"Get to know you tours"

Hello,

I’m happy to announce that Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours is rolling along well since opening two months ago. 

Since opening we’ve had hundreds of people from all around the world ride around New York City on our Living City Day Tour and our Two Bridges Night Tour. Our yellow bikes are quickly becoming a typical sight around Lower Manhattan. 

Suprisingly, in our opening months, more New Yorkers than tourists have come on the tours! Tumblr sent a large portion of their staff on our tours as a way to thank some of them for their individual efforts and two larger groups as a way of introducing employees from different departments that wouldn’t otherwise have had an opportunity to connect. 

Our other large base of New Yorkers has been the result of an ad I ran oriented towards people who like the theater. While plays are fun they are always inside and don’t involve a light physical work out. A lot of our customers have come just to stretch their legs and hear some grand stories about New York’s colorful characters and learn a little bit about the city. 

Loudest Yeller Tours have turned out to be great “get to know you tours” which is for me, what bicycle tours of cities are all about. When I was designing the tours a lot of people asked if, “Are you going to get those funny ear pieces and have a microphone.” And my response was always, “No.” The reason why is because when you have a guide’s voice plugged directly in to your head you can’t talk to the person next to you. And while I think the city is incredible, the stories are fun and memorable and the bikes are great to ride… getting to know the people around you is always the best part of any tourist activity. 

The tours are $45 per person and last about four hours. You can read all about our tours here  We do offer private tours as well as corporate rates. Please let me know if you’re interested. 

Sincerely Yours,

Adam

"Get to know you tours"

Hello,

I’m happy to announce that Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours is rolling along well since opening two months ago. 

Since opening we’ve had hundreds of people from all around the world ride around New York City on our Living City Day Tour and our Two Bridges Night Tour. Our yellow bikes are quickly becoming a typical sight around Lower Manhattan. 

Ironically, in our opening months New Yorkers have been our largest customer group. Tumblr sent a large portion of their staff on our tours as a way to thank some of them for their individual efforts and two larger groups as a way of introducing employees from different departments that wouldn’t otherwise have had an opportunity to connect. 

Our other large base of New Yorkers has been the result of an ad I ran oriented towards people who like the theater. While plays are fun they are always inside and don’t involve a light physical work out. A lot of our customers have come just to stretch their legs and hear some grand stories about New York’s colorful characters and learn a little bit about the city. 

Loudest Yeller Tours have turned out to be great “get to know you tours” which is for me, what bicycle tours of cities are all about. When I was designing the tours a lot of people asked if, “Are you going to get those funny ear pieces and have a microphone.” And my response was always, “No.” The reason why is because when you have a guide’s voice plugged directly in to your head you can’t talk to the person next to you. And while I think the city is incredible, the stories are fun and memorable and the bikes are great to ride… getting to know the people around you is always the best part of any tourist activity. 

The tours are $45 per person and last about four hours. You can read all about our tours here  We do offer private tours as well as corporate rates. Please let me know if you’re interested. 

Sincerely Yours,

Adam

I love a good chess match. This sums up the personalities of Washington Square Park pretty good. A Grand Master vs. a Great Trash Talker in a game of Chess. 


here's the link too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5vnpOp0U_g

Tao of Biking, Zen of Commuting.

Tao of Biking, Zen of Commuting.

Yes, I've ridden a motorcycle across America. It's one thing in my life I really regret. First, you go too fast on a motorcycle. I had a very quiet 650 Honda but it was still pretty loud. I smoked a bunch of cigarettes on that trip just because it fit the look. Leather is hot in the summer too. All in all, I wish I would have ridden a bicycle across the country. It's still on my list of things to do - take Sacha on the Tandem and just start riding. I can't imagine a better way to spend a few months. In time it will come....

