Fixpert

The Los Angeles Bicycle District. The idea started on June 7, 2007 during a discussion on LA Fixed where the Los Angeles fixed gear community pooled together ideas and came to a consensus on the official name and physical location of the District.

It’s hard to ignore the number of cyclists that you see rolling through Heliotrope at Melrose (what I now refer to as “the heart of the Bicycle District”) due to the presence of Orange20 Bikes and the Bicycle Kitchen on that block. I noticed that when a customer called Orange20 asked Jim C where his shop was located, he said something like, “it’s near Koreatown, just south of Little Armenia.” It struck me that this block, which is so important to the LA cycling community, did not yet belong to any particular neighborhood or district of LA — thus, the opportunity to claim this district as our own!

Then, about a month later on July 1, 2007, during the Bicycle Film Festival’s block party in LA, we made it official and posted the first (hopefully of many) signs declaring the existence of LA’s new Bicycle District.

Los Angeles Bicycle District - Established July 1, 2007

So, the concept of the Bicycle District was initially discussed in the community on June 7, but the District was officially born on July 1, 2007.

Now, less than 2 months after the official birth of the Bicycle District, it seems to be catching on. I’ve noticed more and more folks referring to that area of town as “The Bicycle District” conversationally, and I also noticed a recent increase in searches for terms like “LA Bike District” in the stats for Fixpert. This sparked my curiosity and so I performed similar searches online, yielding a number of references to the Bicycle District.

Bicycle District spoke cards - designed by Jon Jandoc aka Moto Velo. Visit Jon’s site The Joke is Up.

Searches for LA Bicycle District

Here’s a sampling of what I found online:

LAist’s upcoming events list - “SOLA means South LA and tonight the women of GOGA, a girls only bicycle club, will do about a 20-mile bike ride to there from the The Bicycle District (Melrose/Heliotrope).”

Full write-up about the Bicycle District on Urban Samurai - “The other day the Urban Samurai crew rolled over to Orange 20 to check out some bikes and goodies. The shop is probably the best bike shop in LA, also the whole [ bicycle district ] area around it has a nice friendly vibe to it.”

Ashira’s great write-up of the BFF in LA 2007 on Dazed Digital - “The weekend of festivities ended with a street party in the newly dubbed (but not yet official) “Bicycle District“, home of the Bicycle Kitchen, a non-profit bicycle repair shop.”

Some awesomely intelligent comment left on the Orange20 Bikes web site (oh wait, that was me, hehe) - “Hell yeah! I’ll be there with bells on!! Long live the Bicycle District of Los Angeles!” then I left a similar comment on Metrobloggin - ok, ok, I’ll stop referencing myself! Just foolin’ around!

Another sensational comment by someone named Fireweed who I promise is not me - “yes, that was a Magickal Day. i got there at the tail end of the beating sun just in time to help jim c shimmy up an electric pole and hammer a nail through a handmade blue sign that said, “bicycle district.” it’s really fucking sensational. i was sooooo happy!”

Related Resources

Fixpert’s flickr photoset of BFF Block Party

Moto Velo’s Bike District spoke cards on Flickr

Yelp member Tet F.’s photo of Bike District

I live in LA. One of the more dangerous or difficult American cities to be a cyclist. I commute to work by bike every day, and I’m lucky enough that it’s a relatively short ride, with pretty wide roads and/or bike lanes. (Still, I did manage to get hit by a car in the 1 year and 4 months I’ve been doing this commute.)

LA is Busted, and the City Ain’t Gonna Fix It

Even though LA’s cycling community seems to be growing exponentially as evidenced by the 1300+ cyclists showing up for the Midnight Ridazz bicycle rides, you don’t see the city doing a whole lot to provide safer streets for folks on bikes. In a town where the Department of Transportation’s deputy mayor drives a Hummer, LA is happy to fork over the money for helicopters and police presence during Ridazz or Critical Mass rides, but why are so many daily commuters still getting hit?

From this LA Times opinion piece on LA bike lanes:

Of Los Angeles County’s 6,400 miles of surface streets, only 481 miles have bike lanes (320 inside the city limits — five fewer miles than much smaller Tucson). In milk carton terms, if L.A.’s total street mileage equaled half a gallon, bike lanes would constitute a sip of about 4 ounces.

