Cyclists Are Your Friends!

Hi, my name is Alex Thompson, and I've been a car-free cyclist in LA since late 2004.  I write for and edit the blog Westside BikeSIDE.  Siel invited me to write a weekly entry for Emerald City about bicycling in LA.  I hope I can be your guide to what's happening with bike culture and bike activism in LA.  As an active participant in the urban bike scene I have working knowledge of that culture.  As an operating bike activist in West LA I have current information on bike activism in LA.

What do you want to read about cycling in LA?  Are you interested in learning about the party rides, the Midnight Ridazz?  Or local progress on biking issues?  The ins and outs of bike activism?  Would you like guidance on becoming a car-free or car-lite cyclist in LA?  What interests you?  Please tell me what you would like to read about, either by commenting below or emailing me at alexcthompson@gmail.com.

I know that few people have a shrine to cyclists on their mantle.  Most LA motorists harbor negative feelings toward cyclists, if not outright hate.  That probably includes some readers of this blog.  Many motorists feel that cyclists belong on the sidewalks, and unfairly impede them on their drive to their destination.  I know that motorists feel that way because whether I ride four or forty miles some motorists always let me know directly, by screaming at me, or indirectly, by cutting me off.  Cyclists do not want to be your enemy.  We're just fun people who happen to ride bikes to get around.

We're fun because we're happy, and we're happy because we enjoy our commute.  As mad as it sounds, I enjoy riding Santa Monica Blvd through West Hollywood during rush hour.  I enjoy riding up Sepulveda through the pass and down the other side to go to the Valley - in the middle of the night.  I'm not the only one.  Cyclists are so enthused we become irritatingly evangelical, often trying to convert everyone around us into die hard riders.

It's crazy, but we cyclists think that we're a transportation solution, as local activist Stephen Box is fond of saying.  We think more riders on major boulevards during rush hour will solve LA's congestion problems - and in a green way.  Why?  Because while cyclists might appear to impede traffic when you're stuck behind one huffing and puffing uphill, they actually free up traffic.  For every instance where a cyclist slows you down, there are 100 times they pass through congested traffic unnoticed.  That means one less car in that traffic jam.  When you get to your destination and go to park, that cyclist translates into one more available parking space.

One thorny issue are the Critical Mass and Midnight Ridazz rides, the enormous nighttime group rides which delay motorists much the same way a freight train does in rural America.  I'm willing to discuss this issue later.  For now take a moment to imagine if those same 800 cyclists were driving 600 cars instead.  Would that be better?  One could ask what purpose these rides serve.  Well, when you ride bikes in LA, you sometimes need a support group, and that's how these rides function for cyclists.

That begs the question: why don't motorists mass in impromptu parades through city streets?  Traffic jams may seem that way, but I assure you, motorists don't want to be there.  Why do cyclists gather in groups?  I believe that it's because cycling is inherently social.  You won't see motorists driving alongside one another for mile after mile gabbing about the elections.  It's infeasible and dangerous.  However, cyclists are not enclosed in a metal & glass shell, and we travel slower, so it's feasible to safely converse.  Hence, cyclists have a tendency to be hyper social.  We're friendly.

We want to be your friends.  We want you to come along for the ride.  Drivers, I hope you will join us for the ride.  If not, I hope we can get to know one another a little better, so that life on the road will be more amicable.  Car-free peeps - pedestrians, transit riders, or cyclists - let's be friends.  Let's regale each other with our stories of LA sans car!

Photos by Alex Thompson

Comments

[m]

I am interested reading about safe storage solutions for bikes. Many of us live in an apartment with no available garage, patio or storage shed space or visit people without those amenities. Parking at commercial destinations seems to be an issue as well. In general, what is ok and not ok when it comes to locking up your bike? Is it ok to take your bike into some stores? Are random concrete pillars and poles ok? Light poles? Signs? Railings? Trees in the middle of parking lots? Are some places ok to lock up your bike short term, but not long term? Do the details depend on the city? What places or businesses are most bike friendly? Are bike racks generally hidden away someplace? What lock/chain combinations seem to work out best for these locations?

[Alice]

Hi Alex, I'm also a car-free cyclist living in the L.A. area. I look forward to reading your future blogs!

[skd]

Indeed, group bicycling is not only fun, it is environmentally-friendly and cheaper than a Friday night out with a car.

If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.

Los Angeles Critical Mass, tomorrow night.
Click here for time and meeting place

Santa Monica Critical Mass, next Friday night.
Click here for time and meeting place

Once you ride....you'll be hooked.

[SoapBoxLA]

Alex,

Great read. Well said. You make me proud to be a cyclista!

