Robotz Ride

Or, more technically, ROB00101011TZ Ride.

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the Bikerowave, trying to get a bike I'd been returning to roadworthiness ready to go, and actually succeeded. Almost sold it as soon as I was done, but the woman that test rode it was not a big fan of the coaster brake (smart woman). But it's finished and ready to go, so that's good.

I went off to volunteer, came home, and planned to spend the evening cleaning my apartment (or, more accurately, surfing the web while feeling somewhat guilty about NOT cleaning my apartment).

But then I looked at my watch, realized that I had plenty of time to make the ride, that it was likely to be fun, and that my apartment could remain uncleaned while I rode my bike as easily as it could while I surfed the web, and headed out to crankmob park.

Tonight's ride was awesome. A fun ride around the Westside, with stops in Beverlywood for some time-trials racing and Leimert Park for some fountain splashing and ramp jumping. The private security in Beverlywood was tremendously chill, and let the group hang out, dance, play music, and race until we were done and decided to move on. I did take my bike off one of the ramps set up in Leimert Park, and made it safely, but realized I'm going to need a lot more skill and a much better health insurance plan before I begin jumping anything regularly. Leimert Park is really nice. I'd never been there before, but it's quite pleasant a little before 2AM. I ended up doing a little bit of bike repair, helping one woman get her rear derailleur cable out of her chainring (Seriously. Yikes!) and properly adjusted, and helped another guy change his rear tire twice. I get tempted to look into becoming a bike mechanic from time to time, and then I realize that fixing bikes on my own time for nice people might be substantially different for fixing them on the clock for random folks who might not be as pleasant or gracious. We'll see how it goes. I need to find something meaningful for a day job pretty shortly.

NOTES FOR NEW PEOPLE COMING TO GROUP RIDES:

1. Theftproof your stuff. - Take any accessories not bolted to your bike OFF your bike before heading out, or they are likely to wander off on their own. I talked to a guy tonight who'd also had his bike pump go missing on a recent ride. How dumb is that? Who takes a bike pump? That's some klepto nonsense right there. Take all your stuff and stick it in your bag. Then make sure to keep your bag with you at all times. Tonight we had a guy who left his bag at a stop. At the next stop, he found out that someone had retrieved the bag for him, so he got it back. Unfortunately, it seems that he got it back minus his Ipod.

2. Bring some basic repair items. - At the very least you need enough to be able to fix a flat. This means you need:
1. A spare inner tube.
2. Tire levers.
3. A patch kit.
4. A wrench if you don't have a quick release hub.
All this will cost you less than $20, and will make your life WAY easier when you actually need them. Then, one afternoon when you've got a little time, practice removing the tire, and inner tube and replacing them. It takes a while, but it's nice to learn somewhere where if you screw up, you're still in your living room. Also, if you've got room in your bag, a multi-tool with allen keys and screwdrivers on them and a pair of pliers will help you handle most roadside repair situations.

In other news, the Men's Olympic Cycling event took place today. The air was sufficiently horrendous that over a third of the riders (53 outof 143) didn't even finish. U.S. rider David Zabriskie, apparently feeling the pressure to be tactful after the recent controversy of other U.S. cyclists arriving in China wearing masks, decided not to say much about the air quality and mock the Great Wall instead, saying "“If I was in charge back then, I wouldn’t have built something like this...It’s just like a waste of time. I mean, you can get over it with a grappling hook and a ladder, right?” A third of the riders failed to complete the Olympic Bike Race? That's quite a statement on the disgraceful quality of the air over there, even AFTER they've spend UNTOLD MILLIONS trying to get the air clean just for this two week period. Note the mainstream media blaming the "heat and humid conditions." Right.

Clearly they've all paid attention to this video, which is the funniest thing ever (or at least the funniest thing I've seen recently related to the Beijing Olympics):

I love that it's the first YouTube result that comes up for "Olympic song Beijing".

OK, it's almost 6AM. I'm off.

Bikerowave / Cub Camp / Santa Monica Critical Mass / SMPD / The Real Estate Crash Part 2 / The Something Else Ride / etc.

