondered what was going on. It was political. In the microphoned messages in the air over Churchill Square, where the ride participants gathered before setting out, were the exhortations to phone or text your politicians to make the roads safer for the cyclists. It was solidarity. "This is amazing," a fellow cyclist told me as we rolled down Whyte Ave. toward the memorial. "Usually, the critical mass rides get four or five people. I'll never forget this." It was a generational gear change. Alex was working. Mikey was with his buddies at the bar. And Shelagh and I pedalled along with the hundreds of others in memory of a young man we had never met. "We'...