Brian Slattery Photo
At 11 a.m. on Saturday in College Woods Park, the bikers had already hit the streets, but the stage was set for their return.
The food trucks were parked at the basketball court. At the grandstand, two sound technicians were putting the finishing touches on the sound system. Representatives from a dozen local organizations had set up their booths.
The only missing ingredient: about 1,000 cyclists.
Starting from West Rock Park at different times in the morning, they were riding anywhere from 5 to 40 miles to descend on East Rock pretty much all at once. It was for fun and exercise. It was also to raise funds for environmental causes, centered around Earth Day.
The occasion Saturday was the 11th annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride, sponsored by the City of New Haven and a host of local institutions and businesses, including Devil’s Gear Bike Shop and the Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association.
In joining the ride, the riders had each pledged to raise funds for 20 different organizations doing environmental and other social justice work, from CitySeed and Columbus House to Solar Youth and the Urban Resources Initiative. This year, over 1,200 riders raised over $227,000 in total.
At about 11:30, the first riders from the 12‑, 20- and 40-mile riders began to trickle into the park, to cheers from spectators, who also good naturedly cheered the port-a-john service truck as it arrived to do its appointed duty.
Minutes later, at the other end of the park, a torrent of riders from the family ride — which had a police escort to get it through town — began streaming in from the corner of Cold Spring and Livingston.
As spectators cheered and took pictures, fists were pumped. Wheelies were popped. “Hi Aidan!” a girl yelled to a friend from her bike trailer, hitched to a parent’s bike.
Among the riders were Shelley Caldwell, Wallis Hendon and Mark Lelyveld. This year marked Hendon’s fifth Rock to Rock ride. Last year, she got boyfriend Lelyveld to join her. This year, both convinced Caldwell, Hendon’s mother, to take the trip as well. The decorations were Hendon’s idea as well. Caldwell said it was her first bike ride in 30 years.
“I’d been looking at this bicycle for two years and thought, ‘I really should ride it,” Caldwell said, citing the obvious health benefits to getting regular exercise. But she put it off until Hendon cajoled her into the Rock to Rock ride.
“The cause is nice,” Caldwell said. “and just the company. Everybody’s very friendly. It’s not a competition at all.”
“The breakfast was excellent,” Hendon added, referring to the meal provided at Common Ground before the ride began. “And the silverware was compostable.”
The ride for them had a few highlights. For Lelyveld, it was “the sense of community,” he said. “Great to see all the families out on the canal trail,” which was part of the family ride’s route from West to East Rock. A “lowlight,” Caldwell said, with self-deprecating laughter: “I fell over!”
Near the basketball courts and the playground, the park was filling up with cyclists availing themselves of the food truck offerings.
Free yoga was available to riders looking to stretch after their ride.
Latin band Goza entertained the crowd from the grandstand.
But before Goza took the stage, Salwa Abdussabur sang and recited poetry — and, appropriate to the reason for the ride, called attention to some of the tensions within the environmental movement as it works within other social issues. “As black folks,” they said, “it’s hard for us to think about the environment.” They pointed out that their community had much more pressing concerns, especially in the wake of last week’s police shooting. But in their own personal journey of “trying to negotiate how I fit into activism,” they said, they were as interested in finding the points of connection between environmental and other issues.
“All these social justice issues intersect,” they said. “We all just want justice — environmental justice, social justice, racial justice, food justice, water justice — and a better quality of life.”