Los Angeles Cyclist

CicLAvia - April 10, 2011 - Another fun day in the L.A. sun.

2011-04-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was kind of bummed about missing the first CicLAvia last October, as all I heard for weeks was how great it was, and how sixty to a hundred thousand cyclists took over the streets of Los Angeles on a nice Sunday afternoon, and how this was the start of something great for cycling in Los Angeles, etc., etc., etc., etc.

So when they announced that there would be another one on April 10, 2011, I made sure I'd attend.

I was not alone in this. Most of the Bikerowave staff wanted to attend, so we decided to close up shop for the day, invite our friends and neighbors along and ride out as a group from Mar Vista to the start of the CicLAvia route, about 11 miles away.

We could not have had a better day for it. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the weather was perfect - warm, but not too hot.

The ride out was pretty similar to the riding most of the day, mellow, fun, and fairly slow.

The official CicLAvia route began in East Hollywood, at the intersection of Melrose and Heliotrope, aka the Bicycle District, home to L.A.'s first bike co-op, the Bicycle Kitchen.

The roads that had been closed off to cars were PACKED with cyclists.

PACKED.

After hanging out near the start of the route for a while and just taking in the sea of people and bikes, we decided to ride, that being the whole point of the day and all.

As someone who's been part of the L.A. social cycling scene for a few years now, it's easy to forget how overwhelming riding in a group can be, especially if you've never done it before.

It was pretty funny to see cyclists, many of whom view stop signs and even red lights as optional, having to sit through even two or even three cycles of red light changes, because there was too much traffic ahead, and the traffic consisted entirely of other cyclists.

The scenery was beautiful though. From East Hollywood, through Koreatown, by Macarthur Park, to and through Downtown and Little Tokyo, out across the bridge to the end of the route at Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights.

Sunshine and palm trees, friendly cyclists and smiling police officers, and with only a few minor injuries the whole day, it was L.A. at its best.

There will be more cycling fun to come.

Per the L.A. Times - "Two more CicLAvias are planned for July 10 and Oct. 9, and organizers hope to turn it into a monthly event in 2012."

Summer's coming. Get on your bike!

Nishiki Tourist Restoration / Singlespeed Conversion

2011-04-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

So, I'm a big fan of mixtes.

I don't ride one myself, but I think they're beautiful, and have wanted to build one up for a while, not that I actually have much use for one. Then the other day I realized that all of my bikes were set up for sturdy people over 6 feet tall, which isn't very helpful if I want to go for a ride with a normal sized person that doesn't own a bike, so it was time to look for a decent loaner bike, preferably a mixte.

I began scouring craigslist. Buying a bike off of craigslist is usually a hassle, between digging through the myriad listings for Magnas, Murrays, Roadmasters, Pacifics, Motivs, Micargis, and the other bike shaped objects, and finding that most of the decent deals have already been snapped up.

But I managed to locate a few, especially a Univega Mixte down in Long Beach, and a couple of Nishikis (one mixte, one woman's frame), also in Long Beach about a mile and a half away from the Univega.

So I drove down to take a look.

The Univega was BEAUTIFUL. It had been built up by a guy with a bike workshop in his garage for his wife, but then she injured her food and lost interest in cycling, so he put it up for sale at an absurdly low price. I took a look, saw how immaculate it was, took it for a short test ride, and handed over the cash, all in the space of about 5 minutes.

Then I drove over to look at the Nishikis. They were not as beautiful, but they were cheap, and bikes always look prettier at night, so I bought them also, figuring I'd just throw on some new tires and tubes, and put them up for sale again at a bit of a markup to help pay for the Univega.

So, not all that long after thinking that it'd be fun to have a mixte as a loaner bike, I was headed home the owner of three new bikes.

The Univega didn't need any work at all, so that one was easy.

I decided to start with one of the Nishikis, the FFS Tourist.

So called, because it featured one of the more bizarre bicycle drivetrains made, the Shimano Front Freewheel System, aptly described as a "solution in search of a problem." Basically, unlike your average bicycle, which has fixed front chainrings, and then a freewheel mounted to the rear wheel, the Shimano FFS drivetrain has the freewheel built into the crank, like so:

Yeah, it's a pretty horrible system, even BEFORE you notice that it has cottered cranks.

I contemplated getting it rideable as it was, but it's really not fair to sell something that awful to an unsuspecting member of the public, as not only is the crank unlike anything else before or since (with the possible exception of some niche trials bikes), but the rear wheel has semi-fixed cogs, which means that the rear wheel would also be tricky to replace.

Given that I'd bought these bikes to have a project, I decided I might as well go all 0ut and actually turn this bike into something that someone might want to actually ride, with a drivetrain that someone other than an acolyte of Sheldon Brown might recognize.

So it was off the the Bikerowave, to grab large tools, and cheater bars and penetrating oil, to go ahead and get the bike dismantled.

In a matter of hours, I had the bike converted from this:

To this:

With most of the FFS drivetrain vigorously tossed into the recycling bin. (The rear wheel had a standard freewheel threading under the bizarre cogset, which was nice.)

I tossed many of the smaller parts into the parts cleaner and went after them with steel wool to get the rust off, and began by greasing and reassembling the headset.

Disassembled, the fork and threaded headset look like this:

Then it was a simple matter of putting them back on, in order, starting with pressing in the headset cups,

then reassembling everything in order.

Then reinstall the handlebars and brakes, run the brake cables and housing, and you've got something that's starting to begin to resemble a bicycle.

(Old bikes have some cool random touches sometimes, like this brake cable pulley.)

Then it was time to install the bottom bracket, cranks (hint, use allen headed crank bolts, that way you can tighten them with an allen wrench / multi-tool instead of a socket wrench), pedals, and screw a singlespeed freewheel on to the rear wheel.

I lucked out, and the chainline was fairly straight, so the wheel didn't have to be redished.

Added the seat and front wheel, and it was really starting to look bikelike.

So I tightened the brakes, added a chain (gold, to match the lettering and give it a little bling), added grips, tightened and aligned everything, and it was ready for a test ride.

(I let Bikerowave colleague JD do the honors, as the bike's a little small for me.)

It worked GREAT!

What had been an old bike with a marginally useable drivetrain was now a rebuilt and roadworthy singlespeed.

No longer an FFS Tourist, it's now just a Tourist.

It came out pretty nice.

Now to find it a new owner in time for CicLAvia.

If you've ever wondered why bike shops don't sell used bikes,imagine trying to make a profit while paying your mechanics a remotely reasonable hourly rate (much less a living wage in Southern California) to do this on an ongoing basis.

Meanwhile, the average hourly wage for a factory worker in China is around 75 cents, that's why the bike shop near you is selling new bikes made in Asia, and not restoring old bikes here in town.

Old bikes ARE fun though, so if you can find one you like, and are willing to put a little time, effort, and money into making it roadworthy once again, it can be worth it, especially if you like the lively feeling that old steel provides, which (for most) is MUCH nicer than the harsh ride of an aluminum frame, light and stiff though aluminum is.

Now I just need to spend more time turning the pedals, and less time turning wrenches.

How to turn an uncomfortable road bike into a comfortable townie.

2011-03-12T00:42:00.000-08:00

So, I've been riding a bit more lately, and had been looking for a new bike.

I've gotten around on my ridiculous pink fixie for a couple of years now, but it was time for something with gears. (Preferably something a little bit lighter, as despite not having much in the way of a drivetrain, my fixie weighs about 28 lbs.)

I was thinking about buying the latest road bike off bikesdirect.com, as they've got pretty well spec'ed bikes going for hundreds less than what you'd find in the LBS.

I just couldn't do it though. There's a certain aesthetic sensibility running through the Bikerowave , the local bike co-op where I'm a volunteer mechanic. While it's certainly not something anyone takes at all seriously, and we're certainly always happy to help anyone fix any sort of bike, there's a certain consensus on what sort of bike is preferable for the members, and what sort is not. It's almost retro-grouch lite; lugged steel frames are preferable to carbon fiber, bar-end or friction shifters are preferable to brifters, touring geometry is preferable to racing geometry, room for fenders and wider tires is preferable to tight clearances, Brooks saddles are preferable to anything else (at least for the non-vegans), etc., etc., etc.

Think randonneuring on a budget, and the sort of things turned out by Rivendell and Velo Orange, and you've got the right idea.

I'm partial to this econorando aesthetic myself, but I'm also a sucker for the new and shiny. Ultimately, I couldn't find anything new that met my criteria and budget, as while aluminum is affordable, stiff, and fast, the ride is really harsh, especially if you've been riding on a mellow old steel framed bike with 32mm tires that rides like your grandma's Buick.

The hunt for something old and cool began.

Trying to find a steel framed road bike in my size, for a decent price, on craigslist was kind of a pain, as the bikes are generally either overpriced, or garbage, or both.

Then last Sunday, I saw a listing on for a used 60cm Trek 600 series road bike, I asked some fellow Bikerowavers their thoughts, got the thumbs up, then went down to Carson for a test ride.

I learned a few things about buying a bike.

1. Test ride the bike in daylight, or at least inspect it in a well let area.
2. Don't get too excited by the specs and the price.
3. Inspect the bike FULLY before buying it.

I say I learned these things, but this is in hindsight, because of course, I did NONE OF THEM.

I took it for a quick test ride, it shifted and braked OK, the frame was straight, it looked pretty, I was sold. I asked the guy if he was negotiable on price. He said no, it was $160 firm. I handed him the cash, threw the bike in the trunk, and drove off. A total elapsed time of about 5 minutes.

Here's how it looked when I got it home.

I decided to pump up the tires and give it a test ride and nearly killed myself.

Tiny racing tires pumped up to 115psi are no match for the potholes on Venice Blvd., and the handling gets a little squirrelly, when the front hub has decided to come slightly loose.

This combined with the long reach to the brake levers;

The diabolical Shimano 600 pedals with integrated toe-clips that are a menace to any non-serious rider;

and the downtube shifters that seemed to be MUCH further down than they should have been (I not having ridden a bike with downtube shifters before);

and a wheelset where nearly every spoke nipple had corroded and seized to the spoke, combined for a bike that was completely nightmarish. Think Christine in bicycle form, and you've got the right idea.

So it went back on craigslist (at a bit of a markup, since it was now in West L.A. instead of Carson, and because I assumed other people would be as mindlessly enthusiastic as I had been).

There it sat. OTHER people are not as mindlessly enthusiastic as I am, apparently.

After a few days, in which the only response was somebody who wanted to sell me HIS vintage Trek, I began to rethink things, to see if I could turn this bike into something that wasn't a horrific monstrosity hell-bent on inflicting discomfort and angst and potential injury on its unsuspecting rider.

There were some good points about this bike after all;

all of the components were Shimano 600, which was a pretty sweet setup back in the day;

the frame is made of lugged Reynolds 531cs tubing.

the rear derailleur cable runs THROUGH the right chainstay, rather than below it;

it weighed 24.4lbs, which is pretty good for a complete steel framed 60cm road bike;

it was, at least theoretically, my size;

it was, unlike most bikes today, made in the USA;

and, for better or worse, it was mine.

Since nobody else wanted it, I figured I might as well have a shot at restoring it and modifying it to meet my needs, which, being a co-op bike mechanic and all, should be just the sort of thing I was good at.

I started with the wheelset. I yanked the tires and tubes, rebuilt the hubs (which involved digging out grease that had dried solid, and replacing all of the bearings) and put penetrating oil on end of each spoke nipple, and let it sit overnight. The next day, I had a shot at truing the wheels, and while there were a couple of spokes that remained immobile, the wheels got pretty straight.

I bought some Panaracer Pasela Tourguard tires, some new tubes, and some cheap rubber rim strips, and mounted the tires. Only to have the tube go flat because the rubber rim strip slipped and exposed some of the spoke holes, which then cut the tube when it was inflated.

I ruined 2 tubes this way, before going to the Velox rim strip tape instead of the rubber rim strips. Of course, even though I'd tried to wipe away most of the penetrating oil from the wheel truing endeavor, there was enough left to keep the tape from sticking, so I ruined a couple more tubes the same way as I had with the rubber strips.

Dismounting and remounting a tire 4 times in a row, with a fresh tube each time, because you've goofed up mounting the rip strips is just as delightfully fulfilling as you might expect, which is to say, not at all.

Luckily, one of my fellow mechanics recommended using Ritchey Snap On Rim Strips, which I did. These worked successfully, which kept the bike out of the dumpster and me from having a stroke.

Panaracer Paselas are THE tire to get if you're interested in something durable and comfortable. Holy cow! They have about the most pleasant ride of any tire I've ever tried, and the fact that flats are few and far between is even more of a plus.

That done, it was time for some pedals that were safe for use with running shoes, a better seat, and a kickstand.

(Why more people don't have kickstands on their bikes is beyond me. They don't weigh very much, and being able to leave your bike standing upright, without having to find something to lean it against, or just dumping it on the ground, is HUGELY convenient, especially if you're a fan of the nocturnal social cycling scene.)

Then it was time for a new handlebar, new grips, some new Falcon friction shifters, new brake levers and brake pads, and some downtube cable stops (which our shop manager just happened to have a set of that he wanted to part with, because they did not meet his aesthetic criteria).

The cable stops work great. The shifters are not so great. Being metal and plastic and made of about the lowest grade of Chinese manufacturing (which is nice because they're cheap, and not so nice when you have to buy them more then once) the plastic is a little fragile, so I ruined one of them the first time I tried shifting and had to replace it. (All told, the cost for the build came to about $300 all in (EDIT: closer to $350 with the new levers/shifters), including the initial purchase of the bike, which is less than the new road bikes I'd been considering, and much better than anything I could get new for that much. (It would have been cheaper had I not ruined one of the shifters and multiple inner tubes and swapped multiple sets of rim strips during the build.))

It all came together though, and instead of a cockpit where the brakes and shifters are in different places, all of them nearly out of reach, the new set up is now much more comfortable and convenient.

With all the new parts, a large bell, and front and rear lights, the bike weighs in at 25.9lbs. Not ultralight by a long stretch, but not too shabby.

With everything on and tightened down, it was time for a test ride.

What a difference!

Rather than bouncing all over the place, the newer wider tires and freshly packed hubs rolled straight and soaked up the bumps, the brakes were easy to reach and stopped effectively, the gears shifted easily, the pedals were far more accommodating, and overall, the bike is a joy to ride and not an exercise in masochistic frustration.

Here's how it looks now.

I think it came out pretty nice.

Now I just need to ride it more, before I decide to tear it back apart and have it powdercoated and rebuild it from the frame up.

If a project like this sounds like fun to you, the Bikerowave, or any local bike co-op, can help you out.

Update from the following day: The cheap and crappy shifters began to fail again, and the cheap brake levers began collapsing, then when I went out for a ride, I noticed the headset was flexing, and the brakes were squeaking. Cue wheel truing, headset tightening, replacing the brake levers again and replacing the shifters again, and we're back in business. Hopefully things will be rideable for a bit now.

Just follow the man in the chicken suit....

2010-06-06T03:16:00.001-07:00

Seriously, Cameron led a fantastic FMLY ride this evening, and he was, as per usual (for the FMLY ride anyway, no idea about his daily life), clad in a chicken suit.

Sadly, at the first stop, I realized I'd forgotten my camera, so this review is going to be mostly text, as the camera on my cell phone is pretty subpar.

The pics came out pretty much like this:

so I'm going to add videos from reddit/youtube instead.

We started at Venice Beach, then headed to the liquor store on Main St. in Santa Monica, where Johnnyboy and the Up Your Alley crew DJ'd in the parking lot.

