Tomorrow (June 20) is Ride To Work Day!

[advrider]

It comes once every year. Not Christmas—that comes multiple times a year, thanks to differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, not to mention other complications related to religion and politics. I’m talking about Ride To Work Day. This year, it runs on June 20—and that’s tomorrow.

Ride To Work Day isn’t some charity ride raising donations for some disease or other, it’s just a way for riders to fly the flag, so to speak—to remind the rest of the world that motorcycles are a viable, sensible form of transportation, and you very much can use them to get to work! Obviously, some tradesmen or those in similar jobs might not be able to take their bike to work, since they can’t haul all the equipment they need, and others (an increasingly large number in today’s workforce) are doing desk duty from a home office.

No worries, say the organizers of Ride To Work Day (including Andy Goldfine, founder of Aerostich). If you can’t ride your motorcycle to your job, then ride it later on in the day. The point of the event is to get you out there, promoting motorcycling. As per the Ride To Work Day website:

The first annual Ride to Work Day event was proposed in Road Rider magazine (now titled Motorcycle Consumer News) in the May 1992 issue. This is an excerpt from that “Ride to Work” editorial:

“You may remember several months ago when Bob Carpenter, commenting in his ‘Two Up’ column, mentioned how neat he thought it would be if there was one day a year when everyone who owned a motorcycle used it to ride to work. That comment was prompted by a T-shirt produced by Aerostich RiderWear that simply said, ‘Work To Ride, Ride To Work.’ Everyone seemed to think that a national ‘Ride To Work’ day was one heck of a good idea.”

The first Ride to Work Day event date was July 22, 1992. For several years various motorcycle businesses informally promoted every third Wednesday in July as Ride To Work Day. These early advocates included Road Rider Magazine, Dunlop Tires, and Aerostich/Riderwearhouse. The event continued to grow as an informal grass roots demonstration every year until 2000. That year a non-profit organization, Ride to Work was formed to help organize and promote Ride to Work Day. The first Ride to Work Day event led by this group was the third Wednesday in July of 2001. This day was the annual day until 2008, when it was changed to the Third Monday In June. This change was made to climatically better accommodate riders world-wide, and to give more riders an opportunity to participate.

If you head to RideToWork.org, you’ll find details on Ride To Work Day, but also plenty of information on the practicality of motorcycles as transportation. And, since Aerostich founder Goldfine is involved, you could also head over to the ‘Stich website, where you’ll find weatherproof one-piece suits, handmade messenger bags and lots of other useful kit that will help you use a motorcycle as transportation.

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