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I kept running into the same family three times. Their two kids kept doing figure eights, and the mother was worse than them she looked as though she was trying to balance herself while riding the bike. The father did not pay attention. The best part was that they tuned out everyone around them, and the language barrier did not help either.

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What section of the city do you live in Trambone ?

It would have been great if there were some signs up about the event.

The kids I saw were riding better than many of the adults, most kids spend hours riding every week and so are decent riders, unlike the adult "sunny Sunday cyclists".

We should ban once a year adult riders who haven't been on their bike since the last JC ride, they are the ones I see wobbling; swerving in a massive overreaction to every pothole; and doing the classic, look behind over their right shoulder without realising they are swerving to the right as they do so, mauever.

Robin.

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But, but... what's this world coming to!? You can't tell a millennial they can't bring along their kid everywhere they go!! Imagine the ramifications for either baby (parent, and offspring) if either one is told NO.

Seriously, though, what do you expect when some of them think nothing of pushing their oversized strollers into loud bars or even an entire, full-sized crib to brunch??

Parents Bring Entire Crib to Brunch

While we did put out a lot of traffic warnings online, and ask people to share them around, I agree that we should ask for more official outreach about traffic.

I'd love to see the city acquire and deploy some more of those big electronic signs, like the one they had at Exchange Place. For big NYC events, they put those out several days in advance on the biggest affected roads. Best way to reach drivers is through their windshields!

JC has more and bigger (very awesome) outdoor events going on in public spaces lately, so those signs would be a good investment for that alone, but of course they're also very useful for warnings about construction, dangerous weather, etc.

Raise the age limit, and prohibit any bike pulling a kid (or dog, as I saw one) in a cart. Both are moving chicanes. Don't be sad, your kid will in time be able to ride too.

An honorable mention to all the freds who came out in their team colors and race rigs only to tip over while clipped in at the stops.

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If it wasn't because of JCLIST, I wouldn't have known about the event, and many of the friends and neighbors to whom I mentioned it had NO IDEA it was happening. In general, I find that the city is very deficient in announcing or disseminating information on events that directly impact residents with road closures or delays. A few weeks ago, the Newport race took place, and it seems like areas in downtown had no idea it was happening until runners were coming down their streets. I was talking to one of the street marshals helping with closures, and even SHE was confused about the duration and course and all other pertinent details.

While I am not about to shed a tear for the temporary inconvenience to some ignorant drivers or residents, I do think the city should do a better job of announcing these events, or disseminating information about the expected impact on residents and roads.

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Funny, because in the other thread about the ward tour, someone else was asking for the age limit to be lowered. I think elsquid provided a good response in that the age limit is not likely to be lowered, as they have to go for the policy that makes the most sense generally. In these type of events, you have a range of people, but the truth is that most kids under 10 (or, 12, really!) are not able to maintain the speed, stability and dexterity to ride 15 miles in stop-and-go fashion over flat and hilly roads while surrounded by 1500 people.

another well-organized, well-run tour by Bike JC!

as somebody who doesn't usually drive in town, I'm wondering how much of a heads-up the locals got in the days preceding the tour?

there seemed to be way more angry drivers stuck in traffic than I remember. (anyone else witness that woman in her church-whites getting out of her car and going OFF on the policewoman holding traffic back?)

and I'd be lying if I didn't experience a slight tingle of schadenfreude with every honk.

Thank you to the organizers and volunteers of the Bike JC Ward Tour . JC looked great ! As the tour continues to grow in popularity , in a effort to keep everyone upright on their bikes I think the age limit should be raised from 10 to 12 and enforced . The several incidents that happened around me were all caused by young riders wobbling around out of the stops as well as families trying to keep their children together . I know this is not going to be well recieved by parents but there were really young kids out there that had no business riding in tight quarters with 1500 other riders.

BRIEF MESSAGE TO WARD TOUR RIDERS:

Online registration for Sunday's #JCWardTour2015 is now closed (tentative final total: 2,067 riders registered!).

We will send out a detailed email to all registered riders shortly; please watch out for it (and check your spam folder if you don't get one by tomorrow morning).

But since many of you know the drill already, here are a just few important points of emphasis:

--We're expecting a HUGE crowd on Sunday, maybe 50 percent bigger than last year, so PLEASE arrive as early as possible after 9 a.m. at Exchange Place to check in and pick up your rider bib, then move away from the check-in area and let others get in. There are lots of very pleasant nooks along the waterfront and piers where you can hang out after check-in and wait for the 11 a.m. start. There will also be more breakfast vendors there in the morning than in previous years if you get hungry.

--We will be offering day-of on-site registration for those who didn't do it online, but if you're doing that you should get there REALLY early, 9:30 at the latest, to avoid the possibility that you'll get shut out.

