What’s more satisfying than biking for miles and miles with nothing surrounding you but the company ofgood friends, the sound of birds, and farmland? Why, having a party at the end, with live music and a local food feast, of course!
This Saturday, September 15th, everyone is invited to bike, feast and party at the fourth annual Tour de Farms and Local Food Celebration with Massachusetts Avenue Project and GO Bike Buffalo.
The Local Food Celebration includes a local feast with food prepared by ECC’s Culinary Department, Rusty Chain beer by Flying Bison Brewery, and music by Buffalo-favorites Outer Circle Orchestra and DJ Cutler.
Folks interested in joining the bicycle ride and Local Food Celebration, or just the Local Food Celebration, can register online beforehand or in person the day of the event. Groups of 10 or more people can register as a team--and come in costume--there will be prizes for biggest team and best costumes!
The word on Facebook is that two teams – Clean Air Coalition and UB’s Food Lab
– are coming as dinosaurs and ninjas! You should come, if only to check out their costumes. Registration and ch
eck-in for cyclists will take place on Saturday morning from 7:30am to 8:30am at Buffalo State College’s M-Lot. Folks are invited to come for the entire event, just the Local Food Celebration, or a half-ride option, which has cyclists leaving from Bippert Farm.
Since 2009, Massachusetts Avenue Project has hosted the Tour de Farms bicycle ride and Local Food Celebration. Now in the fourth year of the event, GO Bike Buffalo has jumped on board as a co-host, and all funds raised from the event benefit the work of both organizations. Funding for MAP goes to youth employment and education involving urban agriculture, business enterprise, and leadership development, and funding for GO Bike Buffalo goes to creating healthy, environmentally sustainable, community friendly transportation options in the City of Buffalo.
It’s a logical collaboration as the event not only promotes and celebrates local food, but participants use a form of sustainable transportation – biking – to get from one farm to the next. Thus the missions of both non-profit organizations come together under the guise of one awesome event!
The event includes tours at six sites: two urban farms, a community garden, a meat processing facility, and two rural farms. At 9am, cyclists will leave from Buffalo State College heading south on Grant Street to stop at MAP’s Urban Farm on Massachusetts Avenue, then continue south towards downtown Buffalo to the Trinity-Tupper Community Garden, then east to Wilson Street Farm. The last stop in the city will be the new Empire Agricultural Terminal (otherwise known as E.A.T. Market).
Local foodies and omnivores, listen up about the new E.A.T. Market, scheduled to op
en in just a few weeks! A 2010 Buffalo Spree article, featuring business owner Tucker Curtin (also of Dug’s Dive and the Steer), highlighted Curtin’s work with sustainable food advocate Christa Glennie Seychew to incorporate locally-produced food on his menus. Curtin says E.A.T. Market will include a USDA meat processing facility with a variety of meats produced in the building, including steak, bacon and sausages, and given that Curtin himself worked a stint at a cattle ranch in Montana we are hopeful that E.A.T. will specialize in quality local meats.
After the tour of E.A.T. Market, the bicycle ride will include a half-point stop at Bippert Farm in Elma, and end with the Local Food Celebration at Oles Family Farm in Alden.
So join us for the ride, the party, or all of it… We’ll be biking and feasting on local food – come rain or shine – this Saturday!
The event is being sponsored by Independent Health, Accent Stripe, Quaker Crossing, The Buffalo News, and other local businesses. To register, visit www.mass-ave.org.
What’s more satisfying than biking for miles and miles with nothing surrounding you but the company of good friends, the sound of birds, and farmland? Why, having a party at the end, with live music and a local food feast, of course!
This Saturday, September 15, everyone is invited to bike, feast and party at the fourth annual Tour de Farms and Local Food Celebration with Massachusetts Avenue Project and GO Bike Buffalo.
