The world's first platinum-level bicycle-friendly city likely achieved another first on Sunday — the world's longest line of bicycles.
Some 1,200 bicyclists registered in Davis, California, to create the longest line of bicycles, as judged by the Guinness Book of World Records. The Sacramento Bee reports that the parade of bicycles snaked around a two-mile route at the UC-Davis university campus.
The event was a fund-raiser by the local Odd Fellows Lodge to raise money for the local schools.
New category
The longest-line-of-bicycles category is a new one for the Guinness book, so it's more than likely that Davis has set the record. Apparently the trick is to keep the bicycles single-file and to keep them close together.
Future rides that might have a shot at breaking the record could be RAGBRAI and STP, which have upwards of 10,000 riders each. Of course organizers that number of bicyclists into a single-file line would probably be as easy as herding kittens.
This isn't the first time that Davis has tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Its previous success of creating the world's largest bicycle parade was short-lived in 2007, when Taipei City, Taiwan, broke the record before Davis received a certificate of authentication.
Earlier attempts
As discussed on the Davis Wiki, when another attempt to break the record was announced in June, Davis learned that it would have to top the Bangkok, Thailand, record of 3,515 bicycles in the largest parade of bicycles
Difficult, but possible. Then came word that Udine, Italy, had been confirmed in the Largest Cycling Event category with 48,615 bicycles.
Due to some confusion over rules in the “Largest Cycling Event” and “Largest Bicycle Parade” category, the Davis promoters were able to come up with the new category, “Longest Line of Bicycles,” which Guinness has accepted, according to The Aggie.
Davis became the first city to receive a platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community designation by the League of American Bicyclists in 2005.
It is also the new home of the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.
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