But what prompted me to write this article is how shocked I am on a daily basis when I encounter commuter bicyclists that are yelling at people or being angry on their bikes. It's really weird. Today I stopped because I dropt something out of my pocket as I was riding. When I stopped to pick it up I was on the right side of the bike path, against the curb. A friend from Joseph Leonard yelled out to me. She saw me and wanted to congratulate me on opening Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours. While I was chatting with her a biker came by and yelled "Nice place to stop!".  It was really weird because here he is on a road bike going 20 miles an hour down a commuter lane and then he yells at me AS he's literally biking around me with no problem what so ever. So why he got mad and why it was a problem for him that I was there when he moved right around me like a stream around a rock is kind of strange. The whole reason I like biking is because it breaks down the boundries of living. I can stop and talk to someone as I'm going about my day and we can have a talk. In a car I would have just beeped at her or something but as it was I was able to talk with her without causing any trouble. And here is this bike commuter full of rage on his way to work.... why carry car culture over into the bike lanes.

The same is true on the Brooklyn Bridge. Here you have thousands of people walking over the bridge to celebrate the great history of this city, bringing thousands upon thousands of dollars to the city in good clean tourism money and the locals come biking through at 15 miles an hour yelling BIKE LANE BIKE LANE and being as mean and inhospitable as possible to a bunch of people who saved up for months, bought a plane ticket and are spending time being happy in NYC. there are better bridges for commuters going that fast. The Manhattan and Williamsburg are fine for that kind of riding.

For me once I get on my bike I'm in a Zen place. I think that's why I've never had any problems biking groups through the city. Tourists sense that they can be calm on bikes. And we are! we have a wonderful time and the city is beautiful by bike. Personally, if something gets in my way I go around it. I have no problems with people in the bike lane or people not paying attention to bikers. Maybe the best advice my mother gave me about biking was "Don't expect anyone to see you." And because of that advice I put all of the responsibility on me to see what's happening around me and to react to abnormalities. Bikes can move and adjust to all sorts of spaces so the fact that this biker yelled at me in the lane seems to say he has a "right" to the entire lane at all times for the distance between him and his job. It's New York, cars are going to park in the bike path (usually it's cops), people are going to step out into the bike lane with out looking. Things are going to happen - and you can get mad about it or just adapt. I don't love that cars park in the bike lane or that two french girls literally stood on Prince St. to bisous in the bike lane -- but I can move like water around this stuff. No need to yell or hit cars or scare people.

In Shanghai people biked slowly and cars drove slowly and they would all shuffle around each other. It was very efficient in preventing road rage even if the rules weren't designed as clearly. I don't know how you teach the Tao of Biking or the Zen of Commuting to the NYC biking community but it would be a better place if more people were less self-important and chilled out a bit.

Marketing. Or, reuniting with old friends.

So, the reviews are in and people like the tour. I you look on TripAdvisor or Yelp, people like the tour. That makes me feel good. It means I'm good at what I do. I laid out some great tours and people are really enjoying coming on them.

What I don' know how to do and I really need to learn quick, is how to market this business. Yes, there's YELP which I bought an ad on but it certainly isn't paying for itself.  And there's TripAdvisor which has brought some business in. But really, I need to find a way to market to the bicycle demographic that's visiting the city. It needs to happen asap.

But in all of my efforts there has been some fun stuff. I recently contacted Bikabout.com and it turns out that the woman who created it used to live in Madison and worked at the Weary Traveler - a restaurant I helped to build and my best friend owns. The world is a small place but when it comes to Bicycles and Wisconsin the world gets really small quick.

Anyways, she has a great site and it's full of fantastic bicycle resources. Be sure to take a look.

Adam

What that New Yorker Walt Whitman Meant when he said "Suck the Marrow out of Life"

Yes, I'm very busy now that I've opened my own business. In much of the work I just don't know what I'm doing which makes the day seem crazier. When it comes Google Adwords I am pretty clueless. I've read about it and I know what words I think should bring people in... still, reality and my ideas about the internet are different things. I found a cheap programmer who is good at this stuff and we've set up an ad, in Dutch on Google Holland offering bicycle tours of NYC. We shall see how that works but no one bicycles like the Dutch. 

I am good at taking people on bike tours. The past three days I've done both a Day and a Night tour. Both are four hour tours and so for 8 hours a day I'm "on" as in "on stage" performing. I love it. New York presents quite a show. There's Mack, the Ferry Boat guy, who is always yelling at the people in line "GET TO THE RIGHT, PEOPLE GETTING OFF, GET TO THE RIGHT" sounding like he's a super mean New Yorker to a bunch of tourists and then giving a big broad smile, taking great pride in his job.