NOTE - I'm sure there's a short and interesting post in here somewhere, but it's probably going to get lost in the verbiage, since I'm not thrilled about editing it down into one to three concise and coherent posts.

I hadn't been on my bike in almost 2 weeks, due to a vicious attack of ennui that left me unable to do much of anything productive.

But then last night I wandered over to the Bikerowave because: I'd missed my shift the night before, I needed to tune up my bike a little bit, and my buddy Scott called and needed to fix a bike that he was working on. So I rode over. The funniest thing about riding a bike after ignoring it for a week or two is that it's always MORE FUN to get back on it and go for a ride than you thought it would be.

I've never had that happen with my car. I enjoy driving, especially late at night when the roads are empty, but the experience of driving is pretty much always the same. But on a bike, probably since YOU'RE the engine, it's always different, and so far, more fun.

So I got there, got my bike sorted out, helped a couple of other nice folks get their bikes fixed, got the bike Scott was working on up and running, and generally tried to make myself useful.

Then, on my way out, I stopped to watch the Cub Camp Drag Races. This was awesome! 1/4 mile head to head racing on bicycles, with some of the riders in drag. Watching this made me even more convinced that bikes are the 00s equivalent of what hot-rodding was to the 50s and 60s. I would love to see Bicycle Drag Racing at that actual drag strip at Pomona Raceway. I wonder what it would take to arrange some bicycle races before the actual dragsters went down the track. (If anybody's interested, post in the comments and say so and I'll make some calls to see about setting this up.)

I took some advice from one of the guys on the Midnight Ridazz forum, and put pretty much everything not bolted on to my bike in a backpack(locks, seat bag, tools, lights, etc.). If it's not on the bike, you don't have to worry about it wandering off the bike. This, combined with getting some decent sleep before going out and riding, made tonight's ride a way positive experience.

Tonight was Santa Monica Critical Mass. We gathered at Santa Monica Pier and left a little after seven PM. The Santa Monica PD seemed extremely interested in cyclists this evening. Rumor had it that at least 14 cyclists were cited for various infractions before we made it down to Venice.

Seriously, THE POLICE WERE EVERYWHERE! Cops in cop cars, cops on motorcycles, cops on bicycles, probable cops on foot with cameras and telephoto lenses, following us, not to escort us, but to make sure we followed the law to the utmost. Unfortunately, at least 14 or so of us were not able to do so. (This is not paranoid ranting. I am an enormous fan of law enforcement. It was just amazing to see so many of them so interested in a group of people gathered to do nothing more than ride around town on bicycles and have fun.)

Ironically, the evidence of an Orwellian totalitarian police state gone awry heightened presence of law enforcement seemed to have ironic effect of increasing the traditional goals of Critical Mass, namely making drivers aware of the presence of cyclists and the need to share the road.

Usually when a group ride moves through town, it moves as a fairly coherent continuous blot, taking up a tenth to a quarter mile of a lane or two of road. The ride occasionally corks intersections, but moving as one big mass, the effect on traffic is fairly negligible overall, which is why some law enforcement officers turn a blind eye to said corking.

However, tonight, with a substantial portion of SMPD's available staff escorting us through the city, and nearly everyone on their most law-abiding cycling behavior, the group was no longer a coherent mass, but a long stringy line of cyclists that stretched out for a good long ways, stopping at stop signs and stop lights and actually sharing significant portions of the route with numerous motor vehicles, many of who seemed confused by so many cyclists. But, since they couldn't just wait for us all to move through, since there were so many of us paying attention to the strict letter of the law, they also had to be extra careful. (I'm not saying that letting a group of cyclists disobey certain traffic laws in order to keep a coherent group, so that motorists could then go about their usual careless motorist behavior, is necessarily better than forcing motorists and cyclists to both be far more careful and alert and law-abiding than they might otherwise be, just that it was different.)

A random and lengthy tangent into law enforcement, cycling, and the real estate market begins here. Feel free to skip it if you just want to hear more about riding around.

________________________


Another thing tonights ride reminded me of is that city government policies are effective in shaping the nature of that community. This is important right now in Southern California, as we're being hit by one of the most brutal real estate corrections in American history.

