Future Sheffield FNR
Future Sheffield FridayNightRides.
If any body wants to talk about putting on an event like the one below then please get back to me
FNR usually takes a break in August and tries not to go in the rain so rescheduling is not a taboo.
For the 2010-2011 season Sheffield FNR is planned to take place on a monthly Friday near a full moon when it can! This will add to the romance of our adventures because if there is no cloud cover then we will be riding under a full(ish) moon. I’ve checked the lunar calendar and, taking into account school holidays and Critical Mass the proposed dates for the rides are below.
List of planned future Sheffield FNRs for the 2010-2011 season
Friday 17 Sep 2010 – Amazing Attercliffe – come and discover one of Sheffield’s oldest, once busiest, and most interesting districts. Fairly flat ride after the excesses of the holiday season- (full moon actually nearer Fri 24th but FNR will go the week earlier so it doesn’t clash with CM)
Friday 22 Oct 2010 – Sheffield and its immigrants a ride to mark UN day on the 24 Oct. For an ‘insular’ city, Sheffield has played host and welcomed many waves of immigrants into the city whether as economic migrants, refugees or exiles – all of whom add to the wellbeing and culture of this place. Let’s ride to see the sites and locations which mark or have been touched by these migrations. (Full moon on 23 Oct)
Friday 19 Nov 2010 – Chip shops – as advertised already. Chip shops recommended by nightriders. Bring your own sauces or mayo for flavouring your chips as we ride to the chip shops to share a large bag or two amongst us. Need to get the timing right on this and will have to do a recce to get the chip shop owners to have chips ready so pay attention to the email list for news on the recce. (Full moon on 21 Nov)
Friday 17 Dec 2010 – Xmas lights. After the success and childish delight of the New Year’s Day Sheffield FNR 2010 on the same theme, let’s find more examples and revisit the decorated grottos of Totley and Dore. (Full Moon on 21 Dec)
Friday 21 Jan 2011 – POETS Day – a ride to locations that have something to do with poems and poets whether it’s a statue of a poet (Eliott), a place that features in a poem (On the corner of Charles St and Arundel Lane) it’s where a poet lived (AS Byatt’s childhood house) or its just named after a poet (Coleridge Rd). [At one of my workplaces Friday was known as POETS day - its an acronym for P*ss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday] (Full Moon 19 Jan)
Friday 18 Feb 2011 Bookshops and libraries – a ride to prepare us learned folk for National Book Day at the beg of March. Sheffield has some fine libraries worth viewing and there are still independent first and second-hand bookshops to celebrate as well as the big chains. Bring your favourite paperback to share your feelings about or recollect what surprising book you bought somewhere in Sheffield. (There is a Full Moon on this day)
Friday 18 Mar 2011 Sheffield Food and Comestibles from Sheffield – Strong and Northern (I’m angling to get this supported by sponsored by Hendersons). So a ride to sites where food and comestibles (yes Bassetts All Sorts) are or have been made (somebody said Thornton’s started in Sheffield – I remember a factory on Archer Rd) and also to sites of allotments and grow your own initiatives. Bring a pannier of food!
Friday 8 April 2011 Railways and Stations – a ride to visit sites of extant and extinct stations and railway lines around Sheffield and plenty of watering holes as everyone must have had The Railway or The Terminus pub Lots of flat runs with probably a bit of up and down in between (Full Moon on 18 April 2011 but Friday the 15th is Good Friday so no go as ride day – nothing religious, just not enough nightriders around))
Friday 14 May 2011 Mervyn’s Ride – a ride to honour Mervyn Smith, one of the founders of CycleSheffield (aka Pedal Pushers) and keen green activist. We will be visiting green roofs, wind and water turbines, CHP and biomass power generation sites (full Moon 17 May)
Friday 17 June 2011 Free Love and Socialism – a ride to see the Millthorpe cottage where Edward Carpenter (1844-1929)- a radical, socialist philosopher, advocate of free love and early gay activist lived in the early twentieth century. FNR’s 3rd birthday so bubbly and snacks too. (full Moon 15 Jun) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Carpenter & http://www.edwardcarpenter.net/ecbiog.htm
Friday 15 Jul 2011 – Bonkers As it is another Friday with a full moon let us acknowledge the sensitive subject of lunacy and madness and ride around Sheffield where people labelled as lunatics and mad have lived, been kept or been treated and reflect on how definitions of madness have shifted and changed but never been abandoned. (You have to be a bit nutty to come on these rides) (Full Moon 15 Jul)
If it is very likely to be wet then the ride will be cancelled for that night. Notice will be sent out on email, the web, Facebook and Twitter by the morning of the ride. The ride with that theme will be rescheduled for another Friday, preferably as soon as we have a dry Friday, in which case we may clash with Critical Mass but c’est la vie.
Occasionally additional rides will be added if the weather is good, we did this last season with the Bridges II – click on Past Sheffield FNR or on the ride title on the side buttons
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FridayNightRide is a sociable type of urban riding but it does also have a feel of performance art. Bystanders and pedestrians look incredulous as the peloton swooshes by and they often feel the need to shout and yell encouragement or threats – mostly mixed with obscenities in either case. Sheffield drivers are perplexed, and often annoyed – infuriated even, when they have to share the road with us, (however if there have been enough of us, which has been frequent this season, then we get respect as road users). So FNR is a mild form of lunacy.
Volunteers required.
We have a lot of suggested themes that I am willing to explore and research but I would value it if others organised a ride as well. (If anything happened to me I would like the FNR to continue)
Choose a theme or add one of your own and get back to me at sheffieldfridaynightride@googlemail.com to let me know. I can work with you on it.
Some suggested themes in no particular order
Chip shops, The American Connection, 60s Sheffield, Crime and Punishment, Sports Grounds, Cinemas/theatres past and present, Pubs by category, e.g named after animals, Notable buildings, Public Education II, Parks and Woodlands, Squares and Gardens, Railway Stations past and present, and so on – any excuse for a sociable bike ride could even be a tour of an area, e.g we have done Hidden Hillsborough, and we will do in the autumn of 2010 Amazing Attercliffe – and how about Halcyon Handsworth, Mad Manor, Salubrious Sharrow, Hilly Heeley, Toffee-nosed Totley– as if!.