Friday Coffee Club started when a tweet went out from Felkerino to #BikeDC suggesting a Friday morning rendezvous at Swings Coffee, a local coffeehouse near the White House Plaza.
The original edition of Friday Coffee Club looked like this:
Since that January 2012 meetup, Friday Coffee Club has grown steadily, with cyclists from various parts of the city stopping by Swings en route to the office or other Friday activities to sip coffee drinks and hang out together.
Now the group looks more like this on any given Friday:
It’s been such a treat to get to know the people of Friday Coffee Club. It’s a warm, friendly, and inviting group where all are welcome. You don’t even have to drink coffee (though it helps). Or ride a bike (also helps).
Felkerino and I joke that Friday Coffee Club is a group ride that is all about the rest stop. The only real group riding that happens is the “rollout,” where those who stay until the unofficial end of Friday Coffee Club roll out together from Swings and through the White House Plaza. That’s about two blocks of group riding in total.
Over the past year and a half that Friday Coffee Club has been a thing, we have experienced many firsts.
We celebrated our first anniversary.
We welcomed cyclists from other places.
We have our first member who is even younger than Friday Coffee Club!
Today we celebrated another first, although this one was bittersweet. Our friends Crystal and Adam left today from Friday Coffee Club to begin their cross-country tour and move to California.
Like many of those I’ve met through Friday Coffee Club, I’ve enjoyed getting to know Crystal and Adam. Connections like these make the city a smaller place.
While I will really miss seeing Crystal and Adam around town, D.C. is a transient city where moving away is fairly common. Most people’s moves do not include a cross-country bike tour so their departure is particularly exciting.
Crystal and Adam will stay in touch with the BikeDC crew through Twitter as well as a blog of their adventure. I can’t wait to read about how their tour unfolds.
Thank you, Crystal and Adam, for launching your cross-country tour from Friday Coffee Club. It was a privilege to roll out with you Friday morning, and Felkerino and I wish you all the best on the exciting journey ahead of you.
We’ll miss you.
chasingmailboxes.com 
Good luck, Crystal and Adam!
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What a great story — and a perfect final picture. Good luck to Crystal and Adam. Their blog should be fun to follow.
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Perfect read.. while having my morning coffee. Safe Journey to Crystal and Adam
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A coffee club sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing Crystal and Adam’s adventure and blog link. After crossing the country with my boyfriend (now husband) in 1984-85, I’ve a hankering for doing it again. I’ll be following your friends’ progress.
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That is awesome! I knew you had done a lot of touring, but did not know that you had ridden cross-country. How wonderful! If you are ever in D.C. on a Friday morning, please come to Friday Coffee Club. You will love it.
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Thank goodness Felkerino sent that tweet. Friday Coffee Club was one of the best discoveries I’ve made in my time in DC (and I’ve been here awhile)! I lookr forward to this gathering every week and it always makes me eager to log more miles on my bike.
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Bittersweet, indeed. Happy to have met the folks at Friday Coffee Club, and although I miss them already, I’m looking forward to seeing Crystal and Adam chronicle their adventures.
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Me too! Glad to see they are tweeting and sending updates.
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You mentioned when you had your first meeting you Tweeted the announcement. I’m wondering your strategy for this? Who besides your followers and friends? I’d like to start something here on Sat.’s.
DD
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In the D.C. area, we have a pretty strong Twitter network, known as #BikeDC. Also, we have a few people who are regular bloggers in the BIke DC community and we reached out to them via Twitter.
We had a small randonneuring crew that met there informally fairly regularly and @sharrowsDC, whose blog is Tales from the Sharrows, also helped get new people to Friday Coffee Club.
Swings is also a local coffee shop right off of the White House Plaza, which is a thoroughfare for many of those who commute in the city. It’s perfectly set up for Friday Coffee Club because there is not a lot of seating, but plenty of room to stand around and chat.
The location was convenient, and it was a way for all of the Tweeps to finally meet face to face so that was how we built it.
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Gives me some ideas thanks.
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Gives me some idea. Thanks.
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