The Mayor's Ride - How did this ride start?

Dublin's Lord Mayor, Andrew Montague

Cycling in San Jose is now world famous. Maybe not Copenhagen style world famous but world famous none the less. So how did the Lord Mayor of Dublin hear about San Jose Bike Party? And where did the idea for the ride start?

It goes back to last year when council member Pierluigi Oliverio showed one of his great documentary movies (don't miss two upcoming movies this spring) at City Hall. After one movie titled "Sprawl" the council member had Kim Walesh, Director of the Ecomomic Development Office, and Joe Horwedel, Director of Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement take questions from the audience. I remember one random question on the status of bike investment in the city.

Kim Walesh replied that the city was making progress on increasing bike trail and roadway invest on all things related to bikes and that San Jose Bike Party was now a huge hit within the city. I was shocked a little at first for a departmental level leader to stand up and public state that Bike Party for once put this city on the cycling map.

The next day I emailed Director Walesh and thank her for her support. She and Hans Larsen the city's Transportation Director had actually ridden on some bike party rides so it was good to hear the real deal.



Kim Walesh, Director -
San Jose Office of Economic Development

She then went on to state that she had just returned from Dublin, Ireland and met with Lord Mayor Andrew Montague. While there, the Lord Mayor had mentioned that he had heard about San Jose Bike Party and that he would love to participate in a Bike Party when he visited San Jose.

Given that Dublin, Ireland is one of seven of San Jose's sister city's maybe this will start a trend. In the future maybe we can host a ride with each cities delegation. After all the dinners and speeches a weekend morning spent on the bike will be a wonderful thing for world peace and understanding.

Now get out and ride.


San Jose's Sister Cities:

• Dublin, Ireland
• Okayama, Japan
• San Jose, Costa Rica
• Veracruz, Mexico
• Tainan, Taiwan
• Pune, India
• Ekaterinburg, Russia