[Enci]

You said it well, Alex! We cyclists are a much happier bunch. I used to be grumpy all the time when I used to drive. Now, wherever I ride my bike, I see fellow cyclists that wave at me, I chat with pedestrians, motorcyclists and even motorists (if they have their window down) at red lights. Riding a bike is definitely social!
I'm looking forward to reading all your articles!

[LT]

Well done, Vander Gander

[CTP]

very nicely written - i look forward to reading your future posts.

[sheila]

good lord, who on earth hates cyclists? probably those a-holes who race around you in the bike lane to get one car ahead at the red light? i always make room for cyclists, and try to watch out for them even when they are doing very dodgy things like riding up a sidewalk in the wrong direction when there is a perfectly good bike lane, and cutting across intersections illegally to maintain momentum.

mutual respect is definitely called for, but i believe that bikers and pedestrians start with a little more benefit of the doubt, unlike the social darwinists who are willing to mow anyone down who is smaller than them.

hope you are able to convince people to make good choices!

[JimG]

For the record, I am a frequent (and cautious) cyclist, and grew up riding bikes. I love riding - mountain and speed. I do ride on roads around LA.

But no wonder motorists learn to dislike, or at least get very frustrated with, cyclists. Not all cyclists. But there are those who give all cyclists a bad name, or simply take high risks.

1. Families and casual groups who meander all over the road, with the full expectation that all drivers will love and respect for them.
2. Cyclists who behave neither as pedestrians nor vehicle at intersections and crossings.
3. Self-righteous cyclists who ride as if they are doing God's work, or at least something extremely noble, and put their lives at risk by asserting full vehicle rights.
4. Packs of speed cyclists who ride in large packs, shout at each other in conversation, wear pretentious logoed outfits to imply they are good enough to be sponsored, and then clatter en masse through coffee shops in those tippy-toe cleated cycleshoes. (Wow - I bet I get some reaction to that one).

There is a cyclist near my home who speeds downhill, straight through a stop sign at a blind four-way stop. Combine this with the angry speeding lunatics in their monster SUVs who run the stop sign. Can you say "hood ornament"?

So it is not cyclists per se that many drivers get frustrated with, it is those who behave in a way that is at odds with safe co-existence on the roads.

[greg]

it's nice to see bike culture represented in an LA newspaper. i appreciate it.

[Mihai]

Back in 2004, after only 2 months in Los Angeles, I had my first accident while riding on the sidewalk. I was scared to touch my bike while I was rehabbing for about a year, but then I discovered the vibrant cycling community near downtown LA through a Ride-Arc night ride. It empowered me, taught me how to ride safely on the street, and since then I've become that guy that whizzes past while you're stuck in rush hour traffic on Wilshire.

And if any of you "recreational cyclists" (roadies/triathletes/mtn bikers) are reading this, I hope you try out some of these social rides, it may put the smile back in your bike. Stop looking so doggone serious on your training rides, it's supposed to be fun!

[Damien Newton]

Alex makes a great point about how cyclists view their commute versus other commuters. With the exception of one car driver I know, every person I know who says they enjoy their commute does it on a two-wheeled vehicle powered by human legs.

[Rick Fair]

Alex,
The number of valid reasons of folding bicycles is staggering. The expense on a reasonable quality machine puts these easily obtainable machines within everyones grasp.
For commuting in LA, there are such huge distances to cover, it makes common sense to place your folding bike in your cars trunk, drive close to the bus-train or Metro station, ride to the multi-modal station, fold it and carry it on. When your destination is reached and after exiting the platorm, unfold it and ride. At your work-take it with you and store it under your desk or someplace appropriate.
The reverse to get home.Then later, in a hallway or someplace (anyplace) is a suitable storage facility.
Vacation? Fold in a travel case.
With IGH (Internal Geared Hubs), high ground clearance rear deralleurs and dynamo generator front hubs (that generate AC, not DC) we Americans are catching up to technology that numerous Europeans have already encountered and passed.
Frankly that is good but so many mistakes (over the years) have occured, that we American cycle-commuters can now benefit from earlier errors!

[Enci]

JimG.,

What about all the drivers who behave the same way? Why do we give all drivers special treatment when they are the ones killing people?

1. Drivers all over the city meander along all of our roads, cut in and out of traffic, make turns without signaling, cut off pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike.
2. Drivers who behave like they own the road and if you don't get out of their way they will mow you down.
3. Self-righteous drivers who drive as if they have gods given right to own a car and put other peoples lives at risk by not obeying the traffic signs, signals and laws.
4. Packs of drivers who clog up our streets, honk their horn, blare their music and rev their engines and who deck out their cars to imply they are good enough to be sponsored.

There are several drivers near my home who speed down the street, straight through the stop signs and lights without any regard to kids, dogs, cats and elderly and pedestians who use our streets.

Your comment about hood ornament is not funny! Seeing people die every day on our streets is not something to make fun off.

