"This is great! And I'm here!"

(This spokecard picture is borrowed from the Midnight Ridazz website.)

This post title come's from Cesar's words to describe last week's crankmob, which was fantastic.

We were talking about how cool it was for there to be an incredible event taking place, and for us to be lucky enough to be present at it. Usually, the stupendously fun things happen elsewhere, and you hear about them later from people who were lucky enough to go, but this time, we were those people, and it was just as stupendously fun as we'd hoped.

Tonight was Los Angeles Critical Mass, which, while perhaps not quite as much fun as crankmob, also managed to be gotten through without nearly as many injuries. (There was some minor drama, but I'm not getting into it here.)

I did not take any shaky cell phone photos tonight.

All photographs in this post aside from the spokecard picture above are provided courtesy of Kevin Russell Teves (keven_jac@yahoo.com). If you need a photographer, drop Kevin a line.


I started out in Crankmob Park, the little park in Culver City formally known as Media Park, where there was supposed to be a group gathering to ride over to the starting point. As it turned out, that group was three of the guys from the ride last Tuesday (AND NEXT TUESDAY, COME ALONG! It's a mellow loop around West L.A.), and a woman named Liz who'd heard people were meeting there as well.

We then road out to the meeting point at Wilshire and Western.

From there we rode into Downtown, through the Staples Center complex, up Figueroa to the 2nd and 3rd Street Tunnels, through the tunnels making a great deal of noise, and out to the 4th Street Bridge, where we parked and hung out and looked at the city. This was nice, as now I know it wouldn't be impossible for me to commute by bike into Downtown if I end up there at my next job.


Then we rode back around the Mid-City Area, and up into Hollywood, where the Critical Mass ride stopped, and the "People's Ride" began, which took us up into Hollywood, where we rode East on Sunset, and back West on Hollywood Blvd.

Riding in traffic on Hollywood Blvd. could not have been more hilarious. For the most part, everyone was very pleasant and patient and good-humored. Even the LAPD, who were not overly thrilled about the "circle of death" in which some riders rode around in circles in the intersection for a minute or two, keeping any traffic from moving at all, were the calm, capable good-natured professionals that they have always been in my few dealings with them. A few minutes later a squad car pulled up next to me, and one of the officers yelled "Hyah! Hyah!" like he was encouraging a slow horse, and then yelled "Catch up with the group! No stragglers!" which was made funnier by the fact that said group was executing a rather complicated left turn across multiple lanes across a busy intersection shortly in front of me.

Then we rode back down Sunset and stopped at a Ralph's. At this point, much of the group was headed on to Los Feliz and Echo Park, but a few of us were pretty beat and decided to head back to the Westside. We rode back, and as we were headed down Wilshire, I was shooting the breeze with a nice young woman, explaining the manifold virtues of the helmet mirror, and talking about how different it was to be riding with a small group, where you have to be EXTRA careful about watching out for stoplights and traffic and whatnot. A few minutes later, she shoots through an intersection and almost gets T-boned by an oncoming police car. The officers get out, talk to her, give her a field sobriety test, she gets a ticket for running a red light, and, after spending a great deal of time and care figuring out how to properly load her bike into their vehicle, drove her home. Could have been a lot worse. (Apparently there were a couple of other tickets for "corking" intersections and running red lights.)



L.A. is the greatest city in the world, and riding around on a bicycle on a summer night is the best way to see it. You get a sense of the topography by pedaling uphill that you just don't get in a car, and a view of the sky and the buildings and the open air that are even better than in a convertible (not that there isn't a lot to be said for convertibles.) Even better, most of urban L.A. is reasonably flat, which is nice, as I probably wouldn't get nearly as far if I were shifting down to the smallest chainring on a regular basis.

All in all, a 99% fun night!

Check the calendars in the links at the right to find out what fun rides are in store for the weeks to come.

(Also, if anyone has any interest in learning to unicycle - Jamey Mossengren at http://uniproshop.com/ has a Torker LX 24" for $109. He's one of the few unicycle dealers in the LA /OC area, and this is one of the best beginner unicycles on the market. Check out his website or give him a call at 612.240.8786. He's a good guy to deal with, and this could be a fun thing to have at one of the party rides.)

5th day in a row.

Didn't commute by bike as I overslept (still made it on time for the early AM meeting), but I did bike over to my volunteer shift at Bikerowave. Thank goodness for nice people. The people there, volunteers and visitors, are just awesome.

