*Pedal to the U.S. Social Forum, Detroit, MI, in June, 2010! www.bikeit.org*

Dear Think-Tankers----

I've been on your list a while, and love all the discussion that goes on here. I want to invite you all to an awesome biking event that's happening at a National-scale next June..... It's a project called Bikeit --a project to organize thousands of folks to bike in huge bike caravans to the US Social Forum in Detroit in June. Bikeit is about people power, alternative transportation, it is about organizing ourselves to have a world of clean air, clean water, healthy food and health care, economic and racial justice, and it is about making that statement all together. It is about joining thousands of other cyclists to get to the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit, MI! We hope you will join us in pedaling to the forum---and encourage you to organize a ride to Detroit from your home town/cicty!! See www.bikeit.orgfor more information on how.. .

The United States Social forum is a national convocation of community organizers working for social and environmental justice. It is part of the movement of World Social Forums started in Brazil in 2001, initiated as a response by global social movements to the challenge of economic policies that have concentrated wealth and power in fewer hands, while forcing millions into poverty. The Forum is an opportunity to come together with 20,000 others working for social and environmental justice from all over the country to share our stories, successes, challenges, to make connections, and most importantly, to build our movements TOGETHER. This includes the movement to create a bike culture out of the economically-damaging and socially isolating car culture.

Through BikeIt, bicyclists from all over the country will spread the word about the Forum and energize strangers along the way as they pedal through town after town. Some of those strangers will join them. The climax of the ride will be wave after wave of thousands of smiling people on foot-powered vehicles flooding the Motor City during the Forum’s Opening March.

Bikeit! is looking for organizers http://bikeit.org/?page_id=5 and ridershttp://bikeit.org/?page_id=3to join us in the adventure of a lifetime. We see small groups leaving from all over the U.S. (maybe even Canada or Mexico!). We already have groups leaving from San Francisco, Madison, Chicago, Buffalo, New York City, Ithaca, Philadelphia and the Hudson Valley, all to converge on the Motor City. All you have to do to get involved is join a group as it rides by, or organize your own ride or caravan from your city or town! We envision chase vehicles powered by biofuels or hybrids carrying food, camping gear, bike tools, and giving the tired biker a little respite. We see a movement to Detroit that brings a message of inspiration and motivation to every town it passes through.

*The second U.S. Social Forum http://bikeit.org/?page_id=6 will open in Detroit on June 22 and run until June 26, 2010. We are now looking for organizers to recruit squads of cyclists and biofuel-powered support wagons to ride from wherever they are to the Opening March. A huge wave of people on foot-powered vehicles swarming all over the Motor City. Can’t you just see it?*

GET INVOLVED!

Organize a ride, or join a ride that’s passing by your town/city! Check out http://www.bikeit.org for more information or email Claire at bikeit2010@gmail.com

Thanks ya'll, hope to see some awesome bike shops organizing rides, and hope to see you on your bike in Detroit in June!

Best wishes,

Claire Stoscheck

Ithaca, NY