If traffic is one of the city’s biggest issues, I see the bike as a primary solution. But if perception is that riding in the city is not safe (and rightly so), then current drivers aren’t going to opt to ditch their car in favor of two wheels. And if the city isn’t stepping up and putting serious effort into what I see as an urgent issue, then we just have to take things into our own hands!

Do It Yourself Urban Planning and Bike Lane Creation

City won’t give you a bike lane? Make one yourself! That’s what folks around LA and other cities like Portland and Toronto have been doing. These cyclists sneak around their cities with self-made stencils and spray paint bike-related symbols onto the roadways, claiming bike lanes themselves where the cities won’t provide them.

Bike Lanes and Sharrows - Pros and Cons

It’s important to note that bike lanes and Sharrows — shared use arrows, bike icon with two chevrons above it — do have their issues. Bike lanes tend to be placed right next to parallel parked cars so that riders are exposed to getting doored by the parked cars — one of the most common causes of injury for cyclists.

I’ve also noticed that cars tend to crowd you when you have an explicit bike lane, I’m not sure why, maybe they think that painted white line comes with an invisible force field as well. More likely, they’re busy blabbing into their cell phones and have no idea what’s going on around them, “oh my gawd, did you see Top Chef last night?!”

Cars also like to accelerate past you, only to cut you off by turning across the bike lane. That’s a nice move I’ve seen countless times.

Sharrow - photo by Todd Boulanger, full photoset on Flickr.

Separated Bike Lanes

The ideal solution in my opinion would be completely separated bike lanes. This provides the most protection without impeding drivers — which I think would also result in a healthy improvement in drivers’ attitudes towards cyclists. Unfortunately, the guerrilla cyclist can’t create a separated bike lane on their own, but still, I think this video (YouTube) about the “Case for Separated Bike Lanes” in NYC is worth watching, there are some really great ideas here and examples of successful implementation of separated lanes in some European (and even American) cities. Dream big! Maybe we’ll get something like this one day.

Resources and Related Info

• YouTube: StreetFilms.org-The Case for Separated Bike Lanes in NYC
• 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard, Los Angeles - Flickr Photoset
• City provided “sharrows” in NW Portland
• Interesting article on the narrowing of Sunset Blvd bike lanes in LA
• LA’s 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard project

Man, what a good trip! My first time in Japan. Got to spend time with family (most importantly) and got to dip into an entirely different culture for a while. It was kind of a lucky time to be there in Tokyo because it was during O-Bon which meant that the city was less crowded than usual — although that’s hard to imagine because at times we almost got swept away in bustling crowds as though getting overpowered and carried downstream against your will by an river right after a storm.

I tried my hand at speaking some Japanese. I had studied it a bit earlier this year, and although I didn’t pour myself into it, the bit of studying that I did do came in handy.

There’s a lot more to say about the trip, but I’ll have to do that when I’ve had more sleep. In the meantime, you can check out pics from my Tokyo trip here, including some Keirin photos.

Quick post. Got to check out some Urban Night Race - keirin racing in Kawasaki, near Tokyo.

Two more weeks!

So official!

The Bicycle District of Los Angeles was christened at this weekend’s Bicycle Film Festival Block Party.

More information about the Bike District coming soon. In the meantime, swing by the center of the Bicycle District at Melrose and Heliotrope and take a look at the new signage!

Bike Film Festival LA Schedule

…see you there!

Hi all. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, I’ve got a huge backlog of posts that will be popping up on the site soon. In the meantime, if you’re up in San Francisco this weekend for the North American Cycle Courier Championship (NACCC), look for me. I’ll be up there so give me a shout out if you see me.

Now…let’s ride!

I’d been toiling, trying to think of what I wanted to write about on Fixpert for a few weeks now. I can feel one of those “what am I doing with this site??” posts coming on. But in the meantime, Nate’s comment on my last post got me thinking about my somewhat recent shift in attitude — or at least demeanor — towards drivers.

First Things First, I Drive

In the spirit of full-disclosure, I own and occassionally drive a car, a diminutive VW Golf that I bought off my brother when he moved to Japan. I ride my bike to work every day, but I’m using my car to get around LA a bit on the weekends — all the while, hating myself as I do it.

Anyway, you know how it goes…when you’re a driver you bitch about pedestrians, when you’re a pedestrian you bitch about drivers, etc. Each form of transportation puts you into a certain mindset or mode which for some reason prevents you from being simpathetic towards all other modes — one exception perhaps being the driving cyclist, who I think is probably the most alert and safe driver on the road — but maybe I’m dillusional?