And then last night we stopped for Gelato at "Ferrara" an Italian sweets shop that's been open since 1892 and the manager, Joseph, bought everyone on my tour Gelato and said to the group, "Working here is like nothing else, you meet everybody, in 26 years I've met everybody, even possibly the next president of the United States, Bernie Sanders, I love him, he's good people, a man for the people. I don't care about politics at all. I don't vote. Never. But I love this man. If it's not him I hope it's Trump because these guys in there now don't care about any of us. This place used to be full all of the time. Now it just is what it is, not bad but people are paying for wars, that's where their money goes. Bernie Sanders was really kind, he took a photo with me and the rest of the staff and made the secret service give us time with him. I love him." I think i got the punctuation right on this. 

And then I have this guy Jonathan, who is my best repeat customer. He's come on three tours. He came on the Day Tour by himself and there was a family from California on as well that day. We all had a great time. Perfect, beautiful 68 degree weather. The following week Jonathan came with his wife for my first night tour. It was just the three of us. We had a great time and along the way he was telling his wife all of the stuff he learned on the day tour... including reciting my jokes. Then last night he brought a group of three friends. He's a character.We were taking pictures along the water in a park and he walked up to a couple looking at the water in his reflector vest and bike helmet and said, "Excuse me but is this Boston?' and they look at him like he was crazy. They were tourists from Holland and he wanted them to think he just biked across America and was realizing he was in the wrong city. I thought this was super funny. 

During my time between tours, from 3:30 to 6:30 I do marketing stuff, building and fixing bikes and yesterday, called my friend Christopher Berge. I was telling him about how I start the night tour talking about the Norwegian Farmer that first settled Greenpoint which always leads to at least one good Ole and Leena Joke. Christopher responded by saying, "If you just take the time to learn, and really learn, one good Ole and Leena joke everyday, and told one everyday, you could become the greatest Ole and Leena joke teller in the world." Quite a title. All part of being a bicycle tour guide.

My life has dramatically changed. I jump out of bed at 6 A.M ready to live my life. So even if this business doesn't succeed it's an amazing chapter. Leading bike tours in NYC all day and then coming home to my fiancee, Sacha, all tired. What a great way to live. 

Rainy day fun on yellow bikes!

 It sounds like a joke, two Swedes, a Russian and a kid from Jersey show up ready to ride in a morning full of rain. One girl from China also showed up and the six of us were ready to ride!

Along the way we rode right into the Five Borough Bike Ride - literally thousands of people biking! we jumped right and and rode with them from Greenpoint to the Williamsburg Ferry Dock. Such fun. I'm always curious about what will make the tour magical... today it was being in the ride. I've always wanted to do it and so bringing six bring yellow bicycles into the mix was super fun. It made the rain fun. Everyone was laughing and enjoying the ride. A truly memorable experience.

The day's riders were also really fast so with cold hands we quickly navigated the Loudest Yeller Route through Little Italy, ChinaTown and the West Village and I told story after story along the way. I'm starting to feel really confident in my presentation and thus I've been able to add some better one liners and involve the guests more in the story telling. In this case English was everyone's second language so I had to be slow and clear in my delivery, but at the same time, to the point and funny. It's the kind of challenge that makes me love giving bicycle tours.

We then had a wonderful lunch at Bar Sardine. Everyone loved it which made me really happy because it was our first lunch there on a rain day. Claire, the manager and a good friend of mine, arranged the seating for us just as we arrived. I also explained to everyone that the art in the office is her art and they all were excited to come back and see it at the end of the tour. Pretty fun stuff.

The rain slowed a little for the ride home but we were all having so much fun it didn't matter. Bright yellow bikes stand out even brighter against the contrast of grey clouds. Another great tour of New York City leaves both me and the tourists wowed.

Right now I'm living the life in New York City. They say if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. Being in the process of trying to claw my way to the top I'm in great spirits. Yesterday I got my 50 yellow bicycles in. They are beautiful. I can't wait to take a huge crowd of people out on them. It's going to make the kind of visual splash that Bill Cunningham has been waiting for. 20 people on these bikes at one time in NYC!!!! OMG it's going to be awesome. 

