RIDEdwin Rally Ride Saturday 7/30 at 9AM – Come Join the Fun!

Cover it. Come. Spread the Word. Ride. Eat. Be Joyful.

Pedal your bike. Have fun. Help continue Edwin Gardner’s Work…

EDWIN GARDNER thought it was cool, fun, and efficient to get around Charleston on his bicycle. Plenty of other Charleston residents feel the same way. They’ll celebrate Edwin and the bicycle, his preferred mode of local transportation at 9am this Saturday (July 30) for the first annual RIDEdwin. The Rally/Ride starts and ends at Cannon Park at the corner of Calhoun and Rutledge.

Edwin died one year ago after being struck on his bike by an auto. But RIDEdwin isn’t a mournful event. “I hope we get a lot of people together to make our city a safe place to ride bikes,” says architect Whitney Powers, Edwin’s widow. (She and their daughter Olive continue pedaling their bicycles all over the Charleston peninsula.)

The pre-ride rally will be brief and the short, safe (police-escorted) ride should be fun for everyone, children included. Organizers are also asking pedicab operators to show up in numbers in case there are participants who would prefer paying to ride instead of pedaling. Food and beverage (provided by local restaurants, markets and bakeries) will be provided after the ride. (Route takes riders south to the Battery and north again to Cannon Park.)

Gardner served his community in many ways. He conducted his life as he believed. He was a skilled kayaker and a boat builder. He founded the Mosquito Fleet in order to teach people — especially underprivileged youth — about our maritime history and about the joys of being on the water. His attention was focused broadly, beyond bicycles and boats or any single issue. But his latest contributions as a member of the new Peninsula Task Force deal directly with alternative forms of transportation, bicycles, pedicabs, CARTA and more.

Organizers hope the RIDEdwin will keep Gardner’s vision for a better community alive and galvanize people to pitch in to make it happen.