I felt like a total idiot for helping a guy find a new frame and begin to convert it to fixed gear, and have him waste some serious time doing so, only to have someone else notice that the back triangle was slightly bent and the frame was therefore trashed. That guy could not have been nicer about it, and did find a worthwhile bike to buy and work on, so all was well.

The downside of too little sleep and too much adrenaline from riding from Palms to Santa Monica in traffic is that while you're hyper alert, you're too hyper to pay focused attention or think clearly, as shown by my near total inability to remember anyone's name lately or notice minor things like bent frames, etc. I let the bike owners do the wrenching today (which is actually what I should do every time).

But I did ride for the 5th day in a row, made it out and back without incident, and now I'm going to go have a full night's sleep.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, HELMET MOUNTED MIRRORS ARE THE SECOND GREATEST INVENTION FOR BICYCLING AFTER THE IMPOTENCY PREVENTING BIKE SEAT.

GO BUY ONE TODAY!

Goodnight.

"Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost."

I thought about that line from Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in the Big Lebowski tonight as I was riding out to the beach with a handful of folks for the "Aliens Love Cake Ride"

And all I could think of is that maybe the "bums" are winning this round. Across America, but especially in California, a lot of what had been apparently successful folks are finding out that being a big spender is not all it's cracked up to be.

Having a nice house in the outer suburbs and a couple of SUVs in the garage is suddenly becoming less of a status symbol and more of a drag. We're seeing the mainstream media come out with headlines like "Could rising gas prices kill the suburbs?" Yikes!

Meanwhile, the slackers who were looked down for the past 5-6 years for not being able to or choosing not to buy a home, and were criticized for "throwing money away on rent", are all of a sudden looking pretty smart. A cheap in-town rental provides housing, with free maintenance, for a fixed mothly cost, and best of all, you can never be hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down in a home you rent.

And, since you're in-town, you can bike or walk where you need to be for many of your errands, skipping the ever closer to $5 a gallon gas, and the ever increasing frustration of sitting in traffic.

I feel like the Lebowski-esque "bums" are winning this round, in the sense that working hard to make lots of money to buy lots of stuff and getting caught up in bubbles (tech, housing, gas, the growing corn/wheat/commodities bubble) and trends is something of a mistake, and that should you choose to rent/bike/nap/slack off, you may not necessarily be worse off, in that you don't benefit from the booms, but you don't get crushed by the bursting bubbles either.

I thought about this as I was biking tonight, not because my friendly fellow riders (Scott, Richard, Cesar, Cody, Cailin and some other guy whose name escapes me that met us during the ride) were bums in any sense of the word, but because I had a fantastic evening that was, essentially, free. It wasn't one of those nights out where you have to make a trip to the ATM beforehand, or wake up wondering exactly how that particular hangover cost so much.

That's the great thing about the bike scene in Los Angeles. I get the feeling it's a lot like the hot rod scene was back in the 50's (or at least as it's reminisced about, not having been alive then).

People show up, hang out, show off, goof off, go out for a spin, go from place to place, hang out some more, ride further, and a good time is generally had by all, with the occasional accident to remind one to be careful.

The hot rod scene is alive and well today, but between the demand for old metal, the level of technology involved in performance parts, and the sheer cost of both vehicles and gasoline, it's not the sort of hobby you can take up casually or inexpensively.

Cycling, on the other hand, is an extraordinarily inexpensive sport. Just about anyone can afford a bicycle. This is why it's the most popular form of wheeled transport in the world (400 million cars worldwide, 1.4 BILLION bicycles).

While I do love fast cars, in a traffic congested city in L.A., it's awesome to be able to have a fast, light, gasoline free vehicle the total cost of which is a fraction of the cost of a set of performance cylinder heads or a racing transmission that would be just a fraction of the total cost of building a decent hot rod.

So, while I'm not giving up my dreams of a fast convertible just yet, and I'm not going to stop wasting way too much time drooling over the cars at www.pro-touring.com/forum, it's definitely nice to own a fun affordable wheeled vehicle on which I can go as fast as I want on city streets.

It's also nice to have fun people with similar interests to hang out with, which is where we tie that long and rambling tangent back into the main issue of this particular posting, the Aliens Love Cake Ride, which was number 2 of what is supposed to be 100 weekly rides, set up by Scott.

We (Scott, Richard, Cesar, Cody, Cailin and myself) met up behind Rae's, a dive bar a block or two from my house. We rode to the Ballona Creek Bike Path out to Mustache Bridge in Marina

Del Rey.

