Westside BikeSIDE!

(This is a guest post by “BikingInLA“, a West LA cyclist.  He blogs regularly, as often as five times a week (wow!), at BikingInLA.wordpress.com - so go check it out.  If you would like to guest blog, email me at alexcthompson@gmail.com)

This past Sunday, I was reading the paper, taking in a column by Steve Lopez in which he describes sticking out his thumb and trying to hitch a ride in L.A. And failing miserably.

He described literally begging for a ride as BMWs, Mercedes and Escalades raced past him by. Why? We’ll let Mr. Lopez explain:

“What is hitchhiking, after all, but a form of carpooling? Why can’t we have neighborhood pickup stations where, once a week, you leave the car at home and catch a ride with a neighbor? Given the flat terrain and great weather, why don’t we have more bike paths like the great cities of the world, and why can’t the long-abandoned Expo right-of-way be developed for cyclists?”

I don’t know if I’d want to hitchhike in a city like this.

But I do know that Los Angeles has the worst cycling infrastructure of any major city I’ve seen. Or most small cities, for that matter.

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Jon “jonnyboy” Anderson, who produced these two amazing CRANK MOB videos (June video, and July video), has come through with a post Venice Critical Mass (VCM) ride.  After VCM, what is there to do?  The Westside’s answer is a Something Else ride - the after-ride ride which inevitably occurs when not everyone is ready to go home.

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Once upon a time I headed up this project to create a wiki of all things bike.  Do y’all remember that?  It was insanely ambitious, and when it became a tough project, I eventually folded up and stopped working.

So what’s been going on with the ibikeu Wiki?  Well, not too much.  Not too many people have been editing.  On the other hand, a few articles are becoming decent, for example the article on the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights.

One article which should be well done, and isn’t, is the article on C.R.A.N.K. MOB.  As the one year anniversary ride of C.R.A.N.K. Mob approaches, you can find very little about C.R.A.N.K. MOB on ibikeu Wiki.  The ride that has transformed the Westside is described by two lazily pasted quotes from onethirtynine and SKID MARCUS.

(Richtotheie aptly illustrates the spirit of CRANK MOB)

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Shannon, aka the iconic “Wife Bike”, and Katie O’Shea, are “helping” their friend recover a stolen bike.  This flyer is perhaps the greatest such flier of it’s kind:

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So, last week and this week Westside BikeSIDE broke 100 RSS subscribers.  Twice it hit 101, and once 102.  Since I’m subscribed to my own blog twice - that means at least 100 OTHER people read Westside BikeSIDE on a regular basis.  Thank you all for reading!

I would like to extend a general invitation to you, the readers, to guest blog.  I think I wrote some good posts way back in February, but unfortunately, not that many people saw them.  That shouldn’t happen.  So, I hope that people will take advantage of Westside BikeSIDE to gain a larger audience.  If you have a new bike blog which you would like to grow - this is an opportunity to reach out to a different audience.  If you sometimes would like to share your thoughts about biking, but don’t want to maintain a full time blog, then this is a way for you to share those thoughts.

I very much want Westside BikeSIDE to be a resource for West LA’s bike culture, so please take me up on the offer.  Email me at alexcthompson@gmail.com and we can discuss a post.  Guest blogging at C.I.C.L.E. (thank you Liz & Shay!) and Emerald City (thank you Siel!) had a lot to do with Westside BikeSIDE growing, and I want to do what I can to pay that forward.

There have recently been a series of muggings on the Ballona Creek Bike Path.  LAist, LA MetBlogs, LA Streetsblog, C.I.C.L.E. and Bike Girl have all written about it.  Essentially, we all have the same information, which is this excerpt from an email:

I was riding west on the BC path at a little after 1pm yesterday, when
there was actually fairly heavy traffic on the path.  Under the 405
two gang members (this is what the police believe) threw another bike
in my path, causing me to crash, and then sprayed me with pepper spray
and took my backpack.  I rode to the LAPD station on Culver Blvd.,
despite barely being able to see, and reported the incident since it
was clear that there would be more victims.  The attackers then used
my backpack (which had a heavy On-Guard lock in it as well as several
books) to assault at least two other cyclists (and possibly more,
according to the detective I spoke with), pulling a knife on one (this
is also what the police told me).  My backpack was recovered by one of
the victims who turned it in and called me.  It turns out this is the
second time he has been attacked in this manner on the BC path, this
first time being left unconscious for nine hours.  I did a search of
the CICLE and LA Bicycle Coalition websites and found other stories of
such assaults in nearly the same spot as recently as May and going
back to 2006.  The LAPD was helpful, but I got the sense that the BC
path was not a high priority, even though the crimes there are likely
related to gang activity in Mar Vista Gardens.  The officer who took
my report did not even know what I meant when I said I was riding on
the Ballona Creek bikepath under the 405 (he kept repeating the
question, “but what STREET were you on?”).

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After I was grilled and upbraided by a Culver City cop who doesn’t like children, I hustled to catch C.R.A.N.K. MOB at it’s next stop.  As the fastest man on the Westside, this was easy, and I caught the group at in a Von’s parking lot only slightly short of breath.  And just then they decided to go.

Simultaneously LAPD showed up.  It’s sort of hard being a 500 person party ride.  It’s like being an NFL lineman or heavyweight boxer - no matter how friendly you are, you’re going to make people a little nervous.  So someone saw 500 people, and they called the cops.

“Here we go again” I thought, as I just happened to be right by the LAPD when they arrived.  Five officers sauntered into the parking lot, smiling, talking to each other, and nodding to the bicyclists.  If they had bicycles with them I’d have assumed that they were all dressed up in matching uniforms as a gag.

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