The Long Shot

By Mia Fox and Thomas Weybrecht

It is no secret that bikes and coffee make a fantastic pairing. Ride to fuel. Fuel to ride. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Many great conversations take place on bikes and over coffee. Local rides in Raleigh like the Espresso Express and Jubala Fridays will prove that time and time again. 

Here’s another fact: there is lot of great coffee to be found outside the confines of central Raleigh. And while casually-paced rides out to parts unknown are simply not feasible for many people on a workday, it just might be a pretty great way to spend a Sunday morning. 

Actually, I can tell you it is. We’ve already done a few of these rides, and we’ve given it a name: The Long Shot.

In essence - a suburban coffee ride. 

During our trial runs and in our first official Long Shot last month, we set out with just a few goals:

• give casual riders the opportunity to go for a longer group ride with stakes as low as possible
• give those riders the opportunity to safely explore more environments outside of Raleigh’s (incredible) greenway and (ok) urban bike infrastructure
• get good coffee and have good conversations

Last month’s ride was a 37-mile loop to Sonder Coffee in Wendell.  We had some riders who set their new longest ride that day, we had greenway and downtown riders who wanted to branch out, we had experienced commuters, we had distance riders who were looking for a recovery on their Sunday morning, we had people who were new to Raleigh and wanted to learn the area and make friends, we had an Ironman triathlete. New friends were made, and yes, the coffee was fire. 

We proved 3 things: 

1. You can ride from Raleigh to a lot of places without pushing your body or your safety to its absolute limits. 
2. Cyclists can coexist with motor vehicles outside Raleigh’s core bike network. 
3. There’s some pretty good stuff on the other end. 
   

Soooooo, come explore with us! The last Sunday of each month, at 7:30 am, we’ll meet at The Bike Library on Dupont and venture toward whatever latte we can get our hands on and still make it back by noonish. 

That includes this month. This Sunday. 

We ain’t going real fast and we ain’t leaving anyone behind. It’s gonna be great.