From there, it was over to the tunnel under Santa Monica pier, where there was another DJ.

Then we rode off. The ride leaders did a great job of keeping the group together, but not everybody handled the frequent stops as capably as they should have. Luckily, we were on bikes, not cars, so we didn't have any scenes like this:

We arrived at Bergamot Station, where a live band played fairly awesome hard/surf rock for a while.

Also, Don Chow's Taco Truck was there. Chinese Mexican fusion? Yes, it was EVERY BIT as delicious as you might expect. I had a soy ginger tofu burrito, and it was awesome. Alternative Taco Trucks seem to be THE booming cuisine source of the "great recession" of 2008-2012?, and I am wholly OK with that. If I can figure out how to make vegan donuts, I may start one of my own.

This video is wholly irrelevant, but this woman is awesome.

As awesome as Don Chow's was, they take their time, so I had to toss the burrito in my backback for the next stop, which featured live DJ/MC/hip-hop performances at the amphitheater at City Hall West. I was amazed that a full PA system was allowed to sound out without getting rapidly shut down, but apparently somebody obtained a permit beforehand. WELL DONE FOLKS! That really made for a great stop.

The final stop was at an abandoned tunnel somewhere under West L.A., where Funderstorm played.

At that point, I and some other folks were pretty much done, so we headed homeward.

Much fun was had by all.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, it'll be Monday soon enough...

Bike Town Beta / West Side Mosey / Warriors ride.

2010-05-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

OK, if anybody that's reading this HASN'T been on a group bike ride in L.A., and is wondering what it's like, and why an ever growing number of people are heading out on their bikes in ever larger groups, well, imagine the feeling of joy and wonder an 8 month old deaf baby might feel at hearing his mother's voice for the first time.

Well, OK, maybe riding in L.A. doesn't always provide quite THAT level of happy amazement, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless.

So today was Bike Town Beta, a daylong event designed to Copenhagenize West Hollywood for a day, and make the presence of cyclists felt en masse.

And it was awesome! A lot of people put a lot of work into this, especially Alec

and Roadblock

and it really paid off.

Much fun was had by all.

I rolled out from West L.A. around 6ish and took Venice to Hauser to Pan Pacific Park. Aside from the one short but steep hill between Pico/San Vicente or thereabouts it's a pretty mellow ride and a pleasant way to get to that part of town.

When we got to the park, things were well underway, thanks to the West Side Mosey crew (et al.).

It was nice to see what everyone looked like in daylight for once.

After a while, it was time to get on our bikes and mosey around West Hollywood. It was a mellow excursion through some of the side streets of WeHo, and we ended up at a different park, where there was:

Bike Polo on a basketball court

and lots and lots of cool people,

and yours truly.

So after hanging out at this park for a while, it was time to ride again. This time it was the MR "Warriors ride", and we continued exploring more of WeHo. So we rode for a while, but before too long, a combination of too little rest this week and being a big fat man on a fixed gear bike made itself felt, and I was pretty much done. So I looked around for my buddy Eddie who I'd ridden over with and asked how he was doing. He was pretty fried too, from not having ridden, and not having ridden in a group, for a while, so we decided to let the group head off while we went in search of food.

Oki Dogs was out, as some cranky person yelled at us and told us not to bring our bikes into the breezeway where people could sit and eat.

So being on Fairfax, Ethiopian sounded good, and we headed South, but on the way, we saw Johnny Rockets at the Farmer's Market.

Say what you will about chain restaurants, but Johnny Rockets at the Farmer's Market is an AWESOME place to grab a bite while you're on a bike. We leaned our bikes against the wall next to our table on the patio, ordered some food and Coca Colas, and all was well.

Seriously, the chance to sit down and have a meal and 5 or 6 pints of Coca Cola in the middle of a bike ride is an experience not to be missed. (In the middle of a ride, cold Coca Cola tastes like the nectar of the gods.) Plus, the staff there was AWESOME, they could not have been nicer or more helpful.

Then it was time to ride back to Palms, twitching slightly from the caffeine and sugar overload. From West Hollywood, at night, Fairfax South to Pico, West on Pico to Robertson, Robertson South to Venice, and Venice West to Palms, is a really pleasant ride. (The Robertson off ramp from the 10 merging with Robertson South would probably be a little hectic for a group ride though.)

Then home, for the first beer of the night. I tend not to drink on the rides, as I need what few reflexes I have functioning at full capacity when somebody eats it for no reason on a flat straight section of road (which is sadly not as rare as it should be), but there's something really nice about coming home safely from a ride, finding a comfortable chair, and cracking open a cold one.

Tonight was so much fun. If you weren't there, you should come out next time. All you need is a bike and a sense of humor. You've got a lot of choices - http://midnightridazz.com/events.php - so come ride!

Wow, it's been almost a year

2010-05-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

since I last posted. Time flies when you have a day job, spend your Saturdays helping people wrench on bikes at the Bikerowave, etc., etc., etc.

What's new? The bike scene has taken off.

Taco Tuesdays has "ended."

crankmob has gone underground.

this was not c.r.a.n.k. mob from mullingitover on Vimeo.

Bike activism is gaining traction.

And the ridazz are still going (and growing) strong.

If you're free this Saturday, Bike Town Beta promises to be amazing.

Me, I still haven't made it to a geared road bike yet, although I have gotten a bike with a freewheel.

I decided I wanted a cheap knockaround singlespeed, and when a big old Giant MTB frame with no suspension and horizontal dropouts

showed up at the Bikerowave, it was kind of a no-brainer.

This is the kind of bike you can pick up for less than $75-100 all day long on craigslist (e.g. here, here, and here), since old mountain bikes lack the sex appeal of roadbikes and fixies

Then, lose the inner chainrings (or just add a road crank with one chainring), dump the shifters / derailleurs, add a freewheel on the back where the cogs were (if you're lucky enough to have a cassette instead of a freehub, otherwise, use a conversion kit), add some 1.25" tires ($14.99 per is a pretty good deal),

and you're pretty much good to go. (The $7 Bee bell from Bikerowave is a fun touch, although the Japanese Crane bells that are in stock now are gorgeous.)

It's a great time to ride. Everything's in bloom.

Also note, if there's one part worth spending money on, it's the saddle. I went down to Wheel World and bought one today. It's always a little frustrating to spend almost as much on a seat as you spent on the whole bike to begin with (at least before I started adding parts) but there REALLY is a difference, especially if you're not small. The $5 cruiser seat I had on there just wasn't cutting it, and as nice as it is to shop for deals at the local bike co-ops (especially when you get the volunteer member discount), sometimes it's better to go to the LBS and buy the right part, not just the cheap part.

Still, if you're OK with going with an offbeat choice, and doing a little work, you can have a complete, durable, custom fit, low maintenance, COMFORTABLE ride relatively economically.

Now I've just got to ride more.

See you all in West Hollywood on Saturday. Cannot wait.

Crankmob - July 20, 2009 - Bike repairs, bike fitting, repeated dispersal by law enforcement.

2009-06-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight was Crankmob, the monthly Westside cycling Bacchanal. (No pics, because I left my camera swinging around my neck all night instead of actually taking it out and using it. D'oh!)

Before I get started, if you're planning on going to Crankmob, please have the following:
1. A bike that has been tuned up recently, or at least ridden regularly. Grabbing something with 2 wheels, pumping up the tires, and hoping for the best, is not a strategy for fun, and getting stranded 5-10 miles from your house or car is kind of a drag.
2. A wrench to get your wheels off if you get a flat.
3. Levers to get your tire off your wheel if you get a flat, and back on again.
4. A patch kit to repair your tube when you get a flat.
5. 2 replacement tubes for when your tube turns out to be unpatchable (and an extra for when you destroy your first spare tube).
6. A pump to inflate your tire once it's repaired.

Aside from the bike, these items are CHEAP, and can save you (and probably me, but we'll get to that shortly) substantial amounts of time. (Everybody on crankmob has $ for smart phones and alcohol, but somehow $25 worth of repair kit is extravagant.)

It was enormous, probably 600+ people showed up. We started at Venice Skate Park, and rode down Lincoln to Marina Del Rey, then took the Ballona Creek path out to Mustache Bridge and down to the Dockweiler Beach parking lot.

Here, we were supposed to have Bike Jousting. Richie went all out for this one, towing a bike trailer with kiddie bikes and jousting lances on it, and even getting ZAP from American Gladiators to host it. Seriously. She is one fit lady. (Click the link).

Unfortunately, law enforcement arrived before the jousting got going, and we were dispersed.

So, back up the beach, back across Mustache Bridge, down Lincoln, East on Jefferson, to the Home Depot with its enormous parking lot.

As I arrived, somebody asked if I had a pump, which I did, so I stopped to help. Unfortunately, the tube was destroyed, so I sold him one of my spares. (I know it's good bike karma to give stuff away, but I tend to go through a lot of tubes/patches since other people need them, so I take enough $ to replace them for the next person.) While he was replacing that, another guy rolled up on a flat tire. I sold him a patch kit, and while he fixed his flat, I took a look at his wheel, to see if there was something that could have caused it. There was.

About 10 spokes had been replaced, but replaced with longer spokes, so the ends of the spokes were poking through the spoke nipples. (If you replace spokes, make sure to take the tire/tube/rim tape off, and make sure the replacement spokes do not reach the end of the spoke nipple.) So, while he patched the tube, I went around and loosened 10 or so spokes to move the ends out of harm's way.

Meanwhile, a third guy rides up and asks if he can borrow some pliers. I asked what he wanted them for, and he said to take his wheel off. I said you probably want a wrench, and loaned him one. He said "Thanks, I'll bring it right back" and rode back to his friends down the block.

Meanwhile, the crowd has again been dispersed by the police, and we're left standing on the sidewalk as they rode off to the Costco parking lot.

Then, both guys got their tires on uneventfully, but unfortunately, both then ripped the valves off the tubes as they were pumping them up. (Be gentle with Presta valves and hand pumps. Flats are frustrating enough Two more inner tubes later, and both bikes were ready to g0, and luckily, the rider of the bike with the 10 loose spokes was pretty light, so his wheel stayed remarkably true.

Meanwhile, the guy I'd loaned my wrench to had vanished with his friends.

So we rode off. After one dead-end detour, I cut left on Centinela, and heard a guy call out from the corner gas station. "Hey, you got a tube?" I said "Yes" and looked over and he said "Oh, dude, I've got your pliers, I totally forgot." He got a used tube, I got my wrench back, and we all rolled on from there, me to my home, them to In and Out and their homes.

So, that was my Crankmob. Not exactly the thrills and excitement I usually look forward to, but I got some exercise, got to meet some new folks, and I also got my bike dialled in a little bit better.

When you're an amateur bike mechanic, and a not very small amateur bike mechanic, getting a bike set up for proper comfort and efficiency takes a bit of doing.

Buying a bike from bikesdirect.com is extremely cost efficient, and building a bike from the frame up is a great learning experience (if not a cheap one), but one thing your LBS offers, especially if you pay the extra money to get properly fitted, is a bike that fits.

When you don't get your bike fitted at the bike shop to begin with, there are lots of variables in play. (Many of these are irrelevant if you're fit and normal sized, but if you're neither, they become apparent pretty readily.)

Your seat needs to be at a proper height, angle, and setback over the pedals (your seat needs to be high enough that your legs extend enough for a good pedal stroke, but not so high that your hips rock(Thanks Dmitry!), your handlebars need to be at the proper angle and at a proper height and reach with respect to your saddle position and arm length. On top of all of this, you need the right saddle and handlebars to begin with. So, having swapped my riser bars for a pair of swept back handlebars, and having found my third saddle (a Specialized Sonoma Sport, I HIGHLY recommend this saddle), and having dropped the seatpost and set back the saddle and angled the bars down slightly, I think I've actually gotten a comfortable fit for the bike.

Now I just need to ride it more.

And to buy some more tubes and patch kits and tire levers for the next group ride.

And you probably do too.

Have a good one.

Maybe there's no such thing as an expendable bike (or, why tuning up your bike while out for a ride is a highly worthwhile option).

2009-03-24T00:26:00.000-07:00

I bought a 20+ yr old Ross MTB off of craigslist the other day. I bought it because a) I'd been wanting an old mountain bike with horizontal dropouts to make a single-speed utility bike out of (with horizontal dropouts you don't have to use those ugly chain tensioners), and b) it was $25.

Once I got it home, I took a closer look at it and it was kind of a mess. It had been cobbled together with varying degrees of success. The brake pads don't match, the wheel aren't original (or matching), it's got a 1 piece crank with plastic pedals, the front derailer didn't work, the wheels were out of true, and it weighs about 40 pounds.

So yeah, it's about what you'd expect for a bike you paid $25 for.

It had been sitting in my apartment for a while, but after this weekends threats of bike confiscation, and the ongoing issue with bikes being taken home by someone other than their lawful owners, I thought this might be an ideal "expendable bike", in that I didn't have much in the way of $, blood, sweat, or tears in it, so if anything happened to it, it would be a hassle, but not one that I'd be bummed for weeks about.

So, I took a closer look at it, got the wheels true enough not to rub or squeak, the brakes working well enough to at least slow forward progress, and the front derailer marginally working, and decided to take it out for a spin.

It was a beautiful night tonight. Holy cow. The winds had blown the pollution elsewhere, so the air was clear and you could see stars in the sky, and the temperature was reasonably warm. (Unfortunately I forgot my camera and didn't realize I had the camera on my phone available until there wasn't much interesting scenery.)

So I donned the helmet and riding glasses (these are the greatest things in the world, and everyone should have a pair. If you don't need a dozen, Bikerowave has a few pair available.), took the usual backpack full of gear, and headed out toward Venice Beach.

So how was it?

Pretty slow, as you'd expect a fat-tired 40lb mountain bike to be.

But honestly, you can only blame the bike so much, as any bike will go as fast as the rider can pedal it, and in this case, that wasn't very fast. I'd forgotten how much I tend to dawdle and daydream as I coast along, which you can't really do on a fixed gear.

Tuning up your bike while you ride is definitely an OUTSTANDING option if you've got the tools handy. Working at your home is fun, but it's easy to get distracted and wander off for a snack or see what's on the internet, and working on your bike at your local bike co-op is STUPENDOUS, except that with so many nice people and great tools around, it's easy to get in over your head and decide a frame-up rebuild is really what the bike deserves and that it really won't take that long, only to find your bike still in pieces weeks later.

So I rode out to tune it up as I went, and that was absolutely the right way to go.

Now, tuning your bike at benches at bus stops along Venice Blvd. and along the boardwalk at Venice Beach at 10 or 11 o'clock at night may not be the best option for everyone, but it sure worked for me.

First the derailers started acting up. At one point I threw the chain past the largest chainring, so I had to stop and sort that out, and then the rear derailer wouldn't stay in high gear, so I had to play with the limit screws repeatedly, until I noticed that I had a 7 speed rear cogset. Since I'm pretty sure the bike was a 12 speed originally, that explained why it wouldn't go into the highest gear. So I tightened the limit screw and took that 7th gear out of play, so it was once again a fully functional 12 speed. A few more adjustments to seat height, shifter/brake lever location, etc., and it was good to go.

Venice beach was great. You could stop at a bench under a light and make a few adjustments, pedal a hundred yards or so, stop at another bench under another light and make a few more adjustments, and keep going, repeating the process as necessary.