Cesar provided the music for the trip, and probably has the best taste in music of anyone I've met recently. A UPS from a computer to provide the power, attached to a car amp, attached to a speaker, attached to an Ipod, attached to his bike, made for a pretty kick ass sound system.

Just as music makes you drive faster, it makes you ride faster too. Zipping along the bike path under an underpass hearing the Dead Kennedy's "California Uberalles" echoing off the walls was a highlight, as was Morrissey's "Last of the Famous International Playboys".

(Here are the lights of MDR from the bridge in shakyvision from my cell phone).

From there it was off to Venice Pier

Then up the boardwalk and over to the Windward Avenue traffic circle, which we rode around a few times, then out to Venice Blvd., with a brief stop at Venice High, where we hung out for a few minutes and Cody launched his skateboard off a good-sized flight of steps and nailed the landing.

Then back to our starting point at Rae's, where we went our separate ways until we meet up at one of the numerous random rides around L.A., probably sometime later this week.

All in all an A-1 evening! Thanks Scott!

I highly recommend this ride, and there will be another one next Tuesday.

Commuting by bike

So I'm commuting intermittently by bike, and there are some distinct pluses and minuses.

The pluses:

Getting exercised and pumped up on my commute instead of being sedentary and frustrated.

Saving approximately $1.50 on gas per round trip to work.
Becoming comfortable using a bike on the road as a means of transportation, rather than as an occasional toy to be used only on designated paths.

Getting to see my neighborhood and its surroundings, rather than the series of brake lights, stop signs, and stop lights which are usually the focal points of my commute by car.

The minuses:

The tiny little hill at Manning and Motor that I really ought to be able to get up more easily, what with 27 gears and all.

Having to change at work. Using the handicapped stall to towel off and change is a drag and a half. The only thing worse is not being able to change. I was leaving today, and they were mopping the restroom floors, so I rode home in work clothes. Work pants are not very cycle friendly.

Hearing people rev their engines to get around me, regardless of how open the other lane is. This is ridiculous. I do this EXACT SAME commute several times a week by car, and I KNOW there are NOT that many fast drivers in my neighborhood. These are the same jackasses I sit behind in traffic because they can't figure out what the little pedal on the right is for. But let a bike appear in front of them, and all of a sudden they're Michael Schumacher. I KNOW cars are faster than bikes, I've got one myself. If you're going to speed, speed! We'll all be grateful for getting there that much faster. But winding your engine to the redline to then drive 35mph is a little pathetic, and makes me take that much more joy in making you do it ALL OVER AGAIN after I pass you at the next stoplight.

I've ridden 3 days in a row now, which is pretty good for me and any sort of exercise program, crankmob, a trip out to Marina Del Rey with my dad on Sunday, and to work and back today. There's another mellow ride starting in my neighborhood tomorrow night. That one looks awesome. Hopefully I won't be too sleepy.

Crankmob - 6-21-2008

Los Angeles has a pretty active bicycling scene.

One of the fun aspects of this is that for a city that tends to go to sleep early, there's a pretty active nocturnal cycling scene.

Tonight was crankmob, a monthly rolling party that meets in West L.A. around 9pm, gets moving around 10pm and wanders around various parts of the Westside until very very late.

So I wandered up there tonight to see what it was like, and it was, as the name implies, a mob scene. I got there around 9:30, and by the time we left around 10pm, there were several hundred folks all biking in the same direction.

I learned a number of things:

Biking in L.A. at night with several hundred friendly people is an experience not to be missed. It was probably about 75 degrees out, which after a day in the 90s was nice indeed. Biking with a group of several hundred people is pretty neat. Riders would stop oncoming traffic, so we could proceed through the intersections without a hassle, regardless of what color the light was. (I tried to time it so I got to the intersections while they were green and was reasonably successful.) Most of the drivers were pretty patient and ok with the wait, but a couple got a little cranky.

I will probably not ever race my bike competitively. Not because I'm fat and slow, which are the obvious hindrances, but because riding in very close proximity to dozens of other people moving erratically can be unnerving. Luckily people were pretty good about giving each other space. Of course, in racing, it is likely that most competitors will be sober, and most unlikely that someone will ride up next to you riding his bike down the street with no hands and holding a beer.

LAPD are pretty friendly folks. They don't always get the best news coverage, but they were extremely courteous and professional this evening. Even when there were several hundred of us riding down Venice Blvd. taking up most of the road, an officer just asked us to keep the right lane clear so cars could pass, and then drove off.