--Check out your bike now and make sure it's basically in good shape, tires pumped, seat height adjusted comfortably, nothing broken or loose. We will have bike mechanics near the start line Sunday to help with minor problems and last-minute adjustments.

--On Sunday, please remember to bring and wear your helmet, and bring money if you want to enjoy the many great food and drink vendors at our Finish Line Festival after the ride.

See you Sunday!!

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Wow that is great.

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LAST CHANCE! ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSES TODAY AT 4 PM!

Online registration for the tour will end at 4:00 p.m. TODAY, Friday, June 5.

If you want to ride and have not yet registered, please do so online ASAP! We plan to offer on-site registration on Sunday morning, but frankly it's a hassle, both for you and our already hardworking volunteers. Plus if the lines get crazy, its possible you could get shut out of the tour.

It's much easier for all if you register online; then on Sunday we just check off your name and hand you your numbered bib.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

1,628 riders registered! Holy bikeys!!

We still need more volunteers to help make this the best Ward Tour & Festival ever! We'll have jobs for volunteers from 8 a.m. till 5:30 p.m. on Sunday. If you want to help us show everyone a good time and show the world this city is ready for better biking, please sign up to volunteer here:

VOLUNTEER SIGNUP

We'll probably have to keep it at age 10.

Otherwise we get lots of very young kids falling behind and the police can't re-open the roads behind us and it's a big mess (one of the biggest problems we've had on the tour in early years).

signed up.

Any chance of changing min age to 7 for next year for individual riders? My 6 year old can ride 11 miles already and hoping to do it with her next year.

Most ever! Now 1,451 riders signed up for Sunday's Ward Tour, a new record! Wooooo!

Did you register yet? Clicking "going" on the Facebook page doesn't count; go here to sign up: WARD TOUR REGISTRATION

Still need to register? It's easy! Click here to register.

It's free, though we have a $5 suggested donation to Bike JC. But $0 is totally fine too. Also a $500 donation would be fine.

THX, Elsquid . Were looking forward to the Tour.

We know it was somewhere north of 1,100 who actually rode last year.

We registered about 1,430 riders last year in advance, and ended up giving out over 1,100 bibs in the morning, both records.

Pretty sure that first record will get broken soon, and if the weather is decent probably the actual ridership will be bigger too.

How many rode in last years JC Bike tour ?

1,224 riders registered. You comin'?

Just passed 1,000 riders registered!

If this keeps up it'll be quite a thing.

Want to help put on one of Jersey City's greatest annual events, the Jersey City Ward Tour and Festival?

Come down to Zeppelin Hall at 7 p.m. Thurs. 5/14; we'll be figuring out volunteer assignments for Bike JC's big June 7 bike tour.

Please first sign up here on our ONLINE VOLUNTEER SIGNUP FORM

Volunteer needs:

Before Tour Day:

---Leading up to the event our greatest need is for a few folks to help out with fundraising and organizing food and entertainment. Day-of roles that we need to fill are for morning setup, rider registration, ride marshals, festival setup, festival staff, and cleanup.

On Tour Day:

--Morning setup starts at 8 a.m. and involves some heavy lifting and the ability to work fast.

---Morning pre-ride registration involves sitting at a table the day of the event and collecting completed registration forms and distributing numbered ride bibs.

---Marshals ride in strategic places within the tour, helping to direct other riders and keep them safe, help them with minor mechanical and other issues, communicate with police

---Festival setup workers will work at Exchange Place from about 11:20 to12:45, while the riders are out on the tour. You will be converting the plaza into the festival grounds. You will need to work quickly, follow a map/site plan for the festival, possibly do some lifting, and take initiative. NOTE: THESE VOLUNTEERS CANNOT RIDE IN THE TOUR, BUT WE WILL NEED A LOT OF PEOPLE TO DO THIS, because we are expanding the attractions at the festival this year. If you are a friend of biking, but you can't or don't want to ride in the tour, please consider volunteering for this duty.

---Festival staff work begins later in the day and involves manning the t-shirt sales tables, helpers for the art, music, and children's areas, etc. Marshals need to be able to ride 15+ miles comfortably and assertively handle on-course duties such as traffic calming and dealing with participants who run astray or don't follow the rules.

--Cleanup starts in late afternoon and is usually done by 5:30 or so.

Join us Thursday to plan this great event! Zeppelin Hall is at 88 Liberty View Drive off Grand Street, near the Grand Street light rail station. Casual German food and a wide variety of beers are available for purchase. We're usually in the northeast corner of the indoor seating area, though if the weather is nice we may be outside in the garden. (We'll post our exact location right here when we settle in.)