Once I got to Ocean Park on the bike path, I cut over to Main St. and took that to Abbott Kinney to Venice Blvd. on back home. Two hours to go ten miles or so is nothing to be proud of, but the bike is reasonably well dialed in.

It could use some more substantial attention, but it's good for messing around on right now.

That's exactly what I need.

You hear a LOT of talk about how riding fixed gear is "a zen thing" (48,800 hits on google for the keywords zen fixed gear), but I think the real zen of riding comes from rolling around on a dirt cheap MTB.

If you're trying to practice the Buddhist concepts of "equanimity" and "non-attachment" to material things, that's kind of hard if you're afraid to let your oh-so-zen fixie out of your sight, and find yourself skipping errands by bike because it's such a pain in the ass to properly secure a bicycle (u-lock + cable, etc.), if you want to make sure your wheels and frame are there when you return.

I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot more errands on this bike, as I can't imagine these old parts would be easy to fence.

The pictures above and below are the bike. The difference is that the top one was adjusted using the "picnik" function in flickr. If you haven't checked that out yet, it might be worth your while. Just click the "edit photos" icon.

Have a great week!

Crankmob Gang Warz - Been there, done that (most of it), got the citation for CVC 21106(b).

2009-03-22T02:43:00.001-07:00

First, a warning. Officer P. asked us to pass this along, and since he was a reasonably fair guy, and this is something some of you may want to know about, here it is:

Starting next week, individuals getting pulled over on party rides and cited WILL HAVE THEIR BIKES CONFISCATED.

Next Saturday's All Day Bike Ride / Event is entitled "The Death of Fun", and given the prophetic nature of the last few ride names, it's probably a good time to a) put a little extra effort into riding in a law abiding manner, and b) don't bring a bike you can't live without on a group ride (there are plenty of rideable/nearly rideable mountain bikes on craigslist for less than $100). Obviously, they're not going to confiscate the bike of every violator, but it would be a major drag if it was yours, so common sense may help here.

I'd been pretty ambivalent about attending this month's Crank Mob.

On the one hand, this ride is the biggest party ride in L.A., which probably puts it in contention for the biggest regular party ride anywhere in the states, and a ton of my cycling friends are usually there, so it's usually a pretty great time.

On the other hand, this ride is the biggest party ride in L.A., which means it's a lot like a mobile nightclub with no age restrictions and no bouncers, which means inebriated teenagers, people using the crowd as an outlet for anti-social behavior, and this ride was called Gang Warz, which kinda seemed like a bad idea. With the theft/tagging that's occurred on a number of rides lately, that title just seemed absurd, even if the organizers of the ride intended the "gangs" to be (and for the most part they were) festively costumed pirates, aliens, girls in small leopard print outfits, girls in small non-leopard print outfits, folks with red helmet mohawks, '50s greasers, etc., etc., etc.

So I rolled out to Crankmob Park where a couple of hundred people had gathered. After shooting the breeze for a bit and helping a few folks make some last minute adjustments, we gathered behind Alec on a tall bike, and made our way around Culver City and up Robertson and La Cienega to Hollywood. Alec on his tall bike, and Richie on his taller bike, Kabuki Sky, brought joy to the masses. It's amazing how excited people get about seeing a tall bike. There was one group of little kids standing out on the sidewalk who absolutely LOVED seeing Kabuki Sky roll by.

After a while, we got to the first stop, Pan Pacific Park:

This was the first gathering point, as the ride outgrew it's previous starting point on Sawtelle in West L.A., so people rode in groups from various parts of the city and gathered here.

Lots and lots of people showed up.

There was a live band, jump rope, and fun was had by all. After a while, we got back on our bikes and headed off for what should have been a fairly short jaunt to the next stop. Unfortunately, I was in the back half of the group, so by the time we got toward the Ralph's which was our destination, someone who had arrived earlier had apparently decided not to pay for his items, and caused the police to be dispatched. (Apparently one of the ride organizers helped apprehend the thief. WELL DONE SIR.)

Lots of police were dispatched.

Who, by strategically blocking intersections directed the group out of West Hollywood and up toward actual Hollywood.

Then we headed East on Hollywood Blvd., which was pretty much a total fiasco.

Poorly corked/run intersections, irate motorists, cyclists not used to riding in groups, made for a BIG mess. I tried to time the intersections so I entered them on a green light, but with a group of close to 1,000 cyclists, some of the motorists were getting impatient, especially if they'd waited through the previous few lights and were trying to make a left turn.

We continued over the 101 on Hollywood Blvd. through Thai Town, and shortly after passing through an intersection, one I'd tried to enter on a green light, despite dozens and dozens of people in front of me who'd completely blown it, I heard an engine revving and a voice saying "Pull over!" "Pull over!" "All six of you pull over!"

I pulled over. One young woman didn't stop as quickly, and the patrol car swerved next to her, and the officer in the passenger seat flung his door open and she slowed down but still ran into it. (This officer was a rookie, I'm guessing (hoping), and like rookie cops in the movies, he'll be providing the comic relief in this scene.)

So we sat on the curb, as directed, while the driver, Officer P. called for backup, and explained to us that this ride had been causing major problems (14 service calls so far, 2 car accidents, and according to what he'd heard over the radio, some people had started breaking windows.) He also explained that he COULD cite us all for reckless driving, or running a red, but WOULD be citing us for CVC 21106(b), which is basically a jaywalking ticket (jaycycling?), and would be substantially cheaper and would not be a moving violation / affect our car insurance. He also explained that his superiors had been encouraging confiscation of bikes, and that we should be aware that bike confiscations by the police will begin in earnest over the next few weeks.

So, while he was explaining this to us, his partner (the assumed rookie) had apparently become convinced that these evening group bicycle rides were the expression of some sinister anarchist cabal, and began asking us questions like "Are you guys anarchists?" and "Did you guys like that movie "V for Vendetta"? Pretty good movie huh?"

Now, in dealing with law enforcement, I generally find the best plan to be quiet and contrite, but this guy was really making it tough. I may be a lot of things (I was called "Mr. Wrench Guy" and "Fatass" on this ride alone (by a fellow rider and a surly pedestrian respectively), but an anarchist I most certainly am not. (If this officer were seriously looking for those out to undermine local government, he could probably start with the mayor's office and the city council, who have made this city an absolute laughingstock. Some of the worst public schools in the country, the most economically segregated city in the country, and the home of fewer Fortune 500 companies than any number of tiny burgs, and a hundred some million dollar budget deficit. Talk about damaging to the city's future, good grief.)

Meanwhile, an LAPD helicopter was making big circles a mile or so away, presumably where the rest of the riders were.

After a few minutes, Officer P. began handing out citations, except for one guy, who apparently had 2 outstanding warrants worth some $80,000 bail according to the officer; he was cuffed and placed in the back of the squad car. (Not to self, going to group rides with outstanding warrants is probably not a good plan. (Nor is HAVING outstanding warrants in the first place, but I digress.)) Meanwhile some random cyclist came riding up on the sidewalk, ignored the officers direction to go around us, and found himself cited for riding on the sidewalk (which I believe is legal in Los Angeles), and not having a front light on his bike (which is not), but basically was cited for having a bad attitude, as he treated the cop like a friend he disagreed with, more or less "dude, ok, whatever" which is rarely a good plan.

So I signed my citation, got my copy, grabbed my bike, and rode on home. I suppose I could have caught up with the group, but I was pretty much done, so I turned down a side street and headed homeward.

Caught Santa Monica and had a nice ride through East/West Hollywood, saw people out for a fun evening, hookers, transvestites, transvestite hookers, and a surprising number of my fellow crankmobbers, who kept turning up at random intervals, which was pretty cool.

Santa Monica's not a bad ride, and there's a bike lane for some parts of it, so I took it from East of the 101 all the way to Sepulveda, then down Sepulveda back to Palms.

So notes for next time:
Bring an expendable bike.
Obey the law extra-carefully.
Be respectful to law enforcement if you have to talk to them, they might cut you a break.

I swear, I am having absolutely no luck getting my miles ridden / dollars spent ratio into positive territory.

Between the ridiculous pink fixie that got out of hand, my lack of riding recently, this citation, and now the $ I'm going to have to spend getting the 20+yr old MTB I bought for $25 the other day up and running so I don't have to cry if it gets taken (lawfully or un), I'd better start putting in the miles.

It WAS a beautiful night though, and I got in 20+ miles and made it home safely, so I really can't complain.

In closing, I leave you with Jon LaJoie's latest song. It's a little more philosophical than his previous work, so enjoy.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Madoff and the Scraper Bike

2009-03-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

If you've been following the news recently, you've probably seen that Bernard Madoff will plead guilty Friday.

Now, for those of you who have not been following this saga, Bernard Madoff is perhaps the most successful thief of the last century (in terms of amount stolen, obviously, not in terms of never getting caught), and perhaps one of the most successful of all time, what with having set up a $64.8 BILLION dollar Ponzi Scheme.

It was a pretty slick operation.
1. Gain a reputation as a successful investor with your own trading/investment management firm.
2. Cultivate an air of exclusivity, restrict access and reveal little about your operations.
3. Have a nice office and do philanthropic work to improve your public image.
4. Continue seeking investors, while making them feel like they're lucky to be able to work with you.
5. Pocket their money instead of investing it while sending out statements suggesting unusually good returns.
7. Continue for 20 years, and make $64.8 billion of your investors' money disappear.

$64,800,000,000.

That's a lot of money. So far, two investors have committed suicide, and countless others have seen their comfortable retirement prospects vanish. When you make a Holocaust surviving Nobel Peace Prize winner start having punishment fantasies about you, that's a bad sign.

I've got to wonder how Madoff's going to be feeling tomorrow, since he'll plead guilty and most likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

Will he be miserable? Or will he feel a sense of calm, since he no longer has to deal with pretending to be the friend of the people he was stealing from, but can spend his old age as a convicted felon, being fed, housed, clothed and doctored courtesy of the government.

That desire of getting something for nothing is a killer.

Madoff wasn't the only one who had it either, he just had a worse case of it than most of us.

But that greed had been pretty widespread.

Right now, we're facing an economic crisis unlike any ever seen in our lifetime, because a whole spectrum of society decided to discard basic economics and common sense, and instead believe that real estate is MAGIC.

Watch this movie if you want to get a sense of how things went wrong:

A lot of people got greedy, and now we're all stuck with the bill.

So what's the alternative?

Having fun with what you've got.

Like the Trunk Boiz. If a custom car is too much for you, you don't have to get up to your eyeballs in debt, you can customize a ride you can afford.

Sure, fancy cars and big houses are awesome, but there's a lot to be said for living within your means and building from there.

That "Scraper Bike" song?

I'm movin' on my scraper bike
I'm cruisin' on my scraper bike
My scraper bike go hard
I don't need no car

Kinda ridiculous? Kinda like what you'd expect from some bored kids having fun on a budget?

Yeah.

Now they've got merchandise.

And a ring tone.

And an NPR story.

And Madoff's going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Live within your means, build from there, don't get greedy, win.

It's pretty simple, really.

The ridiculous pink fixie part 5, all done - time to ride.

2009-03-07T23:27:00.001-08:00

So, after a couple of months at the powdercoater, and a couple of weeks waiting on parts, the ridiculous pink fixie, aka the Telemagenta Traveler, is complete.

What started as a $20 frame and a $7 stem and a rough draft on pedalmafia,

became a better version on pedalmafia,

and, after the application of a nice coat of pink powdercoat, and several hundreds of dollars worth of parts and accessories, is finally complete.

If you're going to do a project like this, it helps to shop around and to have access to a bike co-op/collective. The total budget on this bike was about $560, from the initial frame to the final bolts, including the free shop time and a significant discount on a number of the parts. You can spend a lot more if you want (if the link gets flagged/removed, it was a Soma Rush fixie going for $1750. Seriously.), or you can spend significantly less and get a Mercier/Motobecane from bikesdirect.com, or do a fixie conversion on a budget. While some might say that spending that much on a high-ten-framed fixie conversion is absurd, I think the education and the finished product were well worth it.

It really is nice, if I do say so myself.

The old Schwinn frame, while not as strong or as light as the chromoly currently in use on most bikes today, has an outstanding ride quality. It's not as stiff, and the 46x16 gearing seems a lot more user-friendly than the 48x16 I'd been riding.

I'm still dialing it in to get it as comfortable and well-fitting as possible, but it's been tremendous fun so far.

Now I've just got to ride this ridiculous thing on a regular basis, and stop thinking about the steampunk themed bike with carbide lamps for headlights and lots of brass fittings that I want to build next.

The ridiculous pink fixie part 4, pedals, brake lever, wheels, chain, etc. and finishing the build.

2009-03-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

So, once you've got the crank on, it's time to install the pedals.

One most bikes, the left pedal is reverse threaded, so when you install the pedals, remember to screw the threads on the pedals toward the front of the bike, and remember that you have left and right pedals.

(This is important, because your pedal threads are usually steel, and your crank is usually aluminum, and screwing your pedals in the wrong way, or screwing in a pedal on the wrong side can ruin the threads on that crank, which can mean a trip to the bike shop to have the threads re-tapped, or worse, to buy a new crank.)

I got these pedals at L.A. Bicycles on Hoover down by USC for a pretty decent deal (Origin 8 pedals and riser bars and a cog and lockring for $60), but while I was installing them, I noticed something funny:

(Apparently Origin 8's a subsidiary of/supplied by Wellgo. Who knew? They're pretty decent pedals though.)

Once the pedals were on, it was time to install the wheels.

I got the wheels from Bell's Bike Shop in Philadelphia, and Steve, the owner, is a really good guy.

The wheel's didn't even need truing, which was awesome. They were a little more scratched than I'd expected, so I sent him a couple of pics, and he apologized, and said they should never have been sent, and offered a brand new replacement set, or a discount for the set I got. I asked him for a set of Space Straps instead, and he agreed and I should have them in my PO Box.

So if you're looking for a good set of wheels, well-built, at a great price, from a place that offers great customer service, I recommend Bell's Bike Shop

Since the wheels were true, all I had to do was install the cog and lock ring,

put the rim strip on, install the tires, tubes, and Mr. Tuffy Wheel Liners, add air, and the wheels were good to go.

Then it was time for handlebars and the brake lever. (When installing handlebars, make sure you use bar end caps, as otherwise you can really injure yourself if you fall. The term "core sample" is often used.)

I got a snazzy Goldfinger brake lever, which unfortunately was not well sized for my handlebars, but some less than snazzy used inner tube made a nice shim.

Then it was time to cut a length of brake cable housing, put ferrules on each end, and set it in place.

Then run the new brake cable, and make sure to properly align the brake pads against the machined surface.

(Move them up, in this case.)

Then adjust the brake cable to ensure a snug fit, trim the brake cable, add another ferrule to keep the cable from untangling, and you've got the brake installed.

(I only installed a front brake, as the front brake does 90% of the braking, and with a fixed gear, your legs can act as a rear brake. Having a front brake on a fixed gear is a really good idea, as you can stop more quickly with a brake. Also, chains can occasionally snap, so if the chain is your only brake, that can pose a problem.)

At this point, installing the chain was about the only thing left to do.

Trim the chain to size with the chain tool, add the master link (seen faintly on the stool) to lock everything in place, and that's pretty much it.

The ridiculous pink fixie, part 3, fork/headset/crank/ installation, and the goofups that ensued.

2009-03-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

OK,I'm going to skip the fork/headset instructions, as after looking at the Park Tools instructions, I installed my headset bearings upside down "The open side of the ball retainer should face the cone shaped race, not the cup shaped race."