Helmets help. We were stopped at the traffic circle, and someone came on the bike-trailer mounted PA and mentioned that one of the riders had been injured, and was face down on the side of the road with a facial injury and needed a ride, so if anyone had a car and could go get him, that would be great. This rider caught up with us at Ralphs a little later and and seemed pretty unfazed despite the fact that he had abrasions on his shoulder and cheek, and a big gauze pad taped to the front corner of his forehead, which would have been covered by the helmet he wasn't wearing. [Edit/Update: Apparently it wasn't the same rider. There were apparently at least 3 folks who sustained injuries last night, only one of whom went to the hospital.] [Edit/Update #2: It WAS the same guy(Eddie), there were three other people who also sustained injuries, one of whome had to go to the hospital. Eddie FINALLY got to the hospital today, and in addition to the head woulds apparently had an abdominal injury severe enough to require surgery. http://midnightridazz.com/forums.php?topicId=3531 . Get well soon everyone.] [Last and latest update: Surgery was not required, it was just "fluid buildup". Fur further updates, click on the previous link.]

I want a track bike. I've mocked them as dangerous and idiotic, but they are fast and light and cool and I want one. Once I get the groceries and rent covered in a sustainable fashion, that's going to be on the list. Given my safety obsession, I may have the only track bike in L.A. with a rear brake as well as a front brake, but I still want one.

That said, the more I ride my current bike, the happier I am with it. It could use a larger top chainring, and a little tuning up, but a mountain bike with high pressure 1.5 inch road tires is a pretty great way to get around L.A.

Parties where you can wear workout gear, or costumes, or WHATEVER you feel like, and travel, and see stuff, and listen to cool music (from the aforementioned bike trailer P.A.), and get exercise, all at the same time, are my kind of party. I mean seriously, I know I'm supposed to be a grown up and all, but wearing "business casual" to a social event is COMPLETELY lame.

Did I mention how great biking at night in L.A. is? It's cooler, but still warm enough to be comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt (or the chicken suit one rider wore), there's minimal traffic, and on a bike you can pretty much go as fast as you want. That's pretty much how L.A. is meant to be seen, as you can completely understand why people spend so much time and effort to be able to live here. Sitting in gridlock on the daily commute twice a day five days a week can fill one with the urge to pack it in and go live somewhere cheaper and less congested. You need a reminder of L.A.'s greatness every now and again, and riding around it at night with lots of friendly people and open roads is a good one.

From our starting point, we biked up to Santa Monica, over to Beverly Glen, down Beverly Glen to Pico to Westwood to National to Motor to Palms to Overland, where we stopped at the 7-11. Multiple hundreds of us.

Here's a pic of the crew at 7-11. (All pictures were taken on my cell phone without much attempt for steadiness.)



People jumped rope, danced, drew pictures in chalk, drank beer, set off fireworks, and just hung out. Then, the police arrived, and it was decided that we'd move the party along.

About half a mile up National to the Trader Joe's Parking Lot.


People jumped rope, danced, drew pictures in chalk, drank beer, set off fireworks, hung out, and jousted on bicycles.


Seriously, they took some long lengths of PVC tubing with heavy padding on the ends to use as lances, took volunteer jousters, and had them bicycle joust. It was reasonably harmless, until the guys on tall bikes went, which was a little scary, as they have a long fall to negotiate. There was lady bicycle jousting too.

The blue and yellow blurb in the bottom left is a young lady dressed as Snow White shortly after impact with her jousting opponent. There were no injuries suffered from any of the jousting.


The police eventually arrived, and asked us politely to disperse, and were nice enough to block traffic so that all several hundred of us could get back on the road safely. So we went down Sepulveda to Venice to Abbott Kinney to Main Street down to the huge traffic circle, which we pretty much occupied the entirety of. People jumped rope, danced, drew pictures in chalk, drank beer, set off fireworks, hung out, climbed on statues, etc.



[Edit/Update:] Here's some Youtubage of the Venice traffic circle gathering:



From there it was over to Pacific to Washington to Admiralty Way to the Marina Del Rey Ralph's parking lot, where people hung out, drank beer, did bike tricks, etc., etc.


From there, it was down to the Marina itself, on to the bike bath and out to the jetty and hung out there. A handful of late night / REALLY early morning fishermen, and dozens and dozens and dozens of cyclists.

By this point, it was about 3AM, and while some folks were still going strong, I heard a group mention that they were headed back and decided to join them for a trip up the Ballona Creek Bike Path to Sepulveda to Venice and home.

To post this and see how badly my pictures came out. Now that that's done, I'm going to sleep.