Santa Monica, and much of the Westside has managed to escape the brunt of this correction so far. So far, because the current housing correction is caused by the disastrous nature of the sub-prime mortgage market, and most of the housing stock on the Westside was not purchased with sub-prime mortgages.

However, the sub-prime mortgage market is just the beginning. Check out this chart from Credit Suisse:

See that bit about Alt-A and Option ARM resets occurring in 2009-2011?

Yeah, lots and lots of expensive real estate was purchased during the recent real estate boom using one of those two types of mortgages.

You can read all about them at the links provided, but the basic summary of the matter is this - Low end real estate is completely jacked right now, and starting now through 2009-2011 and maybe a little bit afterward, a lot of high end real estate will ALSO be completely jacked.

So how do communities work to stave off this crisis? By appearing to be the most wholesome, healthy, and desirable communities that they possibly can. Healthy is a bit tricky in SoCal, at least if you look at the AQMD's cancer map, but there are still steps these communities can take.

Let's take Santa Monica for instance. It's doing well now, but as you can see from the above chart, the writing's on the wall. Gas prices are up, Santa Monica's far from downtown and the major SoCal economic centers, commuting's a hassle and getting more expensive with the ridiculous gas prices, home prices are completely out of line with traditional metrics like income to home price or rent to mortgage ratios, the carcinogenic risks are pretty high, etc., etc.

So, what can Santa Monica do to continue appearing as the wholesome, healthy and desirable community that will justify its outrageous home values (and the accompanying property tax revenue)?

Well, maybe, just maybe, chilling out on bicyclists might not be a bad idea. With plenty of bikes on the roads, a city looks like an actual community, where people feel safe and comfortable getting around under their own power, by foot or by bike. Biking and walking are great exercise as well, so a cycle friendly Santa Monica bolsters the image of wholesomeness, good health, and desirability that it needs to maintain.

The other approach is to continue cracking down on cyclists, to make the city as car friendly and bike hostile as possible. As this continues, Santa Monica becomes just another generic part of the L.A. sprawl, with little to differentiate it from the surrounding communities, and thus little to justify the price of the real estate.

Your call Santa Monica. A bike friendly community is a wholesome, healthy and desirable community. A bike hostile community isn't. So how about less ride surveillance and more sharrows?

That's all for this tangent.

______________________________________

So we made it out of Santa Monica, and then we rode around Venice for a while, and made a stop at Windward Circle where we rode around the roundabout and took time to appreciate the public sculpture. Some appreciated it more than the rest.

From there, it was down to the Venice Pier. There were tons of fisherfolk out tonight, maybe it's the grunion run. (I'm a vegan, fishing is beyond me, although I should find this out, as apparently they come ashore en masse to lay their eggs in the sand, and it's supposed to be worth watching.) Some of the fisher children enjoyed playing jump rope with the riders, and LOVED, as does everyone, the tall bike that was being ridden around.

If you want to bring joy to people of all ages and get lots of attention, a tall bike is probably your best bet. Sure, 6-figure sports cars do pretty well in that regard, but considering you can have a tall bike for a couple hundred bucks and/or a few afternoons in the garage with a welding kit, the tall bike wins the cost benefit analysis hands down. (Although I suppose you would have to figure out how to build a tandem tall-bike if you managed to impress someone enough that they wanted to come with you, so the sports car may win on that score. Luckily, there are such things as tandem tall bikes.)

From the pier, it was back down Washington to the Costco parking lot, where the night manager said we could hang out as long as we didn't screw around with the shopping carts, which seemed fair enough. From there it was off to Crankmob Park. The Culver City Police also found us interesting, and followed the ride for a while. The CCPD provided some much needed comic relief when an impatient motorist tried to cut in on the riders. He made it a little ways alongside the cyclists, gunning his engine as he went, but then as he approached the larger group of bikes he realized he'd be better off in the left lane, and swerved back into it. Right in front of the CCPD squad car, who, while probably not thrilled at babysitting cyclists, was not at all pleased about being cut off. Cue the red and blue lights.

We stopped at Crankmob park, hung out, danced, jumped rope, adjusted bikes, talked, etc., etc., and ended up going our separate ways from that point.

All in all a great night! Would have been better without 14 tickets, but a good start to what should be a fun weekend.