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Riverwest24

@riverwest24

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🚲🏘 Every day is a Bonus Checkpoint. ⛺️🚲 Ride your bike with 1000 friends. DBAJ. 🗓7/24/26 (last full weekend in July)

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These are some of the faces behind the @riverwest24 , which is by nature decentralized, but in practice requires an incredible amount of effort year round. Thanks to the contributions of folks like these we are able to practice creating the world that we want to live in. #thepeoplesholiday #dontbeajerk Thanks @martypeters for hooking up the strobe packs for experiments like this! by @riverwest24

Buckle those helmets, artists: We’ve got an active, creative outlet for you—replete with an increased heartbeat, Midwestern charm, and community building.

Riverwest 24 (RW24) is an all-day neighborhood bike ride in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Think: a block party with live music, bikers in costume, and creative community building the whole day—and night, and day—long. There’s a RW24 tattoo every year (which counts as several laps), screen printing stations, dance-offs, and mini carnivals throughout.

People cheer for each other throughout, bikes creatively lit up against the Milwaukee skyline.

It's one of many ways bicycling and art ride in tandem across the Midwest.

Learn more in our link in bio. by @riverwest24

Catch us selling t-shirts at Center Street Daze today 11-7 (or until we run out)! We are set up across the street from Jazz Gallery. by @riverwest24

Oh hi, we forgot to let y’all know we were selling tshirts at VolHQ during the race & now we have a lot of tshirts!! We will be selling them at Center St Daze if you want a lil souvenir of your 2026 season. Or message us here and buy one off our Tshirt Boss’s porch at your convenience. 💚🥒🍋‍🟩 by @riverwest24

OK, it’s been a week. Most of my neurons have had a chance to get reacquainted with each other. I went hard this year at the Riverwest24, not in the sense of crushing laps or bonuses, but in the sense of being engaged with the course, other organizers, checkpoints, volunteers, and all things Course Ops. There was not much gas left in the tank at the end, but it was a damn good ride.

Lots of people are posting about the positive and affirmative nature of the event and how joyous and fun it is, and I agree with all of it and I can’t really add to that part. I think the deeper power of the RW24 is in the peaceful resolution of conflict while being face-to-face with another human. Some of it happens during the race, but a lot of it happens in the planning and organization. Pulling this thing off takes so many little silly awkward squabbles that just have to happen and have to be worked through and discussed and re-litigated and eventually resolved. It’s imperfect. But it’s robust because it incorporates diverse opinions and perspectives. We have come so far, we still have so far to go.

Also, as I begin to think about starting to transition into adulthood, I find myself dealing with more than one feeling at a time. This year I really allowed and embraced the guilt and regret and shame and sadness that comes with a big complex commitment that displaces other things and could always be different. I tried not to push away any feeling I was feeling or force myself to feel any feeling I wasn’t feeling. Then I got on my bike and I let the streets of Riverwest and all the people on them scour away the superfluous buildup of ego and anxeity. I sank into the overwhelm of crowds and the peace of quiet moments and I passed through it and it passed through me. There were a few fleeting moments when I came close to seeing the truth that there are no borders or barriers between us.

14 laps
13 hot dogs
41+ hours awake
1 haircut
4 Lukes

Hotdogs and haircuts courtesy of @verdisportclubmke the Wright Street Glizzy Goblins @comitesinfronteras
@milwaukee_street_barbershop #riverwest24 #rw24 @riverwest24 by @riverwest24

You need to know about the best weekend every year in the place I live, not to brag or to hold up my neighbors as exceptional, but because there’s something core to how the @riverwest24 operates that speaks both to how to build community in this moment and how much we’re desperately craving it. As we say in Riverwest every last weekend of July, Happy Holiday. [And thank you to @johne.photo for the gorgeous video I used in the first and last slides]. by @riverwest24

Let’s go to the @riverwest24! by @riverwest24

Missing something? Check in at Volunteer HQ if you are looking for lost and found items. by @riverwest24

Still plenty of time to catch the 24 hour livestream. Tune in at Riverwest24.com ✨🎥✨ by @riverwest24

Stoke awards going out! We love seeing your enthusiasm and the parties within the party 🥳 by @riverwest24

The Riverwest 24 is underway
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#rw24 #riverwest24 #riverwest242026 by @riverwest24

Breakfast is looking for last-minute bakery donations. If you have any baked goods to share, please bring them to All People’s Church any time after 6 am. 📣BREAKFAST IS 8-10AM! by @riverwest24