I, and a few friends, rode our bikes to the Grizzlies game this past Friday. This activity was planned as part of NBA ‘Green Week’. While I definitely appreciate the Grizzlies using resources to support this ride, I definitely feel there could be some green, and other, improvements made to the ride.

We (the riders) met at the First Congressional Church in Cooper-Young. Most of the riders arrived from somewhere outside of Memphis in undesirable vehicles. The ride to the game was also supported by the Grizzlies van and six large Memphis Police motorcycles. Does it sound green yet?

The ride started with the roar of the motorcycle escort followed by the cyclists rolling out in a long stream. It was clear from the start that the cops hadn’t supported a fun ride previously. The pace out of the gate was clearly too fast. I’ll always be completely confused at why people show up to a fun ride with $5000 road bikes in full lycra and push the pace at the front. This seemed to be the case with this ride. A Memphis Farmer’s Market-ride couple was quickly left behind and abandoned the ride.

Although wildly strung out, the ride to the FedEx Forum was enjoyable. Only one undesirable vehicle locked up its brakes trying to avoid one of our police escorts.

The game was fun and I enjoyed my buddies’ company. The Grizzlies managed the Mavericks in a tight game until the end when they prevailed by a decent margin.

The ride home after the game was enjoyable as well. It was definitely cool to see so many riders with all of the different lighting systems moving down the road in a long string. I’m sure we looked like a rolling Christmas tree. Of course, on the way home we were also escorted – this time by two V-8 powered undesirable vehicles. The escorts seemed to thoroughly enjoy gunning their engines and racing to stop traffic at the next light. We all probably smoked the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes on the way home.

Despite the undeniably ‘ungreen’ aspects of the ride, I really do appreciate the efforts of the Grizzlies, The Peddler, other cycling clubs and Jason Potter, the ride organizer. The south, and the Midwest where I’m from, are not the greenest minded and I think rides like these funded by prominent organizations are a step in the right direction. I just hope in future rides we can further ‘green’ our green rides. I also feel that we would do well to conduct the ride without any sort of police escort. These rides are opportunities for new riders to learn from more experienced riders how to ride safely on the road, how to ride in close proximity to other riders, how to communicate with other riders and how to obey traffic laws.