So if you point out all the irresponsible cyclists in the city that give the rest of the cyclists a bad reputation, then why not also point out that it's the driving machines that kill. And why not point out all the drivers who make our streets dangerous, who bring up our taxes, who litter our streets, who disrupt our communities, who....

[Alex Thompson]

Wow, can a man step away from the comment thread without it blowing up? Wow.

@Rick Fair

Yeah - some people swear by the folding bikes. I'm a recovering 800m runner, so I ride one bike almost exclusively - a '92 Lemond with 07 Campy components. Those folding bikes come in handy though . . . I'd kind of like to get a road machine with couplers - do you know about those? Pretty cool.

@Jim G

Enci pretty much covered it, I'll just add one thing. When a driver runs a red light do people say "those damn drivers!" No, they say "THAT damn driver!" Ditto for drunk driving. Cyclists are individuals, and when people judge all of them negatively on the basis of a few negative experiences they're making an evaluative mistake called "confirmation bias". That's a big no no which leads us to make bad decisions.

[Marsha Fallingham]

Alex, now that you've been riding in the city for a whopping three years, what do you propose to do about the rash of urban group rides that are utterly lawless, obey no traffic laws and serve to endanger every cyclist that the motorists these rides aggravate may come across when riding on their own?

It looks like you've been quite active in the Bike Kitchen/Midnight Ridazz scene, the genesis of the current urban group ride catastrophe. It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed on one of these rides.

Now that you have been ordained as the mouthpiece for cyclists in this city, a city where cycling culture has been thriving for more than thirty years, albeit in a slightly different form that the aforementioned groups have no interest in acknowledging or cooperating with, what solutions do you propose for the riders themselves who by and large have made car/cyclist conflict even worse than it was before they came on the scene? Having ridden in LA for almost a decade before the latest urban bike boom and logged thousands of miles on the road before this became a 'neat thing' for kids to do on Friday nights and to get back and forth to bars, my observation is that these rides have created a much more hostile envrionment.

Look forward to hearing your brilliant solutions!

[Roadblock]

I call BS on Marsha Fallingham.

As one of the people that founded Midnight Ridazz I can tell you that these group rides, that yes are lawless at times (we contiguosly run reds at low speed big whoop), HAVE NOT created a "more hostile environment." Case in point, before Midnight Ridazz and the concept of these humongous party rides - a new idea to Los Angeles - there was no cycling culture. Sorry, early morning roadie rides and people pedaling on the boardwalk is not cycling culture in my book. Born and raised in LA, I have NEVER seen it this good and neither have you. Maybe it's the gas prices but maybe just maybe, scratch that DEFINITELY this town is crazed about cycling exactly because of the group party rides. FUN is the factor and we're having a BLAST.

Just last night I rolled out with the most diverse group of people ever assembled in LA. That's right EVER ASSEMBLED EVER. Age covered the spectrum from parents and their kids to teenagers to 50 and 60 year olds people from all classes and walks of life. Try to explain to me that existed 5 or 10 years ago in LA? Sure there are pissed off motorists but we've handled that wonderfully in fact growing our ride at one point to over 1500 because we chose to engage the motorists and INVITE them to join us. Case in point: Just last night I spotted a big ole Dodge Ram pickup edging out into the Ridazz. Dude looked like he might be getting heated. You know what I did? Instead of block him I rolled up along side the guy and said "hey bro thanks for your patience it will be another couple minutes we're just having fun" and you know what he said? "Ahh no problem it sure looks like you guys are having fun." "Well grab a bike and some friends and come ride with us!" Another convert. Just like we've been doing it for years and THAT is why this time cycling culture has really hit the streets like never before. Midnight Ridazz has actively increased the market share in cycling to the non-believers.

Will someone die on these rides? Come freeking on!!!!! Hasn't happened yet in over 1000 ride events posted so far on MidnightRidazz.com why you trying to jinx it?! Will someone die in traffic while riding alone? YES. We've had rides in memory of them and heated discussions about them. It's LA after all where drivers roll up and blast on themselves (Remember the rash of drive-by freeway shootings?) let alone run what they see as some "hippie biker" off the road, they cant do it when there are 1000 other witnesses. Drivers are angry and frustrated - and I used to be one of them. I'm a near complete convert and party rides serve to convert these angry drivers based on one common love... FUN.

So lets not get all huffed and puffed about party rides claiming they are bad for cycling culture. G-d forbid we have to rewind the clock even 5 years to the point where cycling was limited to political activists and early morning roadie spandex rides. These days I see bike riders all day and I know them and wave at them and ride with them because we've taken the time to develop a vibrant COMMUNITY. Riding in groups is simply safer than riding alone and that's the revolution that Midnight Ridazz has brought to this pathetic shallow car-centric city.