Life's good. Engaged to the best woman ever. Owner of the coolest company I could imagine. Working with my bike mechanic, Simon, who's the best dude ever... and we're listening to Otis Redding's version of "Cigarettes and Coffee". 

Still, it's New York. Yesterday I had to step over a heroine addict who snuck into my entrance way and was shooting up. He was all apologetic, "Sorry, I'll move, I"ll move." I just said,"I don't care what you do. This isn't Kansas but I'm going to step over all of your drugs and your needles because I need to go do something. Are you ok with that?" He nodded. I stepped slowly over his stash. 

And on tour this past week I've had people from all over the world and they've loved the bike tour. Reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor are forthcoming but I'm impatient and really want to get more people signed up on the tours. Yesterday I had four people sign up from California. They just randomly found me on line and told me they loved the website. 

It's all in process. It's all happening. 

Peace. 

THE FIRST TWO TOURS!

A couple of quick things before the blog: 1. We're open. If you want to come on a tour or send people on it, here is the link for reservations: https://adam-benedetto-t34t.squarespace.com/config#/|/calendar

And if you could I'd really appreciate it if you could "LIKE" the Facebook page for Loudest Yeller. Here's that link: https://www.facebook.com/LoudestYeller/

+++++

Pictures first. The story Below.

So I'm pretty excited today. This weekend we had the first two tours. Technically I wanted to open April 1st but the weather has been horrible for the first two weeks of April and... I was waiting to get my insurance approved FOREVER!!! 

Anyways, all of the red tape has been sorted and the bike tours got to go out. Saturday was a ride for people supporting Bernie Sanders. We dressed our bikes up with a bunch of ribbons and signs and went riding around NYC. We even stopped by Wall Street! I didn't talk about the history. Mainly I needed to get the timing down with a group riding through the streets so I didn't delve into the history. Lots of people cheered as we went by and a million people took our picture. Hopefully one of them was Bill Cunningham. 

Sunday, my good friends, Haeky and Nosh, came on the actual tour. My very first. We had an exceptional day. It was about 65 degrees and sunny. No wind. Plenty to love about NYC. We rode the ferry across from Williamsburg to the Financial District of Manhattan. 

At some point during the picnic in the park I thought, "This is my new life. Riding bikes with people. Having fun with history and culture. Picnics. And finally working for myself." Pretty fun. 

The tour ran long because we stopped at Joseph Leonard to say hello to everyone as I know Haeky and Nosh from the restaurant. It's supposed to be four hours. We took our time and it was six. What fun! New York City is such a stunning place to see by bicycle. It just presents itself. 

Why "Loudest Yeller"

Loudest Yeller is a reference to a song that Woody Guthrie wrote about Stetson Kennedy. Stetson is most famous for infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, learning their secrets and then making their violent acts and rituals known. My favorite story about this is how Kennedy worked with the writers of the Superman comic book to essentially tell kids what all of secret handshakes and such meant. Kids in the South then recognized their dad's using the signals just like the bad guys in the comics were doing. It made them look like fools to their children.

Stetson Kennedy also worked for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to educate people about the Poll Tax and was a writer for The Nation Magazine (for which my good friend John Nichols is currently the National Affairs Correspondent).

In 1952 Stetson Kennedy ran for Governor of Florida and that was when the song "Stetson Kennedy" was written by Woody Guthrie. The song speaks a lot about how greed leads to war and names the companies have been the cause of war - I've pasted them below.

When I was running for Sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin, in 2002 I sang this song a lot while I was out knocking on 10,000 doors that summer. It was easier to fight the Don Quixote fight for justice in light of all of the simple actions people had taken before me. It gave me courage to think of all of the small songs, the political runs, the comic books published and Unions organized, in the historical March for Progress.  People ask me now, "Did you win?" and while I didn't win in my run for Sheriff I won in speaking my mind plainly, being the "loudest yeller" in my own way, at that time, about the stark injustice of what was (and is still) going on with the USA PATRIOT ACT or the massive incarceration rates of African Americans in Dane County jails. And no one owned those actions but me. I knocked on the doors, I asked people for their vote, I published literature saying, "Handcuffs fit people who wear ties too."