Keep an eye out for the next crankmob, Santa Monica Critical Mass, etc., and go see the town with a bunch of nice people.

[Edit/Update] More youtubage:


(All youtube videos not done by me.)

In praise of helmets and mirrors and lights and bells.

I'm a bit of a safety nut when it comes to most activities involving wheeled activities.

But for me, there's nothing cool about not wearing a helmet. If you're engaging in an activity where helmets are encouraged, then the fact that you're engaging in that activity in itself is pretty cool.

I mean, it's hard to imagine someone walking up to Michael Schumacher, and saying "What's the matter loser, can't drive that little red car without wearing a big dorky helmet?" Or saying something similar to Travis Pastrana, etc., etc.

So I'm all for safety gear when I ride my bike, which includes:

A helmet. Yes, they look completely imbecilic. This has not been helped by providing people with head injuries or severe mental deficiencies BICYCLE HELMETS to protect them. But they're cheap, they weigh almost nothing, and they're a lot better than even the shortest trip to the hospital. Potential downside? Cars may not be as careful of you as if you skip the helmet. Weird. Also, they provide a great place to put...

A mirror. Dear god, I know these are the dorkiest things in the world. I mean, if a bike helmet is a solid 7 out of 10 on the dork scale, a side view mirror kicks it up well past 11. But they WORK! Man, now instead of twisting my head at odd angles to see way back across 2 lanes of traffic to see if there's a car approaching, I can look in the mirror, check the street a good ways back, and then make my left turn or decide to go ahead and do the two step left turn.

A bell. Mine's pink with little white hearts on it. Seriously. I know, it sounds like something an 8yr old girl would have on her bike, but frankly that's the way I want it. That way, when I ring it at a driver, I want the first thought in their head to be "My god! 8yr old girl! Must clear the right of way and give her PLENTY of space!" Plus, pink is hilarious.

Headlights, taillights, and all the other blinking lights you can find. This is perhaps the only somewhat cool aspect of the safety gear a biker needs. The standard headlight and taillight aren't that exciting, but the more lights you add, the more visible you'll be, and everybody likes flashing lights (unless you've been pulled over).

There's one item you're actually much safer travelling without. Headphones. I can't tell you how many cyclists I see in L.A. with no helmets on, but with their ipod earbuds firmly in place. Really? Riding in traffic, in which you need all of your senses at their best, and you're willfully taking one of the most important out of the equation? Gah!

Ride safely people. And DO RIDE, it's so worth it.

Bicycle Collectives

When I pulled my bike out of the closet the other week, I found that I enjoyed putting it back together a lot more than I thought I would.


It's odd, I love to drive fast, but I don't very much like working on cars. Strangely, while biking doesn't give me anywhere near the same thrill as hitting the throttle and winding through the gears on an open road in my trusty Corolla (but much more of a thrill than sitting in traffic), working on bikes is fascinating to me. Maybe it's because everything is right there in the open, with only a few systems of cables and levers and screws, so it's a lot more intuitive than your average modern motor vehicle.


So, I decided to see if I could put my amateur bike repair skills to use, and sure enough, there are not one, but at least three local bicycle collectives that can use volunteers here in the L.A. area.


They are:


Bikerowave in Santa Monica,
Bicycle Kitchen in L.A.,
and Bike Oven in Highland Park.


These are great! Basically, a bicycle collective is a combination bike shop / repair facility / hangout where people gather to fix their bikes, buy used bikes or new or used parts, or generally BS.


The bike repair aspect is awesome. Basically, you bring your bike in, pay $5-6 an hour for stand time, and have free use of the tools and the guidance of the volunteers in order to fix your own bike.

Sure, it may take a little longer to fix your bike than just dropping it off at the bike shop, but you have the pride of doing it yourself, and the knowledge of how to deal with that problem the next time it crops up.


So if you've got a bike in your garage or closet you've been meaning to fix up, or you're looking to buy an old bike to build up the way YOU want it, or you'd like to donate an old bike that's no longer working for you, or you want to spend more time working on bikes, find your local bicycle collective and head over there ASAP!

Biked to work today

and back too.

Took 1/2 an hour or so door to door. Not exactly setting land speed records, considering it's only 4.5 miles each way, but that's an hour of cardio out of the way, a fraction of a gallon of gas saved, and a lot more excitement than stop and go traffic.

Of course, this being L.A., I did get cut off once. By another cyclist.

It's awesome to see how Bike Friendly L.A. is. It's not perfect, but there are some great things for bikers.