Westside BikeSIDE!

(this is a guest post by Stephen Roullier, better known to Midnight Ridazz as Mr. Rollers, about a uniquely Westside biking Mother’s Day. If you would like to guest post contact alexcthompson@gmail.com)

No doubt inspired by my near constant presence on a bike these days, my Mom mentioned to me recently that she’d like to try riding a bike sometime. My Mom, while in pretty decent health, is 79 years old and claims that she hasn’t been on a bike since way before I was born, but who am I to deny my dear old Mum her wish?

I wasn’t quite sure at first how to make this wish a reality, but then I remembered the bike rental facilities along the bike path in Venice and that they had a variety of bikes including tricycles, which I thought might be a good idea for someone who hasn’t balanced on a bike in a long time.

Continue Reading »

(the videos in the post will come through as links for RSS and email subscribers - just click em and check out the videos - trust me!  Or go to WestsideBikeSIDE.com)

CRANK MOB was double awesome. All the CRANK faithful have speculated what warmer temperatures would bring, and we were right to do so. The ride was super CRANKY, as in awesome and epic.

CRANK MOB has a new Vimeo channel.

Continue Reading »

I wrote a piece for Emerald City yesterday about volunteering for a local bike advocacy organization. I boiled it down to five orgs and one event: CICLE, the Bike Oven, the Bicycle Kitchen, Bikerowave, LACBC, and the Bicycle Film Festival. BTW, if you want to get involved in bike activism there are a T O N of other options, and I’ll summarize some of them in next weeks post. One option, for example, is to guest post for Westside BikeSIDE. I’ll be having more and more guest posts here, so if you have something about bikes you’d like to share, email me at alexcthompson@gmail.com and we’ll talk. Everyone has wonderful stories to share, and I am a billion percent supportive of that.

When it comes to volunteering many people think you should walk to the nearest non-profit and declare “use me!” I disagree. I devoted a one thousand words to volunteering because I don’t think it’s a simple act. It’s tough to figure out the best place to put your effort:

Volunteering is simple, right? You just go to the organization you choose to volunteer for, say “Here I am,” and they give you a stack of envelopes to lick. I disagree. Volunteering is a complex and often creative act.

Continue Reading »

The second Freeway Traffic Jam Ride took place last Friday, and the Crimanimalz used the wiki as the reference for people interested in the history of the ride. The ride hit the front page of Digg, LAist, Boink Boink, Wired, local TV stations etc etc . . . and consequently the Freeway Traffic Jam article got about 5000 unique hits. It’s pretty clear the wiki can be useful as a central resource on a topic when organizers make use of it.

The other, more quiet story, is that the wiki continues to flesh out. I’d love to see cyclists get in the habit of recording events as they take place. Do you know who the Sodomites are? You may be surprised at the answer . . .

Continue Reading »

(This is a guest post by Tom Bosch, Bikerowave’s head mechanic on Monday nights.)

When I was a kid, I would ride my big sister’s beat up bike through the neighboring apartment complexes in my hometown, rain or shine, riding as fast as possible, sometimes near the brink of disaster. When disaster struck, whether it was a bent stem after sliding out of a curve, or a broken pedal, I’d fix the problem and keep going. That pretty much sums up my relationship with my bike. I got lucky and survived my fair share of close calls back then, never even broke a bone.

Continue Reading »

I’m standing on the outside edge of sweeping arc of pavement. An unintelligible whooping cyclist whizzs by. As the gust of her passing hits my face, I discern a clamor of hoots and yells behind me. Swinging round I see a loose herd of cyclists and skaters bearing down. Lumbering forward they appear svelte in the presence of a bulky BMW. They are refugees fleeing normalcy, and they bear predatory smiles.

I survey the horizon. I recognize a cluster of office buildings in the distance and I learn something. I am standing on a freeway interchange. It is the swooping interchange from the I-10 East to the 405 North. A few slow Northbound cars in the left lane pass the animalz in the right lane, on their way to a lazy river of merging traffic. Below and above it’s a beautiful day for a freeway cowboy: slightly overcast and cool, blues and greys in the sky, greys and grays on the freeway plains below.

Continue Reading »

I wrote a piece on Emerald City last week that I’m actually pretty proud of. I’m sort of a perfectionist and rarely happy with what I write, but this turned out well. It also features a pretty cool picture of Kieron, the iconic organizer of CRANK MOB. Please go read it!

Perceived as dangerous and stigmatized as an activity for health nuts and tree huggers, reasonable people do not ride bikes in L.A. So, when you step off a curb onto a bike you have just committed a flagrantly irresponsible act. “I do what I want!” you’ve just declared. Prepare for a wild ride!

As a pioneer of the irresponsible, you have an opportunity to recruit others. Every time you ride four miles to work, or 1,000 yards to the grocery store, you rebel against the little assumptions Angelenos make in order to live responsibly. “Cycling is dangerous,” “bicycling is impractical,” “BIKES ARE TOYS” — I challenge these notions with this short ride to the laundromat!

Continue Reading »

This week was sort of a mixed bag for the ibikeu Wiki. Unique hits doubled, but editing decreased. On the other hand we added some editors from outside SoCal, and they added some interesting content about New Haven, and began the monumental task of documenting NYC’s bike culture. I’ll bet you a donut you don’t know what a pile bike is.

Continue Reading »