I thought it was smoother with the bearings facing the cups, but I goofed, so follow the instructions when you do this. The proper Park Tools Instructions are here - http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=127

UPDATE 3/23/09 - After further discussion/disassembly/reassembly, it looks as thoug the open side of the ball retainer does in fact face the cups on this particular old Schwinn. I tried it both ways, and it was a mess to do it per the instructions, as the bearings felt completely wrong. After discussion with Bikerowave manager and guru Steve Mattson, it was pretty clear that I'd done it right the first time.

Here's how it looked once I got it done.

With the stem installed.

Then it was time to chase and face the bottom bracket. This is done with a bottom bracket chaser.

To chase your bottom bracket threads, look at the tool, figure out which side is left and right, then put the tool back together through your bottom bracket, like so:

Then, put a tray underneath the bottom bracket, squirt a little cutting fluid,

and, assuming you're using a standard threaded bottom bracket, turn the handles on each side toward the back of the bike (the right side of the bottom bracket is reverse threaded).

Then, replace the thread chasing implement with the facing cutter and remove the paint/powdercoat around the edge of your bottom bracket so your bottom bracket will fit smoothly.

It should end up looking something like this:

Now, you get to install the bottom bracket.

This one is a Shimano UN-54, which is more or less the standard square taper bottom bracket if you're looking for good quality and value. If you're making a conversion, you can try using your existing bottom bracket, but if you're going to be using a new crank, and you're building a fixie, you should probably get the right size bottom bracket for that crank, so your chainline will be straight. In this case, I need a 107mm bottom bracket. (This is the width of the spindle, the bottom bracket shell itself is usually 68mm for road bikes, 73mm for mountain bikes, measure BEFORE you buy.)

To install the bottom bracket, put the bottom bracket in the shell, hand tighten the cups on each side, find the right sized bottom bracket tool,

and wrench the cups down snugly, but not so snugly that they interfere with the smooth rotation of the spindle.

Once you've got your bottom bracket installed, it's time to install the crank. On a standard square taper, this is a simple matter of tightening down a crank nut on each side, or with this bottom bracket, tightening down a crank bolt on each side.
(Note, when doing this, please don't hang on to your bottom bracket tool while you're using an allen wrench, or you may be happily cranking down on your crank bolt, only to hear an awkward grating sound as the bottom bracket tool scrapes a nice gouge out of your beautiful blue anodizing, only millimeters away from the tape that was protecting your crank.)

Ouch. Luckily that's the sort of thing you're not going to notice easily, and aluminum doesn't rust, so it's not really a concern. Once installed, the cranks look pretty good.

And on the seventh day, there was no rest, for there was CRANKMOB.

2009-02-22T03:05:00.000-08:00

(The spoke card, which you had to wear a costume to get.)

The ride of the month was tonight, and it was tremendous!

I showed up late, as I had to deal with a flat, and then with a crank that was making a weird elliptical motion and needed the crankbolt tightened substantially, and for once, the ride had left reasonably close to the starting time, as opposed to operating on "bike time", which is anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes after the actual time.

The organizer(s) had been nice enough to post the route online, so I headed up to Santa Monica Blvd. to go looking for them, and after a few minutes, I saw several hundred cyclists headed my way, so I pulled a U-turn. We headed East on Santa Monica, and at the freeway, a bunch of people started yelling "Freeway!" "Freeway!", and I saw Richie, pulling the sound trailer, pause, briefly weigh the triumph that would be 600+ cyclists blinking their way down the 405 vs. the horror that would ensue if any of the 3,000-8,000lb vehicles moving at 60-85mph made contact with even a tiny percentage of those 600+ cyclists, and continue on Santa Monica to Sepulveda, which we took South to the Albertsons at Palms & Sepulveda. Music was played, fire was shot into the air, fun was had by all.

They tolerated us until, as I heard it, a couple of folks decided not to pay for the things they wanted, at which point they locked the doors, and, eventually, the police came and invited us to move along.

From there, it was off to a warehouse party down La Cienega just south of Washington, so we had a nice ride through downtown Culver City then along Venice Blvd., where I ran into E-rock, who had made a day of cycling, from West L.A., out to Pasadena to watch the Tour of California arrive, and back, for a total of something like 92 miles. Knocking out centuries for kicks on the weekend, then going on Crankmob? That's pretty awesome. (For the record, Levi Leipheimer's in the lead, Lance Armstrong's in 6th place, going in to Sunday's finish.)

On our way down La Cienega, I noticed the driver of an SUV getting into an argument with a couple of people, but rode along to the stop. While milling around, Alex Thompson mentioned that some guy (Joel) had had his bike damaged by the SUV, and needed help fixing it. Fellow Bikerowaver Larry H. and I wandered over to see what we could do. It was a bit of a mess, the wheel had been tacoed in such a manner that the derailer hanger had bent and forced the derailer into the spokes. We took the wheel off, and Joel's friend Dave wedged the wheel between a wall and a parking lot post and bent it into a semblance of true, and Larry took a spoke wrench and got it even straighter, while Joel and Dave unbent the derailer hanger, at which point we were able to put the wheel back on the bike, loosen the rear brake cable, and get Joel riding again. It's awesome how much can be fixed on a bicycle with a few simple tools and a little patience. (Being stranded in random parts of L.A. is miserable, so bring the stuff that will keep you from getting stranded. Oh, and pull your bike out of harm's way BEFORE arguing with irrational SUV drivers.)

We were a little concerned about doing TOO good a job actually, since the police still had to take a report about the incident. The arrival of the police was interesting, as while one officer was taking the report, and saying that the incident would be considered a "hit and run" since the driver refused to provide any of his information, the other officer was calling for backup and insisting that cyclists without a headlight walk their bikes and even detaining one kid for being out after curfew. (Yup, if you weren't aware, Los Angeles has a curfew.)

Backup arrived and insisted that we disperse, so my experience with this particular warehouse party was that it was a halfway decent place to do quick-fix bike repairs, more than that, I sadly cannot tell you.

Then, there was more riding, another stop, this time at a 7-11,

and then we went to the roof of a nearby major electronics retailer,

which was the last stop of the evening.

(Another pink bike.)

After a little while of hanging out there, it was time to wander home.

The big party rides are amazing. Tremendous fun is had by almost everyone, and the commercialism is nil. Even most of the stores we stop at, and probably boost sales at SIGNIFICANTLY for the evening, would prefer that we NOT be there. Want to see how people are dealing with an economy that's in the toilet? Come along, and see how much fun you can have without spending a dime.

It's going to be interesting to see how the rides grow, especially as summer comes.

How can you argue with a free party for 500+ people with great music, friendly people, and the chance to ride your bicycle all over West L.A.?

You can't, so come along to next month's ride.

Or, if you want to get started sooner, there are lots more rides here - http://midnightridazz.com/events.php

The Ride With No Name - 2-20-2009

2009-02-21T02:12:00.000-08:00

The Ride With No Name was tonight, and, as usual, it was a pretty solid and well organized ride.

For a route described as "virtually all flat", there were a surprising number of hills. But, since I didn't have to get off and walk at any point, I suppose I can't complain too loudly. (46x16 seems to be a pretty ideal gearing for me, as I'm having a much easier time of it than riding 48x16). Going down steep downhills on a fixed gear with just a front brake is going to take some getting used to though.

The ride starts in the Arts District, and today we went over the bridge and did a tour of East L.A. I don't spend much time there, so it was interesting to see the area. Between the brand new police precincts, the light-rail lines, and the brick cobblestone crosswalks, it looks like the City of L.A. has spent a fair bit on improving the infrastructure. Between the civic upgrades and Chief Bratton's continued success lowering crime rates, if it wasn't for the real estate market being in the worst slump of the modern era, East L.A. would be a fat gentrification target (so some would say it's just as well).

We wandered through East L.A., then found ourselves at a 7-11 in Monterey Park:

A Monterey Park squad car stopped by, the officers asked us if we were with the Midnight Riders, rolled slowly through the parking lot, and went on their way.

That was sort of the theme for the evening. Unlike other rides in other parts of town, which sometimes have bicycle/motorcycle/squad car/helicopter police paying close attention, the attitude of the police on this ride was one of bemused curiosity.

Then we wandered back over the bridge and called it a night.

Tomorrow's crankmob, so rest up everyone.

The ridiculous pink fixie, part 2 - seatpost and front brake installation

2009-02-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

So finally the frame came back, and after much searching and much patience (already honed by the November - January wait for the frame), all the parts were in, and I was ready to start building.

I'm going to try to make this as informative as possible (it may get rainmanian in some sections, and I'll include sourcing for parts as well, so if you already know how to work on bikes, you may be pretty bored. I'm including a parts list in here in case anybody wants to do something similar, so you can ballpark your budget beforehand. (Some parts are expensive, but buying parts you're not happy with and then replacing them with the parts you did want costs even more.)

I ended up spending a fair bit more than I had planned for what was intended, more or less, as a joke bike. (I spend some time working at the local bike co-op, so the member discount kept things from getting COMPLETELY out of hand). Luckily it turned out nice enough and is so pleasant to ride that it was worth it. I spent less than I would have on an entry-level fixie from one of the local bike shops, like a Specialized Langster / Giant Bowery / KHS Flite 100 (to name the ones that Wheel World sells, but a fair bit more than the fixed gear offerings at Bikes Direct .)

Protip 1. - If building up a fixed gear from an existing bike, start with as complete a bike as possible. The stupid nickel and dime items really add up, and mostly they're not anything to get excited about purchasing.

Protip 2. - If you just want a cheap fixie, you can build one pretty cheaply with a garage sale / craigslist 10 speed, a track rear wheel, and the right sized cog. If you get a 27" track wheel (they are available), you can keep the 27" wheelset if that's what the bike has, which lets you keep the existing brakes as well. You may need to buy some spacers / reposition the chainring on the crank to straighten the chainline out, but it's doable. (This is to do it safely. DO NOT just screw a track cog on to an old freewheel hub without a counter-threaded lockring, JB weld it in place, and hope for the best, that's just stupid.)

Protip 3. -You will also need tools or access to tools. If there's a bike co-op near you (L.A. has the Bicycle Kitchen, the Bike Oven, and the Bikerowave (where this was built), that really helps, otherwise, add room in your budget for purchasing tools. (Fixies are too easy to build to let the LBS wrenches have all the fun). Bike co-ops are awesome. If you volunteer, you get free stand time to build your bikes, and you'll meet fellow volunteers who consistently bring in really classy rides that they've modified to suit their tastes, that make you want to build something to suit your tastes as well. (Steve M. and Kwang P. set a very good example for me. Thanks guys.)

Seatpost

So let's begin. You start with the frame (1982 Schwinn Traveler, according to the original paint and the stamp on the dropout, designed for 27" wheels), the seatpost, the seat, and of course, the seatpost bolt (which is the first of those little things that wouldn't have to be purchased had you bought a complete bike).

If you've bought the frame without a seatpost, use a set of calipers to measure the inside diameter of the seat tube and/or google the make/model/year of your bike and see if one of the bike forums has already discussed it. (In this case, a 1982 Schwinn Traveler takes a 25.8mm seatpost). Do not just force a seatpost in, as you can sometimes get an oversized seatpost halfway in by brute force/hammering, and then the seatpost tube can begin to bulge and buckle, which is bad.

Put the seat on the seatpost, the seatpost bolt into the frame (if your bike has one, some have seatpost collars, lube the bejeezus out of the seatpost, insert it to a ballpark height, and tighten the seatpost bolt. Lots of lube makes it easier to insert the seatpost, but also adds something of a barrier to keep water from coming into the seatpost. (In the case of this bike, it originally came with a smaller seatpost and a shim to account for imperfections in manufacture, so some sanding/filing was also required, but gobs of lithium grease really helped).

Now you should put the bike on a stand (if you've got one) by clamping the seatpost (since the seatpost is both very substantial and cheap to replace, which cannot be said of any of the tubing on your frame).

Front Brake

There will be lots of links to Sheldon Brown's website in this part.

You need brakes on any bike. On a fixed gear, even though you can slow/stop with your legs, you need at least a front brake.

Why the front? Because.

Even on a fixed gear? Yes.

But I can stop as quickly by skidding. Unless the laws of physics work differently for you, no you can't. Plus, if your chain snaps (a not impossible occurrence), a brake is an infinitely preferable option to Ted Shredding it to a stop or colliding with something.

In this case, the bike was built for 27" (630mm) wheels, and I replaced them with more modern 700c (622mm) wheels. The difference in the tire radius is only 4mm, so some brakes would be able to adjust that much. Since I didn't have brakes, I measured the reach I'd need by putting a sample 700c rim in the fork and measuring from the middle of the brake bolt hole in the fork to the rim. I measured approximately 60mm, which is longer than most readily available brakes can reach.

If you're doing a conversion of a 27" frame using 700c wheels and want to run a brake, you have 4 main options:
1. Luck out and find that your existing brakes have a range of adjustment that covers the new wheels.
2. Buy a 700c fork and use that, accepting that it may affect the geometry of the whole frame slightly.
3. Rummage through the used parts bin at your local bike co-op until you find something that fits.
4. The Tektro R556 .

I went with Option 4. The Tektro R556 is pretty much THE standard for a new brake if you're converting a 27" frame to use 700c tires.

In order to install this front brake on a 27" fork, it's best to drill out the hole in the back of the fork with a 5/16" bit, because it matches up well with the recessed nut for the brake.

First put on your safety glasses:

Put the fork in a vise or hold it steady, then drill through the existing hole. (If the fork does not already have a hole, and it's the original fork, take a look at the bike and make sure it's not something that's worth more in its original condition.)

Sweep up the metal shavings, then install the brake by tightening down the recessed nut you've just made room for.

Looks pretty good.

So, now we've got a frame with a front brake and a seat.

Parts tally so far:
Frame - 25" 1982 Schwinn Traveler (25" = 63.5cm! No wonder it felt a little big once I got it together and rode it.)
Seatpost - Ultracycle 25.8mm silver
Seatpost Binder Bolt - generic
Saddle - Forte Softail
Brake - Tektro R556

We'll move on to installing the fork, headset, stem, and maybe more next time.

Have a good one.

The ridiculous pink fixie, part 1.

2009-02-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

A few months back, I bought a rusty old (1982) Schwinn Traveler frame from the Bikerowave for $20. It looked like this:

Then, after doing the math, I put it on the shelf for a while and bought a fixed gear from bikesdirect.com

But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to build a bike from the frame up, so when Bikerowave got a group together in November for a powdercoating trip, I thought this would be a good time to get started, so I dremeled off/filed down the braze-ons (because I don't like them on fixed gear bikes, and it's not like there's going to be a shortage of old high-ten Schwinn frames any time soon, so the collectors have plent of of other options), and sent it off to the powdercoaters for a delightful shade of bright pink.

I chose pink because pink brings joy and hilarity by its very appearance, as Pinkman has proven.
(I used to see this guy when I went to Berkeley, and he's a bringer of joy to the general public.)

Then someone sent me a link to the PedalID site where you can design your own bikes, and I started with this:

Of course, since we went to an industrial powdercoaters out in El Monte, they didn't have "Telemagenta" in stock. Neither did their distributor. So they had to have it shipped in from out of state.

So, in the weeks it took for them to locate the right color, I ended up screwing around on Pedal ID even more, and ended up with this:

That looked pretty cool, so I ordered up the necessary parts to make it a reality.

We'll see how that turned out in the next post.

Go Vegan!

2009-01-27T20:31:00.001-08:00

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad

That is all.

Fun Sunday

2009-01-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

So it's been a pretty good week.

I finally got my frame back from the powdercoaters, and that will be the subject of future posts once I get all the necessary parts to assemble it properly. (This will require lots of internet purchases, since finding the right parts at the right price in stock is kind of a battle.) What was supposed to be a reasonably low budget build has gotten into regular priced fixie territory. But like I said, this will be the subject of future posts.

Today I finally got on my bike and actually rode to brunch with friends in Santa Monica instead of driving. I need to do that more often, as the weather was wonderful, and the ride was really mellow. Bikes actually CAN serve as a useful means of transportation, they're not just toys for mobile parties. (Although they are AWESOME in that capacity as well.)

But anyway, I ran across two pretty kickass things today I thought I'd share with you all.

The first is a video with Mike Rowe from the TV show Dirty Jobs talking about work. It's about 20 minutes, but well worth your time.

If you want to see the lamb "docking" video he refers to, it's here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QErgjt_GYBk

Then, today when I was at the laundromat, I saw a V-8 commercial featuring 80-something Frances Woofenden. She kicks ass.

80+ and doing tricks on waterskis?

Next time I feel too tired to pedal somewhere I really should, I'm going to think of Frances.

You're never too old to learn a new way to have fun.

Crankmob 1-17-2008 - Hills, Spills, the LAPD, etc.

2009-01-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

Last night was Crankmob, and it was pretty awesome!

I've been recovering from a bad cold for weeks now, and was prepared to call it an early night, but my buddy Eddie ignored my call in which I explained I was going to skip it this month and called back half an hour later asking "When should I be at your house?"

Since I was feeling tired and lazy and hadn't ridden my mountain bike in a while, I figured I'd take that. Holy cow was that a good idea! Going from a fixed gear bike with 23mm tires and a racing seat to a many-geared mountain bike with a front suspension, 1.5" tires, and a gel seat was like going from sleeping on the floor to a king-size waterbed. It was an especially wise choice since there were lots and lots of random hills thrown in this time. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera,

So many people showed up to this ride (400-600 people). It was great to see so many familiar faces and so many friendly new ones. The heat wave we've had recently really makes for great night-riding.

We started out at Sawtelle and LaGrange as usual, rode around West L.A. and Brentwood for a bit, where I saw the first spectacular spill of the night as a guy cut a corner too tightly, braked to hard too avoid a car stopped in the oncoming lane, spun his rear wheel out and did a 360 degree spin. He was OK, got back up, and continued riding. While riding in Westwood, we ran into the 5-0 for the first time that evening. Everyone was going through an intersection, when a cop flipped his lights and siren on. We started yelling for everyone to stop, and the group that hadn't entered the intersection yet waited. The squad car raced into the middle of the intersection, parked diagonally in the oncoming lane, and the officer got out of his car, lost his cool, and began yelling over the intercom about the importance of obeying the lights. The lecture was more or less preaching to the choir, as everyone who'd run the intersection against the light was off on their way, while those of us who were all for letting emergency vehicles have as much room to maneuver as possible were still there behind the entrance to the intersection.

We made our first stop at the park behind the Federal Building, and this was pretty cool. I spent most of this stop fixing a flat on Jordan's tacoed wheel, which I pinch-flatted in the process and had to patch twice. Courage stopped to help and she did this cool trick with the tire levers that made it way easy to get the tire bead off the rim, which was awesome. I got distracted by being hugged by Tarsis, who looked smokin' in a French Maid outfit, which was great, and by a giant inflatable soccerball which would land with a loud thud every few seconds, which was not so great. I also learned that a dollar bill, or a piece of a cardboard cigarette pack, can provide a temporary fix to a blown tire sidewall, which came in handy. Fixing the tacoed wheel had to wait for the next stop, so I just undid the rear brake. (The front brake provides 70-80% of the stopping power, so the rear brake is basically an assist/backup anyway.) The tacoed wheel didn't bother Jordan much, as he rode his bike with no hands most of the way to the next stop. At the next stop, we got the wheel a little straighter with the help of a handy spoke wrench, but the cops moved us along before we could get the brake back on.

Spoke wrenches, especially multi-size spoke wrenches, are pretty much a must-have item. For $4-$8, you get a tool that can help you get a wheel straightened out in a matter of minutes, and take your wheels from unrideable / minimally rideable to almost perfect.

If you haven't been on a major group ride before, and are looking for a general idea of what to bring in terms of essential/repair gear, here's a brief list of the helpful stuff:

Lights (a white headlight is legally required in L.A.)
Spare batteries
Tubes (bring several)
Patch kit(s)
Tire levers
Pump
Adjustable crescent wrench
15mm combination wrench (if you've got a fixie (this may be 14-16mm, check your axle bolts))
Allen wrenches / multi-tool
A small pair of pliers
A spoke wrench
A chain-breaker.

You can go far beyond this in terms of additional tools that might come in handy, but with that selection you can easily fix 95-99% of basic maintenance issues that come up while riding, and aside from the lights tubes and pump, all those tools can fit in a pretty small bag. (Bring enough gear to keep yourself (and others) out of trouble, ride safe, and don't steal or shoplift, and you'll be welcome on almost any ride.)

So, to get back to the ride, we were hanging out in a massive parking lot, people were dancing, having fun, doing tricks, and generally having a good time, when the LAPD again appeared (with helicopter no less), came over the loudspeaker to declare us "an unlawful assembly" and giving us 5 minutes to disperse. Exactly how an assembly can be unlawful, given that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble" is beyond me, but not something I had any interest in discussing, so I dispersed.

Then we rode around and ended up in Rancho Park, where more hanging out, having fun, dancing, etc. occurred until again the LAPD invited us to move along, so we rode out and ended up at the Century City 7-11. I watched a couple of guys get into a shoving match, and watched an ENORMOUS dude that I'd never seen before start yelling "Hug it out!", and that seems like a pretty good way to intervene.

The cops again appeared, and this time, since it was about 2:30, and since we were about a mile from the starting point, I decided to call it a night. (This night was a little law enforcement heavy, but aside from the one cop who lost his cool at the beginning of the evening (and who was much calmer when we saw him at the 7-11 at the end of the night), they were as friendly and professional as you'd hope they would be.)

Ride safe, and come out to the next one next month!

(If you can't wait that long, hit Taco Tuesdays on Tuesday, or check the calendar on www.midnightridazz.com).

Half an Order of Taco Tuesdays.

2009-01-06T22:48:00.000-08:00

Today was the first Taco Tuesdays Ride of 2009.

It was the classic Taco Tuesdays Route, out the Ballona Creek Path to Mustache Bridge, back to the Marina Del Rey Ralphs, out to the jetty, up to the Mini Pier, and back down Washington to Cinco De Mayo.

Or so I was told. I made it to the first stop, and decided that it was best to bail after the Mustache Bridge stop and cruise on back home, so I could catch up on some sleep and be functional at work tomorrow. XL was under the weather (although he did meet us at the start to hand out kick-ass spoke cards), and Richard was AWOL, so Cesar was in charge tonight.

All in all, there was a pretty decent turnout for a chilly Tuesday.

My buddy Eddie S. came out on his trusty Dawes fixie.

I have got to learn how to take better nighttime photographs.

I have also got to learn how to ride at night better, especially downhill. I'm slower than molasses downhill, and that's no good.

My opinion about bike paths has been changing lately. I used to think they were the be all end all for cycling, but at night, between the light traffic, and the quantity of streetlights, riding on the streets is the way to go.

Taco Tuesdays is awesome! Hopefully I can make it to the next one.

Get well soon XL!

A Not So Lazy Sunday

2009-01-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

Today, I went for a ride with my friend Lindsay, and it could not have been a nicer day for a bike ride. It was one of those rides where just about everything went perfectly (except for the one stale green I went through, not realizing she was further back than I thought, which made for a little more excitement than necessary).

We started just West of the 405, and headed out toward Santa Monica Pier. If you live in the area, Iowa Ave. is definitely the way to go, as it's a lot more mellow than Santa Monica or Wilshire. It was sort of a highlights of the beach by bike ride, so from the Santa Monica Pier, we went down the bike path along the beach to the Venice Boardwalk, to the Venice Pier, to Marina Del Rey, to Mustache Bridge, and then turned around and came back.

It was about 20 miles total, plus another 8 miles from my place to hers, and 28 miles on a fixie after finishing last night's ride at 2AM meant I was pretty much done. It is getting easier to ride though. If I can just figure out how to go down hills fast without getting spun out and/or scaring the bejeezus out of myself, I'll be all set.

I did get a few decent pics. (If you can't afford photoshop but want to edit your photos using something more effective than MS Paint, you may want to download GIMP. It's pretty awesome.)

Guard Shack

Getty Center

Panoramic Shot from Venice Pier. (Canon's PhotoStitch software is awesome! You just take a few pics moving from left to right or vice versa, and it puts them together for you.)

Completely gratuitous bike shot.

Have a good one!

Imachynna Syndrome and the Importance of Proper Bicycle Maintenance.

2009-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

So, I was sitting at my computer Sat. AM, thinking about a blog post for Friday's SMCM, and feeling kinda ranty because I'd missed a chunk of the ride helping people fix stuff on their bikes. (Thanks David F. for helping me find the group again). As I was about to start ranting about why people choose to go on rides without bringing a well-maintained bike and the proper gear, I heard a noise that sounded like PHUT! HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! coming from my bike. I looked over, and my front tube had popped, which, since it was a slime tube, meant that part of my carpet was now covered in lovely green goo.

Apparently, the tiny tear in my sidewall had allowed the tube to weaken and rupture, so before I could start talking smack about other people's poor maintenance habits, it was time for a trip to the bike store for a new slime tube and a new front tire so I could do some maintenance of my own. Funny how life keeps you humble that way.

But Sat. P.M. it was time for the Imachynna Syndrome ride, hosted by Chynna, aka Imachynna, aka The Tiny Giant. She did an awesome job. (Posting your phone number on the ride announcement is a great idea for anyone leading rides, as it makes it a lot easier to catch up.)

(Her pictures of this ride will be much better.)

We met at Chinatown Station and headed North.

This ride also seemed fairly maintenance heavy, with tons and tons of flat tires and other issues for some reason. I got to try out my new spoke wrench when a woman busted a spoke and her wheel went way out of true. I thought she was going to be done for the night until somebody reminded me that you can true the wheel around the missing spoke and make a bike reasonably rideable, which we did.

The real hero of the night in terms of keeping people on the road was definitely Eddieboy. At the start, he helped Drooby take off some derailleurs and turn his bike into a functional singlespeed. Then at another stop, he helped this poor confused fellow who wasn't even with a ride that had gone off a curb on an ancient road bike and bent the rear wheel so badly it couldn't be ridden. Eddie took off the rear wheel, walked it over to a fence, bent it back into shape between the bars of the fence, put it back on the bike, and the guy was on his way. It was awesome, although a few of the riders that I'd never seen before got a little cranky about having to wait. Dumbasses.

Then we wandered on toward Chynna's place, where she took out a huge light and began taking pictures of everybody, some of which should be absolutely awesome. (If my shots come out, I'll have some very artistic "before" pictures to show everyone in 6-12 months if I can stick to my New Year's resolution.)

After that, it was down through Silverlake, up into Echo Park, and back to Chinatown. The group had a destination in mind, but since we were back at the starting point and it was after 2AM, I decided to call it a night.

Hopefully there will be an Imachynna Syndrome 2: The Antidote ride at some point in the near future, as this was tremendous fun!

Santa Monica Critical Mass / Long Beach / Bikes and Cars

2009-01-03T11:31:00.001-08:00

My New Year's resolution is to "eat less and pedal more", and so far I'm off to a pretty good start.

Of course, we're only barely into the New Year, so that's not saying a great deal.

My first ride of the year on 1/1 was a solo late afternoon ride out Venice Blvd. to Venice Beach, and up the boardwalk, and back down to Marina Del Rey and back to Palms up the Ballona Creek bike path. Pretty uneventful, although I did learn that riding reasonably quickly under overpasses with your headlight set in blink mode turns your ride into a bad '80s horror flick, as you can see, but not quite well enough to understand what's coming toward you in terms of terrain, etc.

Then on Friday, I did the first Santa Monica Critical Mass of the year, which was pretty fun.

It was a pretty good ride overall, that ranged from Santa Monica, down to Windward Circle in Venice, back to Santa Monica, and ended up at the studio of this really friendly guy named Hal, where Albert (aka digablesoul) showed me some tips on using my new camera. I'm still working on it, but hopefully things will improve as time progresses. A tripod might help. I left this party fairly early, as I did this ride on my fixie, and I still had to ride home, and sometimes it requires a little extra energy, as I've got a substantial number of pounds to lose. (For what it's like, imagine riding a fixed gear while giving one of the sturdier lady ridazz a piggyback ride. While the prospect is not unappealing, it's not a situation optimal for covering long distances swiftly).

So I get back to my place, and one of my buddies in Long Beach had decided that he'd found THE place to meet girls. After a number of texts and a few loud phone calls, he tells me he's there with a group of his friends, and I should head down. Since I'm back home at this point, and have put the bike away, I decide "what the hell" and drive on down.

Let me tell you, there's a reason so many people drive cars. After a few hours on a fairly narrow bicycle saddle, even one adjusted properly to your anatomy, a car seat feels like heaven. Luckily I can have both, so I zipped on down to LB, to meet my buddy and his friends. I meet him there, and he greets me with an enormous inebriated smile, and his first words to me are "Dude, I am FUCKED UP! I'm trying to get with this girl, and she wants to get with me too, but her boyfriend's here, and I don't think he likes me very much." That last part probably set a new record for most obvious statement ever made. Not at all obvious, and a little odd, was why most of the people in this club were so short, maybe it's the horrific air quality from living near the port. That said, Long Beach is totally underrated. The more time I hang out there, the more fun it seems to be. My buddy LOVES it, although I do worry about him meeting an untimely demise at the hands of an enraged husband/boyfriend somewhere down the line.

All in all an A1 night.

My last ride of 2008.

2008-12-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

It was last night, and it was awesome.

I'd been talking to my buddy Eddie S., who's got a much higher enthusiasm level than I do, and he's on a mission to lose some weight over the next few months. Since I'm endeavoring to do that as well, I pulled together a pretty generic Westside route, and we made plans to meet up later.

Before that, I decided to hit Big 5 for some gear, as I keep hearing stories about people getting their bikes taken/being assaulted while riding. While I'm not too concerned, as I'm a large guy on a cheap bike, which isn't a very attractive target, I figured it's better to be safe than sorry. So, the shopping list included pepper spray, a whistle, and a pocket knife that could be opened one-handed. Not that I intend to get into any knife fights mind you, but I'm a guy, and I'll take any excuse to get a new pocket knife. (Should you be buying cutlery, please note that per LAMC 55.10 you cannot carry a knife with a blade of more than 3" in plain view (so make sure it's in your pocket), and per state law, you cannot have a knife with a blade of more than 2.5" on school (K-12) grounds, butterfly knives and switchblades are illegal unless the blade is less than 2", and knives that do not fold are prohibited under a broad ban on "dirks or daggers".) I did not find a pocket knife (although I did find one today at the surplus store at Motor/Venice for $10 (they also have a messenger bag, which they call a "casual briefcase" for $14.95)), but I did find a decent whistle with a lanyard for $2.49, and a canister of combination tear gas / pepper spray for $12.99, which sounds like something that shouldn't be sold that cheaply and/or over the counter (but is perfectly legal as long as you have less than 2.5 oz per canister).

So Eddie showed up, and we rode West on Venice and South on Sawtelle, which due to the traffic and the numerous lights, is pretty sketchy until you get South of Culver, at which point it becomes an awesome low-traffic neighborhood street that should be included on more rides. Then we headed West on Jefferson to Culver, through Playa Vista and the Ballona Wetlands to Playa Del Rey, all of which were covered with this low lying fog that I thought was supercool but Eddie was kind of creeped out by. Then we rode over Mustache Bridge, around the Marina, out to Venice Pier, and up the Boardwalk/Pacific Avenue into Santa Monica. Being EXTRA law abiding while in Santa Monica, we headed up Broadway, which is a pretty cool road with a nice bike lane to Bundy, took Bundy to Olympic to Barrington to Venice, for a total of 17-18 miles, not a bad way to round out the year.

I wish I had had a camera with me, as Eddie was sporting what may be the next incarnation of fixie hipster fashion, namely shorts with soccer socks. While I probably won't adopt this combo, they did look pretty dapper, and are a definite improvement on the women's jeans sported by some.

Of course, between the long shorts, long socks, silly hats, and unusual footwear, it's just a matter of time before the avant garde of the urban cyclist crowd starts shopping at the golf outlets.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Crankmob, Fixies, Flats, etc.

2008-12-21T03:20:00.000-08:00

Before I get started, I would like to direct your attention to the following:

WheelWorld in Culver City, at the corner of Sepulveda and Washington Place, has inner tubes on sale, 3 for $7.99. That's less than $2.67 per tube, so stock up now. Ask Santa to put a handful in your stocking. (Or ask the great Goddess to bestow them upon you in recognition of the Solstice, they make great Hanukkah gifts as well (although blinkies might be more appropriate what with it being the Festival of Lights and all).

If you don't skid a lot, Slime Tubes are AWESOME, and only $5.99 at Performance Bike. They fill any small holes with a sealant contained inside the tube, so you may not even know if you get punctures.

At the very least, get a patch kit for a buck or two. (Performance and WheelWorld match each other's prices, which is nice.)

I only mention this, as there were a lot of flats this evening. Luckily, the route was posted beforehand, so this was only a minor inconvenience to those involved, but on many rides, a flat can be a monster drag.

(If anybody reading this hasn't ever actually changed a flat and wants to learn how, let me know and I'll e-mail you the Bikerowave guide to fixing a flat.)

Today was Crankmob, the monthly bicycle bacchanal, and it was awesome!

The organizers really emphasized safety, handing out flyers before the ride started so people could have a basic idea of what to do and what not to do to make sure the ride went smoothly, posting the route online ahead of time, and generally keeping things taken care of.

That, plus a longer ride with shorter stops, and cold weather that seemed to keep the jackass quotient to a minimum, made for a pretty great night. I only saw one person bail while riding straight on flat pavement, but he was ok (his beer did not survive).

I decided to ride my fixed gear tonight, as I haven't ridden it (or anything else) nearly enough lately. I had some reservations, as I'm not exactly fast, a fixed gear takes a lot more effort to ride, the brakes on the drops are less than ideal for the random sudden stops that are part of casual group rides, and 22+ miles on a fixie seemed like a bit of a chore.

Be that as it may, I needed the exercise, and given that I'm theoretically in the process of building up ANOTHER fixed gear (if it ever returns from the powdercoaters), it made some sense that I actually start riding the one I've got.

So I headed out to the usual starting point up at Sawtelle, where the usual crowd, plus a whole bunch of new folks were hanging out. For a chilly L.A. winter evening, the crowd was pretty impressive. It was cool to see a whole bunch of folks I'd seen earlier at the Bikerowave out there. It's awesome to be, even tangentially, part of a community, and the L.A. cycling community is stupendously friendly. And talented. Seriously, the amount of talent some of these folks display casually in terms of writing/photography/organization/etc., etc., etc. in their SPARE TIME leaves me pretty well convinced that as messy as the current economic disaster may be, there's also a lot of untapped potential just waiting to be turned loose.

I mean, think of the tremendous boon to the economy, transportation, tourism, general fitness AND the environmnent that could happen if, like the bike/pedestrian paths along Ballona Creek, we threw up bike paths along ALL the aqueducts/creeks and drainage ditches around town.

Because there are a TON. Just check out this link from L.A. Creek Freak, and look at those maps. Holy cow! Connect them all with bike lanes / sharrows, and we'd have an alternative transportation network that would be beautiful, fun, and CHEAP, as it wouldn't require much except a little concrete, asphalt, paint, and railings.

But I digress. So we got started, rode around West L.A. for a while, and then a couple folks got flats. I stopped to help bondink get her flat fixed, with the help of another guy named Alex, and it took some doing. Bondink mentioned that jonnyboy had helped her put her rear wheel on, and man, for a pretty soft spoken guy, he's got some RIDICULOUS strength. To remove the axle nuts, I had to set the wrench in place, and then Alex had to STAND on the wrench handle, because that was the only way we could get the nuts to move. But we got the flat fixed, and headed toward the meeting place at Crankmob Park (aka Media Park, aka that park in Culver City between Trader Joe's and In and Out), and only had to stop and help one other person with a flat on the way. (Seriously, 3 tubes for $7.99 is a heck of a deal.)

So we hung out in Crankmob park for a while, and rolled through Culver City to Jefferson, and down Jefferson past Fox Hills Mall to an Albertson's, where we hung out for a while, and continued onward. After doing a couple laps around the traffic circle in the newish Playa Vista development, much to the consternation of some cranky Playa Vistan motorists,
(but hey, let's face it, when you buy property on land that is BOTH a methane field AND a historic Native American burial ground, some exuberant cyclists are likely to be the least of your problems), we headed off to the shopping center by the marina in Marina Del Rey. This was a short stop, as the Ralph's apparently summoned the constabulary, who invited us to disperse.

Apparently the group then went to Costco for a while, but due to some miscommunication, I and some other folks ended up riding off down Venice and up Sepulveda to National Blvd. The rest of the group showed up eventually, and there was some bike jousting. (This is an event where the two jousters are put on children's bicycles, are given 8-10ft PVC pipe lances with boxing gloves on the end, and then pedal or are pushed swiftly toward each other. One collision between two guys who not only ran their lances at each other but their bikes as well was pretty impressive.

Luckily, there didn't seem to be any injuries / stolen bikes this evening, which was awesome. (Hopefully we won't hear of any on midnightridazz.com tomorrow).

At this point, it was getting toward 3 in the morning, my feet were chilly, and it was time to head home, which, conveniently, was pretty close.

Crankmob kicked ass.

(If you've got pics of the ride you'd like to see illustrating this post, just shoot me an e-mail.)

Happy Holidays all!

The Ride With No Name, etc., etc.

2008-11-22T02:49:00.000-08:00

My buddy Eddie e-mailed me earlier this week to see if I wanted to go on a ride Friday night, and since I've been wanting to get on my bike more, I thought it sounded like a good idea.

After briefly considering the Tattoo Ride, since it started at Crankmob Park not far from my house, and promised a beautiful spoke card (which, since Eddie didn't have any, was quite an enticement for him), we decided to hit The Ride With No Name, as Barleye, the organizer, seemed like he'd put together a good ride, and I figured I'd know more folks.

So we loaded up the bikes and drove downtown. This was the first time I'd driven to a ride, and while there is something odd about using a car to get to a bike ride, if the choice is miss the ride or drive to the ride, driving makes a fair bit of sense. Rode the mountain bike tonight, as I didn't know how many hills there would be, and there really is something convenient about having gears and a freewheel. It's good to have options, although a fixie does give you a kick-ass workout.

The starting point was in the middle of the Arts District, pretty close to the "Warehouse District". A lot of this ride was around serious urban industrial locations. Warehouses, factories, truck yards, etc., etc. At one point, we rode over a bridge and below to the right we saw what must have been a concrete recycling plant in operation, and it was one of the most surreally beautiful things I've seen. It was a GIANT open warehouse, with no front or side walls, with sodium lights hanging from the ceiling, giving the place an eerie orange glow. Inside this monster building a huge yellow excavator was picking up chunks of rubble and concrete, and dropping them into big metal box, that presumably was the crusher/recycler, judging from the huge mounds of sand piling upnet to the building. I'm sure there are Sisyphean metaphors to be made about spending one's Friday night in a huge machine making sand out of rubble, but as a visual spectacle, it was pretty impressive.

One that would surely have been more impressive for you all had I actually brought a camera.

So we road around warehouses and trucks and overpasses and whatnot, and eventually found ourselves riding across the USC Campus. At one point, we found a quad with a band playing at one end, and the 60-80 of us rode around the quad once or twice, and then rode off again. It must have been fun for the audience, as they we're just sitting there watching a show, when dozens of cyclists show up out of nowhere with lights blinking and bells ringing, and circled for a few minutes and disappeared again.

That's one of the things I love about rides like this. We're basically a bicycle parade, and people love parades. On most of these rides, people will wave and smile and cheer or honk their horns, and by far most of the honking is positive. Not only do people get to see swarms of smiling people and blinking lights, but hopefully some of them decide to get on Google and figure out how to come along.

These rides are so much fun, and they're SO accessible, regardless of your budget. You can ride high-end bikes, or you can ride in something you bought at a yard sale for $20, and have an equally good time. In a time of global economic crisis, it's nice to know you can have a full evening of fun and entertainment for very little money. (My total cost for the evening was $3.99 for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which was a pretty cost-effective Friday night.)

After USC, we made a couple of stops and rode around more of SE downtown and Boyle Heights, and ended up on the 6th Street Bridge and hung out for a while, looking down at the L.A. River, and West at downtown. While here, I ran into some people I'd met on previous rides, and met some more people that I had only known from the midnightridazz forum. Most of the people that go on these rides / post on the forum consistently are really cool mellow folks.

From the bridge, it was a few miles back to the starting point, making for a total distance of about 15-17 miles.

Eddie got his first spokecard too, as Barleye had whipped up a set with a picture of the principal from the Breakfast Club and the timeless phrase "You mess with the bull, you get the horns."

All in all, a pretty great night.

Tomorrow night's the Crankmob Food Fight Ride,which has the potential to be a colossal mess, but also tremendous fun, as the Crankmob rides usually are.

In the pink (but not yet).

2008-11-22T02:19:00.000-08:00

The pink bike is on hold at the moment.

Sadly, the powdercoaters called me today to let me know that they did not have RAL 4010 (aka Telemagenta) in stock, and would have to order it from out of state. Then they called me back to see if I wanted another color.

So I looked at the powdercoating color chart, and I considered luminous red, luminous yellow, luminous orange, and gold over a white basecoat.

In the process I also found what might be the most politically incorrect color name ever, which is odd, as most of the color names are relatively innocuous, like traffic blue, grass green, and strawberry red.

But then, there's color number RAL 1021, which is called, I kid you not:

RAPE YELLOW.

Now, obviously, this color is named after the bright yellow flowers of the canola (aka rape) plant, rather than the sex crime, but you'd think that in this day and age, they might go ahead and update the color charts with something new.

Be that as it may, after a few minutes of clicking around, I realized that if I'm going for something truly hilarious with this bike build, I'd better stick with my guns and have them order up the telemagenta powder coat.

I also learned that telemagenta got its name because the color magenta has been copyrighted in Germany by the T-mobile telephone company, and other companies have been sued by them for using that color. So not only do Germans love David Hasselhoff, they also allow the trademarking of colors.

But they should get the powder in next week sometime, and hopefully I'll get the frame back next weekend. Must hurry up and buy the rest of the parts, as I can't wait to get this one built.

Maybe it is a zen thing, kinda

2008-11-17T23:13:00.001-08:00

Got back on my bike today for the first time in weeks.

Between working pretty decent hours at my new job in Glendale, and spending 1.5-3hrs a day in the car (for a 43 mile round trip), I don't have a lot of time and energy left when I finally get home, and I couldn't really ride this weekend since a big chunk of SoCal was on fire.

But today I got home and got on my bike and headed over to the Bikerowave to true my wheels, and it was awesome!

Forking out the extra dinero for a shorter stem and a stem riser and some mountain bike toeclips has made all the difference in the world.

Getting a bike to fit properly is kind of a pain, because you need to set up the bike so that your legs are able to pedal efficiently and effectively, while having your hands and seat in the proper position so that they are both taking a fair share of the weight.

This basically means that unless you're a standard shape, or luck into a bike that fits perfectly, the first month or two of riding your bike involve regular adjustments to: stem height, stem length (have to replace stems to do this, usually), seat height, seat angle, and seat fore/aft position, and there's nobody that can do this for you as well as you can, so you just have to keep an allen wrench handy.

I think I'm pretty close to having mine dialled in. The flat part of the handlebars is just below the saddle now, instead of 3-4 inches below, which means I'm not reaching down 8-10 inches or so to get to the drops and use the brakes. Now I don't have to angle my seat down anymore to be comfortable, which helps me balance out my not insubstantial weight. (Seriously, if your groin is carrying your weight rather than your sit bones, try raising your handlebars. It may not look nearly as cool, but the pain and potential impotency zero out the cool factor bigtime.)

Riding today was what cycling is supposed to be. Really really pleasurable. The bike felt perfect, the air was finally pretty clear, the moon and stars were out, the temperature was perfect, and the roads were wide open and more or less flat, so it was a perfect night to ride a fixie.

I took some main roads on my ride, and realized that while I feel a lot safer on the side-streets during the day or during rush-hour, it feels safer and is a whole lot more fun to ride the major streets at night. The big streets are better maintained, and there are so few cars that there are plenty of lanes open which makes it easier for those in a rush to get past you.

All in all an A1 evening.

Now I just need to have more.

P.S. I laugh every time I look at that ridiculous bike in the picture below. I can only hope that it will be that hilarious in real life.

Potential Next Bike

2008-11-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.pedalmafia.com/mafid/mafia_id.html

This is what the old Schwinn frame rattling around in my trunk may become.

If the final version doesn't make you laugh, I will have failed.

(Of course, some might say taking the time and effort and money to build something this absurd would constitute an epic failure in and of itself.)

It's not so much a zen thing really...

2008-10-25T23:53:00.000-07:00

(That's a damn sexy man right there. Photogenic too. But check out that reflective tape. Holy Cow!)

If you read articles about fixed gear bikes, most of them will tell you that riding a fixie is "totally a zen thing, man". In fact, if you google the keywords "fixie" and "zen", you get 32,700 responses. (The best of which is BikeSnob NYC's - http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2007/12/genuine-article-reporting-on-fixed-gear.html). The general gist is that fixies are supposed to be purer, and let you experience a greater connection with the bike and the ride, and a lot of other horseshit. Irrational enthusiasm for fixies is to cycling what critical theory is to academia - moderately entertaining occasionally, excruciatingly pretentious the rest of the time, and of dubious value long-term.

So why did I buy one? Well, because I'd heard how much fun they are, and because I wanted a road bike instead of the commuter conversion mountain bike I'd been cruising around on, because mountain bikes have a fair bit of rolling resistance and aren't very fast. Since I'm not a small man, I figured a bike without derailleurs might be good, since I'd probably blow out all but the high end models, and I didn't want to spend 4 figures on a bike. Plus, I'd heard that they offered a much better workout, since your legs are in motion the whole time.

So is riding it a zen thing?

Well, so far, not so much. In fact, it's much more of a Protestant Work Ethic thing, in which the effort I put in now will hopefully be rewarded in the future.

Sure, it is pretty much silent (except for the occasional creaking of the bottom bracket protesting the fact that it's carrying the weight of a tandem touring team in the form of one rider), and I am DEFINITELY getting a better workout, but there is a lot of effort involved.

The last two rides I've been on, I've flatted, which has been a drag. So I've finally bought slime tubes, and I've been OK so far. (12 or so bucks well spent!)

But now that I can ride without constantly flatting, I've become aware of just how uncomfortable a road bike actually is. Especially a bike designed as a track bike, with some serious drop between the saddle and the handlebars. Then there's the issue of using toe clips, instead of the platform pedals I'd been used to riding.

I had been working on adjusting everything, assuming I'd find the right fit and get everything sorted. But after a couple of rides in which adrenaline fatigue and the awkward position made me start having to choose between being able to reach the brakes and having a comfortable ride, and almost swerving into traffic because I couldn't get my shoes into the toe clips, I realized changes needed to be made.

So it was off to REI for a stem raiser, a shorter and steeper stem, and some mountain bike toe clips.

So now my fixie looks like it was designed for touring rather than the track.

But that's OK. With the handlebars at seat level, rather than WAY below, I can ride in the drops easily, which means there's not a trade-off between braking and comfort. With the double pronged MTB toe clips, I can get in and out of the pedals easily.

Now I just need to ride it more. I bought it so I'd have something faster than my MTB, but between my naturally high level of caution and not being particularly fit, I can't go up hills very fast with no gears, and I can't go down hills very fast without my legs getting spun out, so I'm getting passed by other people on mountain bikes right and left.

Maybe my effort will pay off, but right now, it's totally not a zen thing.

But it is pretty sweet on the flats, and it is a kick ass workout.

Obtaining a Fixie, Part 1. Build vs. Buy

2008-09-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

As my bike repair skills are improving, I've been thinking more and more about building a bike up from scratch. Since my mountain bike is very slow, and since I'd need very expensive derailleurs to deal with shifting at my weight, and since I've been wanting one anyway, I thought it was high time I started thinking about building up a fixie.

So, when I was at the Bikerowave the other day, and saw a large road bike frame for $20, I picked it up. It's a 26 yr old steel Schwinn Traveler frame, with a little more rust and a few more scratches than I'd like, but for $20, I couldn't complain too loudly.

To start, I disassembled the bottom bracket and the headset and cleaned and regreased everything, found a cool stem for it, and one of the patrons there gave me his old handlebars to cut down.

Things were going well.

Then math reared its ugly head.

Since I'd bought just the frame, and I wanted to do things right, I'd have to buy just about everything else for the bike, which started adding up fast as I put together the list.

Initial frame / stem / etc. -$27

Decent fixed gear wheelset - $155 from some guy on craigslist.

Crankset - $45

Chain - $10

Bottom Bracket $20 (optional, the old one could be rebuilt, but a new one would be better).

Headset - $10-15 (also optional).

Brakes/Brake Levers /Cables - $20-45

Chain - $10

Pedals - $15-20

Seat / Seatpost - $15.

Stripping and Painting or Sandblasting and Powdercoating - $25-75.

Various bolts - hardware - $5-10

Yikes!

To the internet!

Or, more specifically, to www.bikesdirect.com, which has a pretty decent selection of fixed gear bikes.

So, for the same money I would have spent turning a rusty 26 year old high-ten steel 10 speed frame into a decent fixed gear bike, I ordered a brand new chromoly steel framed fixie, equipped with decent if not top-notch parts, in a tasteful shade of bright orange, as shown below.

Should be here this week. This will let me know how much I like the fixie experience, and whether I should take the time to build up the Schwinn.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Robotz Ride

2008-08-10T04:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Cool recent cycling links...

2008-07-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

No exciting (or even dull) personal bike adventures this week (so far), so here are some random items of cycling interest from around the web.

Bay Area program on helping Iraq / Afghanistan Vets recover from PTSD by cycling. (Likely to be followed by an upsurge in politeness among motorists toward cyclists in the Silicon Valley.)
http://presszoom.com/story_145387.html

Fun salon.com article about the joys of a utility bike.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/good_life/2008/07/24/sports_utility_bicycle/

People are actually interested in commuting by bicycle. Far out!
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/07/24/re_cycling_effort/

They've got bike co-ops in Florida too.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article735198.ece

Pasadena man and his Church of the Open Road.
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/church_of_the_open_road/6205/

San Francisco Bike Plan held up by the California Environmental Quality Act. (Issue being looked into by the SF Dept. of Irony.)
http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/bicyclists_told_to_blame_ceqa.html

Anybody know a bike fitter/builder in Cambria, NY? Give this poor woman a call and help her out.
http://www.theamherstrecord.com/local/local_story_201021331.html

Multiple Critical Masses tomorrow night. http://www.midnightridazz.com/events.php. Should be a fun weekend. Now I just need to go rest up for it.

Crankmob

2008-07-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

Was way too exhausted to properly appreciate crankmob last night. Did not get nearly enough sleep the night before, so instead of enjoying the festive chaos and the dancing folks and the friendly people and general hilarity that is crankmob, my exhausted state made the darker side of the chaos a little more noticeable than usual. (The dead-drunk bikers falling over while riding in a straight line down the street and almost causing multiple wrecks, the tagger decorating the one-way sign on Windward Circle, Tom's hip-bag getting stolen (please return this!), the failure to yield promptly for the ambulances/fire trucks, the decision to take 500 cyclists over the narrow bridges at the Venice Canals, etc., etc.) But like I said, I was tired and cranky, so this was just my own experience entirely, and had I been well-rested, I would have been better able to focus on the huge amount of fun things that were occurring.

Like all the really cool art at the glow festival, the riders in capes, the tandem cyclists in their underwear, the dancing, the fireworks, the chalk art, and just being able to ride around en masse in the middle of the night. Basically all the cool stuff in mullingitover's kick ass video of the ride. (It's especially kick ass because it was put together so quickly):

Must get more sleep for the next ride, so I can better focus on the positive. Still it would be nice if steps could be taken to reduce the few less-helpful aspects of group fun rides.

Because unintended consequences can be pretty rough.

The Venice Custom Bicycle Show is today.

PJ-Lingerie / Film Festival / Echo Park Ride

2008-07-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

I brought a couple more tools with me on this ride, and learned a few things.

One of the things about having tools is that you CAN fix stuff.

One of the other things about having tools is that you then WILL fix stuff.

This was demonstrated to me rather vividly tonight on the PJ/Lingerie ride, where people rode around town wearing whatever they'd normally wear to bed. (I wore shorts and a T-shirt, which is usually what I wear if I have to share hotel rooms on a business trip, so close enough.)

Scott and Cesar and Vlad and I started out from Crankmob park, Vlad having gotten substantially more into the spirit of the thing than the rest of us (and providing us with the quote of the night, "These slippers were not made for bicycling!") We rode up to West Hollywood Park, and then hung out for a while. Quite a long while, as we made surprisingly good time getting there.

There was a fair number of people, and the ones I met were supercool, so that was fun. We didn't have a PA/stereo, so that made things a little tricky as everyone kind of decided to start riding. It was a fun ride for the first half mile, then this guy's chain went off the bottom cog going through an intersection. This is kind of a bummer, but it happens all the time with older/non-maintained bikes, and it's usually a quick fix, so I pulled over to help him out.

But it wasn't a quick fix. Not only had the chain come off, but so had the derailleur. The sweeper stopped by, but he, understandably, wasn't going to wait for us to engage in this dubious endeavor, so he gave me his cell phone number and went on. A quick fix turned into a 30-45 minute puzzle game of me twisting the chain and derailleur back and forth to try to get it working. Once I stopped hoping for a magical untangling and just unscrewed the bottom derailleur gear, took the chain out of it, lined everything up and reassembled everything, it was ready to ride.

Then I called the sweeper, got a sense of where they were, and started cycling down Santa Monica. Then my buddy Scott called to figure out where we were, and he said he and a bunch of folks were at the bicycle film festival at Hollywood and Vine. We rode over there, and it was a huge hang out outside the theater, with a bunch of people I knew from the Bikerowave, a bunch of folks whose comments I'd read on midnightridazz.com, and a bunch of other fun folks, including a beautiful young lingerie/pajama clad woman who was upset that her seat and handlebar heights weren't adjusted properly. Well, like I said at the beginning of this post, one of the other things about having tools is that you then WILL fix stuff, so I got her sorted out and she was very pleased indeed, and took off to catch the last train downtown.

Then, we hung out a little longer, and I met Eddie, who took a pretty big spill at last months crankmob. He's on the mend, and riding again, which is awesome, as it's never fun to hear about somebody taking multiple trips to the hospital. As we were standing there, a bearded guy, with an absolutely ENORMOUS smile on his face came up to me and said "This is the greatest night of my life. I just got the phone number of the prettiest girl in the world." Scott asked him how long he was going to wait to call her. The guy responded, "That brings up a good point. She asked me if I had a phone, and man, I sleep on the street, but what was I going to tell her, NO? So I got her number." Then we decided to head over to the film festival after party in Echo Park, and the smiling bearded gentleman began to sing.

Echo Park is pretty cool, and the Little Joy where the after party was, well, as the first reviewer on the Yelp page described "A little too much dive and not enough bar." It was a pretty cool place though, and the DJ knew what he was doing.

But then, it was time to head back home to Palms from Echo Park. It took a while, but that was probably because it's a good ways and we stopped at a couple of parks along the way. First we rode by Echo Park itself, and pedalled past the lake and the sleeping geese and then down past the Macarthur Park area. We did not stop at that park, but did see some undercover cops in the immediate aftermath of a felony stop with a group of young men spread out on the ground. Then further south, and further west, until we decided to take a break at Los Angeles High Memorial Park, which is a small park, but really beautiful.

Then, it was down La Brea to Venice, and home. Another great night.

Crankmob's tomorrow. See you there.

The Bike/Car Culture (of entitlement) War

2008-07-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

(The pictures in this post have ZERO to do with the actual post itself. I just got a little wordy and needed to add some humor and visual content.)

In other news entirely, there's a lot of discussion lately (here, here, here, etc.) about cars and bikes sharing the road since an incident the other week on Mandeville Canyon Road where a motorist (Dr. Christopher T. Thompson) became enraged at a couple of cyclists and pulled in front of them and slammed on his brakes, causing one of them to go face-first through the rear window, nearly severing his nose and causing multiple other injuries, and the other to go flying off his bike and separating his shoulder, which will require surgery. (In this case, Dr. Thompson appears to have been completely and entirely in the wrong, which is why he's facing arraignment in two weeks.)

This incident, combined with high gas prices that have made more Angelenos start riding their bicycles, and made more motoring Angelenos even crankier, seems to have brought the issue or cars and cyclists sharing the road to the forefront. After cancelling a previously scheduled public meeting, City Councilman Bill Rosendahl set up a task force between residents of Mandeville Canyon Road and certain groups of cyclists.

WestsideBikeSIDE has been covering this, and one of the interesting points brought up in the discussion over there is WestsideBikeside author Alex Thompson's comment that

"this has all the symptoms of a culture war. It’s not a culture war between CARS and CYCLISTS, but between cyclists’ safety needs and motorist entitlement. Can anyone deny that there is an almost universal sense of a entitlement amongst motorists in LA? Is it not the case that cyclists do not feel safe when motorists drive with entitlement? We have the ingredients for a culture war."

There he hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, it's not just a lot of motorists, but a lot of cyclists too that have this sense of entitlement.

(Like I said, nothing to do with the actual post.)

It's not surprising really, this is Los Angeles, the land of eternal sunshine and instant gratification, where EVERYONE feels entitled to whatever he or she wants at that particular instant.

Some drivers feel that they own the road when they're behind the wheel.

After all, it's their gas taxes that pay for these roads. Why should they have to wait behind some smug jackass on an overpriced child's toy that wants to go ten miles an hour and doesn't want to get out of the way? Haven't those idiots on bicycles heard of a little thing called the laws of physics and a man named Darwin? What are they thinking? The roads belong to cars, and those dumb bikes can stay on the sidewalk.

Unfortunately, some cyclists have a very similar sense of entitlement.

Don't those people in cars realize they're killing the planet and not getting any exercise while they transport themselves around town? Stop signs and traffic signals are optional for cyclists, especially if they're riding in a group. Riding two to five abreast is perfectly fine at any speed, regardless of what California Vehicle Code section 21202 has to say about keeping as close to the right as possible. Not only do cyclists get to do all of this, they can do it while heavily intoxicated, and those fools in cars can just deal with it.

(OK, this one's a tiny bit relevant.)

Welcome to the Culture of Entitlement War between cyclists and motorists.

There are a couple of issues in play here.

1. It seems like bike culture may actually be approaching "critical mass". Here in L.A., you're seeing more and more folks using bikes as a form of transportation, and the "bike scene" is taking off in a big way, with rides of hundreds/low thousands of people happening several times a month, and rides with dozens and dozens of people happening a couple of times a week. Rather than just a fringe weekend activity for families with young children and middle aged men, cycling is actually becoming a far more mainstream activity. This means that bicycles are having to be taken seriously as another form of vehicle on the public roads, ather than as just an occasional anomaly.

2. The laws about bicycles / group riding / etc. are still fairly unclear. From a legal perspective, the meaning of the "ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway" requirement of CVC 21202, is not settled. Does this mean that you can ride in groups 2-5 abreast if you're not moving at the "normal speed of traffic"? Does this mean you have to ride single file in groups? Despite what various car / bike advocates claim, this is still fairly unsettled, which is why some members of law enforcement will yell "Single File!" while others say "Have a nice night!" when passing a group of cyclists. Both motorists and cyclists have their preferred interpretations, but from a legal perspective, it looks like there's some unclear verbiage here.
See this lengthy article from 1995 for more detail on bicycles and California law.

(Poor lady.)

It seems to me, that if the laws are unclear, then cyclists and motorists need to figure out how to get along. Turning this into a culture war between U-lock wielding cyclists on the one hand and caltrop tossing motorists on the other, does not seem likely to be very productive.

Both sides need to figure out how getting around town by bike or car can be safe AND efficient and as much fun as possible for all concerned. This is going to involve both sides trading their sense of entitlement and self-importance for compassion and common sense, but it shouldn't be too hard, given that almost everyone involved either is, has been, or will be, both a cyclist and a motorist.

Can it happen? In Los Angeles?

Stay tuned.

But in the mean time, whether you're on a bike or in a car, PLEASE do your best to be pleasant and courteous. Just because some parts of the vehicle code about cycling are unclear, does not mean that there's nearly as much ambiguity about what constitues a felony, as a certain doctor can tell you.

Failing that, JUST DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE when you're part of a group of otherwise nice people. This is as true for the one resident of Mandeville Canyon that decided to assault cyclists with his car, when the other "[h]omeowners acknowledged that the road has clear recreational value and should remain open for a variety of uses", as it is for the guy who chooses to steal beer during a group ride so someone more responsible has to pay up to maintain good relationships with our local retailers.

Make sure to have fun!

Between the lingerie ride on Friday and crankmob on Saturday, I better get my wheel fixed soon.

See you out there this weekend. (If by some freak of improbability, you're reading this, own a bicycle, live in L.A. and haven't been on a big group ride yet, by all means hit up bikeboom.com or midnightridazz.com and head on out.)

Taco Tuesdays and Wheel Building

2008-07-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

So the Taco Tuesdays ride was last night, and it was awesome! (As you can tell by the picture above, where Kevin, Cesar, yours truly, and Rich all look happy and contented after a nice ride and some delicious Mexican food courtesy of Cinco DeMayo.)

We all met up in Crankmob Park and took off around 8pm. There were about 20 of us this time, which was a nice increase from the six or seven of us that went the last time I did this ride a few weeks ago.

We made our way down past city hall, on to the Ballona Creek Bike Path, and out to Mustache Bridge. From there we took some alleys and backroads and utility paths and all sorts of unusual routes past boats and parks and who knows what out to the Marina Del Rey Jetty. From there, it was off to Venice Pier, where we hung out for a bit and a couple of riders fished, neither of whom caught anything, except for one guy who caught the pier, which was too big to take home and fillet. At that point, we were all ravenous, so the pace from the Venice Pier back to Cinco De Mayo was the fastest of the evening. Good food was had by all.

Unfortunately, while I was out on this ride, I blew a couple more spokes, which was kind of a drag. Today, while I was volunteering at the bikerowave, I decided to go ahead and rebuild my rear wheel. Thanks to the handy wheel-building book, getting the spokes lined up was no big deal, just time consuming. Unfortunately, as I was about halfway through tightening the wheels and the place was about to close, I threw it on the truing stand and it could not be more out of true. I mean, how do you taco a wheel with a spoke wrench? Well, it's not quite that bad, but it looks like I'll be back at the bikerowave tomorrow so that I can go ride this weekend.

Have you all been enjoying these evenings?

2008-07-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

(Shaky cell phone pic of Santa Monica Pier)

Today, while I was at work, I came to the realization that I have a serious internet addiction. Not porn, though god knows there's enough of that out there, but news sites like http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.reddit.com/, http://www.drudge.com/, http://www.aldaily.com/, http://www.digg.com/, and random sites like http://www.break.com/, midnightridazz.com, http://www.pro-touring.com/, etc., etc. It's not just the garden variety "like to keep abreast of current events" sort of interest, but more of a totally obsessive "must know more than Google" thing, which, given the nature of modern communications and technology, is a hilariously futile endeavor. It's not good. It's interfering with my daily life, so I've got to scale it back some.

So after I left work today, rather than going home and blowing the evening watching just about everything new at break.com and reading just about everything new at reddit.com, I decided to drive out to Venice Beach for a stroll.

Which brings me to my title question, "Have you all been enjoying these evenings?"

Holy cow is L.A. beautiful in the evenings right about now!

So I walked from Venice Blvd. up the boardwalk to Santa Monica, and got to check out the newly redesigned Ferris Wheel at the Pier, complete with computerized LED lights.

It's pretty spectacular. The Ferris Wheel has this wicked display of changing lights and patterns and mandalas that make it absolutely fascinating to look at (not that you would know from the pic above). So fascinating, in fact that I didn't even notice that the lights on the ferris wheel were spelling out a message for the Fox television network until I overheard someone mention it. I was going to include a blistering condemnation of the nefariousness of including marketing material in all things pleasant in the world, but then I realized that their marketing efforts were wasted on me, what with my not owning a television and all, so I win.

From the Pier, it was up Santa Monica proper, to the Third Street Promenade and Baja Bud's for a delicious burrito and some of their world class guacamole.

Then back again. It was dark at this point, but the evening was spectacular and the moon was more than half full, so it was a great time to be outside.

The trip back was uneventful except for a brief incident at the parking lot near Ocean Park. As I walked back down the beach from Santa Monica, I began to hear tires squealing, repeatedly. As I got to the parking lot, I saw a large SUV that had lodged itself on the grass covered embankment separating the parking lot from the parking lot entrance way. I walked over to the car, and asked the woman driving it if she needed assistance, which she did. At this point, I realized that my reach had extended my grasp, as I may be a big guy, but I'm not really capable of singlehandedly moving a stranded Lincoln Navigator. Luckily, there were 5 guys hanging out at the adjacent parking lot who had been watching the scene, and when I asked if they could help her out, they said "Hell Yeah!", ran over, took a few pictures of the stranded vehicle (with the obligatory tiny dog sitting in the passenger's seat), and with 6 of us pushing and the driver gently hitting the gas, she was up and over safely and parked a few moments later. As she parked the car, one of the guys said "We were watching, and as soon as we saw it was a chick, we were like, "Oh, we've got to go help her."" Which pretty much defines the L.A. code of chivalry, namely, if it's a guy doing something stupid, you watch and laugh, but if it's a woman doing something stupid, you watch and laugh quietly and then offer assistance. Then she got out and pointed at her SUV, and said "What good is this thing?"

What good is a two wheel drive, six-thousand pound vehicle that gets 13mpg city? Not much, especially if there's only one person in the car and it's used for getting around L.A.

She was very thankful, and invited us all over to drink beer and hang out by the pool tomorrow, which was nice.

Then it was back down the quiet and now almost empty Venice Beach Boardwalk. As I walked down the boardwalk, I stopped and actually read the posted signs regarding the "i-zones"(as opposed to the "p-zones") which are first come, first served areas where you can sell items that you have created without a permit, as well as services (fortune telling / tarot reading / etc.) as long as you make it clear that these services are free (although donations are accepted) and that you actually provide these services for free at least once per day.

That's pretty cool. If I get a spare moment, I may have to bring a table and some folding chairs and be the "Un-Psychic" for a weekend or two, and for a nominal contribution, tell you all about yourself and what you should do using only logic, intuition, and basic common sense.

But first I need to worry about what I should do, namely spend less time on the internet, and STOP WEARING WORK SHOES ON LONG WALKS! This is the second time in recent memory I've done that, and my feet are again disgruntled.

But a fantastic evening nonetheless. You all really should get out and make the most of these summer nights.

Especially this Saturday. A 500+ person roving bicycle party crashing an all-night art and music festival in Santa Monica?

That might be the single most fun public event in any category this summer.

Come along if you can.

The "Robot Duck"? ride.

2008-07-13T03:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight's ride began at Crankmob Park, which is the unofficial name of the tiny Culver City Park in front of the Actor's Gang Theatre, making it one of the few places in the world where a theatre's entryway has a high potential for being substantially more entertaining than anything going on inside.

(Note to the guy who lost his melon: It went back to the melon bin outside Trader Joe's. You can't start a group bike ride evening off by stealing, at a time when we're trying to encourage LOVE for cyclists, as that's just lame. Even if they were closed, and it was only $3.99, how exactly does one transport, slice and serve a watermelon on a bike ride? Albertson's across the street was open, and equipped with a wide variety of delicious and easily transportable snacks.)
[Edit per comments - Sometimes I am a giant self-righteous idiot, the melon was not stolen.]

The ride was advertised as being "a little bit faster, a little bit farther" than the usual Crankmob rides, and that it was.

We went through Culver City, stopped at some building and rode up the parking deck, then rode down into Crenshaw/Inglewood, then onward to LAX, where we did a loop around the upper departure level (and were treated with courtesy by the LAXPD) and then on up to Howard Hughes Center, where we again rode up a parking deck and hung out there for a while, until I and a few guys from the Tuesday night rides (The numbers are growing! Join the fun!) decided it was getting late, so we headed out. Then it was back up Sepulveda and home by 3AM.

(Photos to come, as soon as I get them via e-mail or off the Midnight Ridazz gallery.)

Tonight I met some folks I'd only previously known/seen on the web, like Alex Thompson, founder of the Bikerowave and organizer of this ride, which was pretty cool.

I did not wear tin foil as instructed, but at one of the early stops found myself beset by some tallbike riding guy named Alec and was shortly ensconced in a midriff-length tin-foil toga-esque garment. (I can only imagine I looked even more ridiculous than that description implies, but we'll wait for the pictures.)

The Mom Ridaz ran into a little person (midget is apparently considered highly offensive) outside a bar [Edit per comments - liquor store]in Crenshaw/Inglewood, and let him ride a tallbike. I did see the photos, and hopefully they'll be on the web shortly.

The Kinetic Light Installation (Gateway Pylon Projects) outside LAX is awesome, especially after they replaced the lights with LEDs (at huge expense, but also at huge reduction in power usage). The LEDs added a huge range of colors for them to change, which makes them fascinating to look at, and can really be appreciated by, say, riding around the LAX departure level at 1AM on a bicycle. (Whether late night whimsy is the best use of tax dollars at a time when 55% of LAUSD high school students fail to graduate on time is a different matter entirely.)

The view from the top of a lot of parking decks late at night in Los Angeles is just spectacular (although it makes sense to find parking decks without security if you're going to hang out there for any length of time, cool as the folks at Howard Hughes Center were). I've noticed this before, especially when hitting golf balls at night at the Aroma Wilshire Center. (This is the funnest driving range in L.A. by far. They have automated tees so you don't even have to tee up the ball yourself. Totally worth a trip, and they're open until 11pm.)

There needs to be a good way to maintain the flow of a group ride through intersections. "Corking" them is all well and good, until the corkers get tickets, but things get sketchy when there aren't enough corkers (and sometimes when there are). SOMEBODY should talk to the LAPD / their city councilman to figure out what would be necessary for cyclists to essentially have the same authority as flagmen on construction sites, as cyclists with reflective vests and hand-held stop signs and the legal authority to use them would be a significantly safer/more effective means of getting the group through intersections, not to mention the level of volunteerism would increase if said activity were actually legal. I try to time the stoplights to make sure I get through on the green, but this gets tricky.

The guy who put his feet up and rested them on the handlebars of his beach cruiser, and the woman who did pretty much the whole ride without touching the handlebars both made me realize I need to hone my riding skills. The guy with his feet up wasn't quite as cool as this guy, but close...

This was the first time I've been on a bike in over a week. Really need to ride more, as I'm not in remotely the shape I'd need to be to do anything other than fun slow social rides. (Whether I actually want to do any group riding that's other than fun, slow, and social is another question.)

On the plus side, when I do get on my bike these days, it feels just right. When I first got it put back together a few weeks ago, it felt all wrong. It's a mountain bike, and one with reasonably aggressive geometry, and I bought it with plenty of clearance in case of accidental dismounts, so when I first got it put together it felt very strange. The geometry makes it handle well, but initially, after not riding it for 3 years or so, it was extremely twitchy. Now it feels exactly as it should, comfortable, with weight distributed properly between the seat and the handlebars, and ready to go. Sure, there are always things that could better, but there's nothing I could improve on the bike or any potential replacement that would make me even remotely faster than he improvements I could make to the rider.

It's 5AM, so I'm going to sleep.

Cars are so convenient.

2008-07-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

They're totally addictive.

Right now, if I want to commute by car, I get in, drive to work, park, get out, and walk into the office.

If I want to commute by bike, I have to throw my office clothes, wet-naps and deodorant into my backpack, lug my bike downstairs, ride, hoping everyone is patient and observant and not all road-ragey, put my bike in the bike rack, lock it up, hit the restroom, towel/wet-nap off, change clothes, comb my hair, pack up my riding clothes, and walk into the office.

When you work in a job that has a tendency to be a bit stressful already, all those extra steps get a bit tedious, which is why I haven't been riding to work nearly as much as I should be lately.

Now, if there were a few more bike lanes, and my office had a locker room, or at least a shower, it would be a totally different story.

It's always interesting to see how the existing infrastructure influences our choices. It wouldn't cost very much to stripe a few more bike lanes around town, and adding a handful of showers would be a rounding error in the usual annual cost of building new office configurations for an office building.

These expenses would probably be offset over the long-term by lower health insurance premiums, a fitter and more productive workforce, less motor vehicle traffic, etc., etc.

Or maybe I'm just making excuses for my own slackness (especially since I blew off a Santa Monica City Hall meeting at which I COULD HAVE ENCOURAGED THE VERY THINGS I'M RECOMMENDING HERE. I suck.) The roads are out there, I just need to ride them. But I'm feeling tired and lazy today, we'll see how tomorrow works out.

A day at the beach, and the future of aquatic cycling.

2008-07-05T02:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

I spent the day at the beach with my folks and my little brother and his wife, and at one point, we were shooting the breeze about boats, and talking about how boating gas is so expensive that it's only a matter of time before we bring back boats with galleys (a la the Roman trireme) so that people can go boating, get exercise, and not waste money on gas.

Then somebody mentioned the Hobie "Mirage Drive" system, which uses a pedalling action to drive some flipper/propellers, and started talking about how awesome it was. I looked it up on the internet, and it is indeed awesome:

But there are way more options. Like this guy, who commutes on his HydroBike:

Or these European folks racing about on a wide variety of Human Powered Boats (Human Powered Hydroplanes are way cool!):

But the king of all the Human Powered Boats I've seen on the web this evening, has to be Steam Boat Willy, a Human Powered Hovercraft.

No kidding.

A HUMAN POWERED HOVERCRAFT!

A hovercraft powered by somebody pedalling it! It's like stupendous cake with awesomeness sauce! I WANT!

Holy cow, just check out this video! (Fast forward to the 1:40 mark. This guy may be the greatest inventor of the decade, but his camera skills need some help.)

Just as more and more people are starting to see bicycles as a viable means of transportation for commuting, errand running, and recreation, I have a feeling that moreand more folks are going to start getting excited about boats they can ride around in while getting exercise, not using gas, and get from point A to point B and back over water efficiently. With a speed of 4-8 knots (6-10mph or so), they can actually be a useful option.

I've got a letter in to Hobie about their interest in adding the Mirage Drive to a Party Barge. I'll let you know what I hear.

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

2008-07-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

Finally got the pics from the last L.A. Critical Mass, so scroll down for the updated post.

If you need a photographer, drop Kevin a line.

Bikerowave Rules!

2008-07-03T23:20:00.001-07:00

I haven't been on my bike in a few days. Last rode it for a short ride with my folks last weekend, and then the exigencies of existence got in the way.

I've had to buckle down to get some things taken care of, and that's meant cutting back on the weekday fun rides and my standard weekly shift at the bikerowave. This is a drag, but luckily one that will be resolved in a matter ofweeks.

On my last ride, I noticed that my rear wheel had come visibly out of true, and seemed to be flexing oddly around turns, so today, when I ended up with a free evening, I figured "No problem, I'll ride over to the bikerowave, take the wheel off, true it up, and then pitch in a bit to make up for my missed shift."

This was my first time visiting bikerowave as someone with a bike to be fixed, rather than someone who was there to help fix, and it's pretty much the greatest place ever!

I got there, threw my bike up on a stand, took the rear wheel off, and put the wheel on a truing stand, only to find out that in addition to needing to true the wheel, I was going to have to replace two broken spokes (hence the flexing). This meant removing the tire, the tube, and the cog set, replacing the two broken spokes, re-tensioning all the spokes, and THEN truing the wheel.

Luckily, one of the volunteers working tonight had some experience in wheelbuilding, so she got me all sorted out. Two hours later, I had the wheel fixed, reasonably true, and back on the bike. This didn't leave me much time to be helpful, but it did give me a sense of what it's like to be at the bikerowave as a customer, and it's awesome!

To be able to come in with a bike in need of repair, and get all the tools and help you need to fix the bike yourself, and then roll out again a while later with a fixed bike and some new skills is just fantastic.

If you're on the Westside, and you want to volunteer, want to learn how to fix bikes, want to fix your bike, or want to buy a bike and then fix it up your way, then by all means check out the bikerowave. (If you don't live on the Westside, then by all means check out bike oven or bicycle kitchen.)

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

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

2008-06-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

(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.

2008-06-25T23:45:00.001-07:00

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."

2008-06-25T00:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T03:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-18T23:39:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

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.