Bike the Branches: Your chance to ride a bike and help out the library

Staying on the bike beat for a second, let’s talk about something that’s less contentious than not hitting people with cars or whether bike share stations are imperialistic. The Brooklyn Public Library is of course never on the firmest ground funding-wise. Despite the fact that libraries are a great resource that can potentially benefit everyone, the city council and mayor would rather spend money on drones that shoot 17 oz. sodas out of your hand and taz breaks for luxury condo builders. So that leaves it up to us to fund the damn things, despite the fact that we can’t levy taxes. We can however, raise money by riding bikes from branch to branch, thanks to the library’s Bike the Branches event next month.

It works pretty simply: you pay a $20 to bike as an individual ($150 for a team of up to 10 people, $40 for two parents and three kids) and receive a passport. Then, on Saturday, May 11, you ride your bike around and get that passport stamped at library branches around Brooklyn. What order do you have to do it in? None at all, it’s anarchy! Well, a very nice form of anarchy anyway, that involves riding a bike from Fort Greene to Canarsie. With 58 libraries to get to and only seven hours (10am – 5pm) in which to get to them, you probably won’t see them all, but that’s OK, no penalty or anything. Although there are prizes for getting your passport stamped at the most libraries, so maybe get your Ben-Hur spikes on the side of your bike.

You can bike around freeform, or the library has been nice enough to map out routes based on themes such as a waterfront route, a food-heavy route or even one that takes you to neighborhoods and libraries rich in Brooklyn’s baseball history. Which sounds like the most awesomely nerdy thing ever and of course we’ll be doing that one because baseball.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Email (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail