Bicycling: if not now, when?

Tired of fighting traffic after a $50 fill-up? Next Sunday, the Hub on Wheels Bike Ride and Festival has an in-town solution: Ditch your car, grab your bike, and head for Franklin Park, where you can ride around the city in loops of 15 to 40 miles, watch a tricycle parade and BMX trick riders, learn how to fix your bike, and get your face painted, while eating ice cream and listening to live music.

A project of the Boston Digital Bridge Foundation (best known for the ''Technology Goes Home" program, which provides low-cost computers and training to Boston families), the organizers of Hub On Wheels see the festival as a fun way to solve front-page problems.

''Given the energy crisis [and] given the public health issues about obesity, people really see cycling as an important and useful response," says Steve Miller, who spent 10 years working on bringing Web technology to schools before becoming executive director of the event. ''This is an attempt to bring together the whole spectrum of people from the serious bicyclists to the recreational bicyclists, to the people who just want to make Boston a happier place to live."

Agencies from the Boston Public Health Commission to the BRA to the police and transportation departments will take part in the event organizers plan to hold annually, along with cycling groups like Bikes Not Bombs, the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, and the New England Mountain Bike Association. The morning rides will be led by experienced guides who will provide food, water, and mechanical help. The routes, Miller says, promise visual surprises.

''Part of the pleasure of this whole thing is having people discover or rediscover wonderful parts of the city that they had forgotten or didn't know," he says. ''People will go through parks and forests, they'll go down river banks, they'll see views of the Boston skyline that will just be amazing."

Rides leave Franklin Park in groups of 50 starting at 7 a.m.; festival events at the park begin at 11. Admission is free. For more information on the festival, go to www.hubonwheels.org.