(new to the GBBW?-- see Steven Rea's Inquirer article at the bottom of this page)

-ALL EVENTS START / FINISH AT TROPHY BIKES 3131 WALNUT ST. PHILA. --unless noted otherwise

  -PLEASE NOTE: this event is for riders/fans of English-made roadster bicycles --

  FRIDAY, May 13

12 noon--earlybirds welcome and brief exploration of the "Postal Lands" down below the bridges.

6pm -- Official Tea & Opening Salvo of GBBW 2005, followed by Evening  Ride of the Drives. Beer to follow @ Intermezzo (60 feet west of Trophy), approx. 9pm.

  SATURDAY, May 14

7am sharp-- Time Trials on the West River Drive.  Meets just southwest of the Art Museum, where the West River Drive passes under Spring Garden Street. An out-and-back, pretty flat course along the Schuylkill, 8.4 mi. total. Best for drop bar bikes, but all welcome. Rain cancels. Helmets required.

10am  -- Morning constitutional and Cobblestone Ride. This is a show-and-go, route is ad hoc. We will stop for stragglers, return to Trophy approx. 11:30am for a break.

12:15pm -- Gather at Trophy for crosstown ride to Fishtown and Kensington, visit to the Kenson Collection of vintage British-made bicycles; Brit Bike Tutorial, topic TBA. Hoagie Luncheon Served.

4pm -- Pub Tour begins at Bonner's Tavern, 23rd & Sansom Sts. (cue sheets will be available) Evening slide show, location TBA. Pub tour will stop by Via Bicycle along the way!

  SUNDAY, May 15

BACK BY DEMAND! BRIT BIKE SWAP MEET

9 am sharp, plaza just across from Trophy Bikes

British bikes, parts, books, bits, accessories, etc. Buy/Sell

10 am sharp!-- Morning Tea, ride to Bartram's Garden and return via historic West Philadelphia and University City.

1pm -- regroup at Trophy for Bike-on-Rail ride, destination TBA.

approx 5pm -- group photo of remaining stalwarts and return to Trophy for closing ceremonies of 2005 GBBW.

                              #######

     ---  Here's a look at a past GBBW ...
"The Discreet Charm Of The English Bicycle"
By Steven Rea, of The Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Imagine you're on a Raleigh 3-speed, painted British Racing Green and built in the Nottingham factory that has supplied millions of bicycles to the world for more than 100 years. You're rolling down a village lane, flanked by stone houses, gardens, daffodils blooming. You stop for tea in a little shop that flies the Union Jack. You stock up on Cadbury Flake bars and Rowntree fruit gums and maybe a jar of Marmite, that mysterious brown goo that's been a staple of the English diet since-who knows?-the days of the Druids.
 
Maybe, as you climb back on your Brooks sprung saddle and prepare to ride down a tree-ceilinged lane along a babbling stream, You're overcome with the urge to blurt out a merry, "Cheerio!"
 
Imagine no more. Next weekend, it will be possible for anyone with an Anglophile bent and an English-built two-wheeler gathering dust in the basement-a Raleigh, a Dunelt, a Triumph, a Hercules, a Phillips, a BSA-to do just that. It's called the British Bike Weekend, it's drawing people from as far afield as the Outer Banks and the Rocky Mountains, and it's three days of rides, rallies, workshops, exhibits, a swap meet, and a pub crawl, in celebration of that simple, solid, human-powered mode of transport, what writer Iris Murdoch called 'the most civilized conveyance known to man'...
 
There was something more than an idealized vision of Olde England at when he (Trophy Bikes' Michael McGettigan) brainstormed the GBBW.
 
"It's a little bit of a response to the current negative state of bicycling right now," he says. "Bicycling is being advertised by the same minds that advertise cars. The bike ads are all about agression, crushing other cyclists and crushing nature. It's like the more you spend, the better you are. There's a lot of boasting about using military materials , like titanium, that make them extra expensive. The result is you have a lot of people thinking that the bicycle is a very expensive form of tennis racket that you clamp on the back of your car and take to a suitable place in the wilds where you shred furiously, and then load it back on your car and drive back down the road."
 
In that sense, the trusty old British 3-speed with its fenders, chain guard and internal hub gears-which can be had for $5 at a yard sale if you're lucky, or more commonly, $100 to $250 at shops like Via Bicycle and Trophy-is the antithesis of the modern-day mountain bike, with its aluminum/carbon frames, 27 speeds, mud-splattering Crossmax wheels, dual suspension Rock Shox forks, and a $3,500 price tag. Although Raleigh continued, on a diminished scale, to manufacture the traditional 3-speeds into the '90s, the bulk of the bikes on the road today were shipped stateside in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
 
And for city riding, nothing beats them.
   --NEXT BRIT BIKE WEEKEND is MAY 13-14-15, 2005!

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