alain’s dance blog

For updates from our team of riders on our 7 week trip down to Mexico, check out our daily blog and weekly video log at Global Agents for Change.

Today I’m feeling… Nervous. Excited. Apprehensive. Inspired. And many many more emotions right now. We are officially leaving tomorrow 9am to start our 3000 km ride from Vancouver, British Columbia to Tijuana, Mexico.

During the past three days of orientation, we played team-bonding and trust-building games, learned from physiotherapists at Moveo on how to take care of our bodies when biking, got a lesson on bike maintenance and repair from Bikes on the Drive, learned about road safety and regulations from the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, and joined Critical Mass in downtown Vancouver for an empowering ride with hundreds of cyclists - shutting off traffic in the downtown core to promote cycling as an alternative and sustainable replacement to car transportation. These past few days have opened my eyes on biking and I’ve learnt so much! I feel much more prepared for the start of our journey.

Here’s a picture of us at Critical Mass starting from the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Emma Banks with Hugs not Drugs

A picture of us riding on the Vancouver seaside

And here’s a video of the Global Agents for Change during Critical Mass.

After a great weekend of dancing in Seattle at Camp Jitterbug, I’m finally in Vancouver for the beginning of my ride. I met some really great people on the last day who gave me a ride up: Eric and Tim Shaw and Edina Hechanova (Eric and Edina won the Flyweight fast division at Lindy Bout this year). Here’s a picture we took arriving late in Vancouver, the camera on top of Eric’s car.

And here are Eric and Edina, along with Ben and Sheri Yau (behind the camera) while I try the Snatch-Cake from Mike Faltesek and Casey Schneider’s airsteps class at Camp Jitterbug. Both Ben and Eric were so much better than me at this!

I got to spend some time with Eric, Edina and Lucy Faulkner in Vancouver and it was nice to chat about our different dance scenes and about Lindy Hop in general (what else?). I got to hear their perspective of the Pacific Northwest scene.

I also helped out as an extra lead in Eric and Lucy’s classes at Jungle Swing. They’ve got a Lindy U like we do at Cat’s Corner. I wonder who came up with the name first… In any case, they are fantastic teachers, and I hope we’ll see them on the East coast sometime soon.

I’ve plotted our Ride to Break the Cycle trip on Google Maps. We start May 31st in Vancouver and end the trip in Tijuana on July 12.

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