If you'd like to volunteer to help run the Ward Tour, please sign up here:

Volunteer signup link

(A link listed below/earlier may be dead, so please use this one.)

Also: Please volunteer if you can! We think this could be the biggest Ward Tour ever!

We?re looking for volunteers to help out with spreading the word about the Ward Tour beforehand, by putting up posters and staffing our outreach table at other festivals.

We?ll also need LOTS of volunteers throughout the day of the tour, for early-morning setup, rider registration, marshals on the ride, festival events, and afternoon/evening teardown/cleanup.

LOTS more detail about the Ward Tour below, from our Facebook event page, which is here: Ward Tour Facebook event page

Please share any and all ways you can!

Register here: Rider registration link

Come ride all over this town with us! Bike JC?s 6th Annual Jersey City Ward Tour will roll out of Exchange Place at 11 a.m. Sunday, June 7, taking you and well over a thousand of our closest friends on a 15-mile tour of our great city (and passing through all of its political wards).

When the tour ends back at Exchange Place around 1 p.m., you can enjoy our equally great Finish-Line Festival there all afternoon, featuring live music, food and drinks, and local vendors and community groups, all on our scenic waterfront.

Registration is free, with a suggested donation of $5 to aid our year-round efforts to improve, promote, and teach safe and fun cycling in Jersey City. Note: We are now an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible. Also, if you want to give more than $5, we're totally OK with that too!

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.

Register here: Rider registration link

(Please note that, while we?d also LOVE you to click ?Going? on this Facebook event page, to show everyone how huge this is going to be, that does NOT register you for the tour.)

More About the Ride

The Tour starts downtown at Exchange Place and travels up Montgomery to Grand Street, heading south on Garfield Ave. to Greenville, where it hooks west via Danforth Ave. and back north on Westside and Mallory Avenues to Lincoln Park, where we take our long break. It then heads north along Kennedy Blvd. to North Street and Palisade Ave. in the Heights, eventually coming down Newark Ave. and Seventh Street, winding through downtown, and finishing back at Exchange Place.

We ride on streets (or sometimes on one side of a street) that are closed to motor-vehicle traffic by the Jersey City Police Department. Officers on bikes and in motor vehicles will escort us throughout the ride.

Riders must be age 10 or older, and must wear helmets. (Younger children may be carried securely on an adult's bike in appropriate child seats, bakfiets buckets, trailers, etc.)

All riders must also be able to maintain a pace of approximately 10 mph for 15 miles. This is a fairly relaxed pace. We also take some short breaks to catch a breath to allow for smooth traffic control, and our one long break roughly at the halfway point, after the only steep uphill on the course (so you can just walk your bike up that hill if you want).

Please note that the Ward Tour is not timed and is not a race, in fact, we strictly limit the front of the tour to a maximum of 10 mph.

The tour rolls out at 11 a.m., but you will need to pick up an official tour bib before the start, 9:00?10:30 a.m.

We encourage you to dress up yourself and your bike colorfully!

Rain date: Sun., June 14.

Other Attractions:

Sirelo Entertainment?s Community Drum Circle will again give the riders a sendoff, approximately 10?11 a.m.; bring your favorite percussion instrument and join them!

Lineup of musical acts at the Finish-Line Festival (times are approximate):
1 p.m. Sandra Small and the Smallworld Band
2 p.m. Kiwi
3 p.m.The One and Nines
4 p.m.The Defending Champions

And MUCH more to do at our Festival:

?Beer truck from White Star Bar
?"Gastro Alley" with food trucks and vendors
?Art activities
?Activities for kids
?Extensive showcase of outreach/information tables from numerous local community nonprofits.

Bike JC is a citizen-based advocacy organization that aims to make Jersey City streets welcoming for bicyclists, by promoting bike-friendly policies, including bike lanes; bicycle education; and traffic law enforcement.

We hope to see you June 7! With bike lanes already in use, new bike racks being installed all over, and a bike share system due to roll out in September, this is shaping up to be another banner year for biking in Jersey City. Come celebrate with us!

Register here: Rider registration link

P.S.: Want to help us make this tour great? We?re looking for volunteers to help out with spreading the word about the Ward Tour beforehand, by putting up posters and staffing our outreach table at other festivals. We?ll also need LOTS of volunteers throughout the day of the tour, for early-morning setup, rider registration, marshals on the ride, festival events, and afternoon/evening teardown/cleanup.

Sign up here to volunteer: Volunteer signup link

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for Bike JC's 6th Annual Jersey City Ward Tour!

Registration for our biggest event of the year is required, and it's free ($5 suggested donation).

Click here to register.

More details about the event will follow here.

We also need volunteers to help before and during the event:

Click here to volunteer.