I would enter parades for a bike club if our local club would do it.
I'll organize it myself when both kids are in school. Every other club
is represented in our local parades but bikes. Bikes are a parade
natural. Slow and smoove is fine on a bike. (It's nice how the bike
world opens up when one quits racing.) I might even buy a GT Dyno
Roadster for parade use. I'd just loan out all my KINDS of bikes to
recruits so the public gets to see all kinds of cool bike. Bikes are
SO diverse. That's what would really make the parade entry. Diverse
bikes. Not just everyday ones, not that we'd turn em away. OK, turn em
away: parades are for special stuff. And bikes are good for everyone,
bad for no one. They would make a GREAT parade entry. The bike world
is remiss for not having a Club Entry in every parade. It would do the
cause a great BOOST. You couldn't get better PR. 4H does it. Scouts do
it. Everyone else is smart but bikers.
OK, I'm sure that SOME parades have bike clubs in them, but none that
I've seen, and we go to many each summer around here. (And there are
probably wacky urban bike parades, a la Critical Mass or Burning
Whatever...I'm talking about heartland parades.)
We had a casual parade once when our bike garage was at its peak---15
folks out on the ride, I think---and we left my race bike behind! It
was a blast! If you own a buncha bikes, have a parade. It's AWESOME to
see em all on the road at the same time!
--JP