And so the song means a lot to me and so do the people involved and the spirit of where those words came from.

In 2000 I had the opportunity to introduce Billy Bragg, who recorded the song with Wilco, to Ralph Nader at a Green Party Event in Madison and I felt very close to Americas fight for democracy, equality and justice. I loved that part of my life.

And so in creating a business that consists of telling stories I don't want to tell just any story. I hope to tell the stories that helped make New York a great and interesting place. Stories of people fighting for a foothold here in America, stories of people trying to improve their lives once they got here, stories of how America improved with time and perspective.

Howard Zinn endorsed me in my run for Sheriff, the least I can do now is continue to tell the People's History as best I can and that's why I've named it Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours. We're going to tell some good stories.

I should mention too that "Yeller" is also kind of slang for my favorite color... which is Yellow. Marc Franz's cow is yellow,

I painted a yellow cat I really like

, and France is yellow on a lot of maps and I like France a lot.

It's a good color. Makes me happy just thinking about it.


Stetson Kennedy 
by Woody Guthrie

I done spent my last three cents
Mailing my letter to the President
Didn't make a show, I didn't make a dent
So I'm swinging over to this independent gent

Stetson Kennedy, writing his name in
Stetson Kennedy, writing his name in

I can't win out to save my soul
Long as Smathers-Dupont's got me in the hole
Them war profit boys are squawking and balking
That's what's got me out here walking and talking

Knocking on doors and windows
Wake up and run down election morning
And scribble in Stetson Kennedy

I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller
But when I believe in something, I'm the loudest yeller
If we fix it so you can't make no money on war
Well we'll all forget what we was killing folks for

We'll find us a peace job, equal and free
We'll dump Smathers-Dupont in a salty sea
Well, this makes Stetson Kennedy the man for me

The Loudest Yeller Office is just a tiny little space in the basement of a very big building that sits at the bottom of the Williamsburg Bridge. It's just a room big enough to hold 50 bicycles and a lot of helmets and bike tools (And some art left over from the art show). 

The basement of this building hosts a number of small businesses like this one. There are some computer nerds, a couple of etheticians, a tattoo artist… and my favorite; a sound recording studio that I share a wall with. They have a voice box in there, so they do all sorts of audio and voice recordings. I like it because it's a lot of hip hop with good beats and it's fun to hear how they develop the lyrics and change things. Yes, it does literally sound like I have a radio on in the same room. It's just loud enough that it's not distracting. They also have a steady stream of interesting artists hanging around which is fun too. It's a New York experience for sure. 

That reminds me of when I saw a rap video being filmed the other day down the street. There was about 25 African American Males between the ages of 18 and 25 bouncing to music, wearing bling and saggy pants and gesturing into a camera that resting Nike high off the ground. It was a big party. Great to come across a block from home. 

Swedish Boat Building in Greenpoint

Today I spent studying the history of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. My favorite story to came up in reading on the subject was of a Swedish engineer named, John Ericsson. According to some he mastered Euclidian Geometry by age 10. The Wikipedia site explains him less in tall-tale terms but even so it's clear he was a gifted engineer. His talents built the USS Monitor which was built in 100 days. The way he built it so quickly was by doing something that hadn't been done in those days… he outsourced production to a number of different iron producers and then had the ship assembled in Greenpoint. There's a really fantastic statute of him in a park. You'll want to come on the tour to see it ;)

A blog dedicated to Bicycle Tours of New York City!

This blog is going to be dedicated to the strange and fun life of a bicycle tour guide.

Right now I'm in the process of opening up Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours. It's my first business and it's been a challenge to be sure. However, I love giving bicycle tours of cities and so I'm looking forward to the day that I can lead one through NYC with the quality bikes I've always drempt of giving tours on, followed by people from all over the world who have come to see this amazing city and hear all of it's stories. It's super exciting to think about now. It makes all of the trouble of looking for a commercial space, buying bicycles, and making a big transition in my life all worth it.

Today I spent the day studying up on the story of Nellie Bly. If you don't know it… you'll probably want to come on the tour ;)

Adam Benedetto
Owner
Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tour