I think it’s an unfortunate aspect of human nature to hate “the other” and to do the “us vs. them” thing, with “us” and “them” being rather arbitrary from moment to moment. Just think of how friggin’ patriotic everybody got when the whole country hated Al Qaeda altogether. Then we saw something shiny and got distracted and started hating each other again. Anyway…

I Didn’t Used To Be This Peaceful

Let’s start at the beginning. Five years ago, I started work as a bike messenger. I was in NYC. I am not usually an angry person, but I had about 4 years of steam to blow off from an unhealthy relationship that I had just gotten out of. At this moment in my life, I was angry, I just didn’t know it yet. It was somewhat buried and I needed to pedal down 5th Ave in Midtown during rush hour to find this anger and wring it from my pysche.

Messengering is a great way to get pissed off, but it immediately offers a really healthy way to get rid of that anger. In busy cities, you kind of get paid to be pissed. The more deliveries you make, the more money you earn. So if some jerk swerves and almost kills you in traffic, the rush of adrenaline might help you catch up to him at the red light and knock off his side-view mirror with your u-lock, and/or that energy can also be used to accelerate through the congestion at inhuman speeds. Your package arrives sooner, now you’re in Chelsea empty (holding no packages), your dispatcher is pleased and starts flowing you more jobs. Suddenly you’re making more money! Rinse and repeat. All day, every day.

Messengering was just about the best thing that could have happened to me at this time. I found it extremely cathartic. But after the therapeutic part drew to a close and I was just having fun messengering, I found that the anger could be a downward spiral for me.

The Confrontations with Drivers

I’ve had my share of shouting matches with drivers. I’ve spit many-a-loogie, flipped many-a-bird. I’ve hit cars with u-locks, I’ve knocked on drivers-side windows while riding alongside someone to flip them off right in their face. I’ve punished drivers by blocking their cars in traffic (which is totally stupid and you should never do, people get hit this way).

I’ve also had my share of abuse. I’ve had many-a-burning-cigarette flicked at me, bottles thrown, or my favorite — a slice of pizza. I’ve been swerved at, shouted at, spit on. I’ve even been physically picked up sort of by the lapels by a driver that stepped out of his car (after trying to swerve and hit me) who clearly was contemplating punching me in the face before I drew back my u-lock in defense, making him flinch and I was able to make my speedy getaway.

Violence Begets More Violence

All of these encounters still get me upset just thinking about them. Years later! And none of these confrontations produced anything of any value, and I was often the instigator! I would never do evil things out of the blue, it was always a reaction to a driver doing something evil or stupid to me. But it was almost always my choice to escalate situations, thinking that I would get some relief or justice.

I’m sure that every driver that I shouted at or spit on carried that anger with them in future situations when they encountered cyclists on the road (ever heard drivers joke about “how many points” they’ll get for hitting a cyclist?). Thinking about it now, my anger and impulsiveness was pretty selfish and helped to spread hatred towards cyclists in general. This is why I now have mixed emotions about big group rides which can sometimes get pugnacious — more about that in another post.

Now I’m All Zen-Like

There was no distinct turning point in my behavior that I can remember. I mean even now, I have an occassional bout of bad behavior. But usually these days, when I see someone do something stupid when they’re driving, my reaction is muttering “asshole” under my breath. Haha, and in LA if you could put a mic on me as I ride, it’s sometimes a constant flow of “asshole…asshole…” But I don’t even flash an evil look at the drivers.

My goal these days is not to be combative with drivers. My goal is to be a compelling image of fun for drivers to see and long for. When drivers see me riding, I want them to say “That looks like fun! I should get a bike!” The more cyclists on the road, the better. My ultimate vision of utopia is this: no cars, nothing but bikes and pedestrians. A pipe-dream perhaps, but I know that spitting on windshields won’t get me any closer to that vision.

Yes, drivers still constantly do stupid and dangerous stuff, but I feel much less angry now that I don’t participate in all of the spitting, yelling, etc that I used to do. As a result I’m safer when I ride, and I think I’m getting more enjoyment from the riding itself. It’s a different kind of enjoyment, more like a healthy and sustainable long-term romance, rather than a tumultuous lusty affair. They both have their place, but I haven’t been hit by a lit cigarette in a long time.

Congratulations to my dear friend Dee Dee Winfield, who this past weekend took 1st place in the 2006 US National Cyclocross Championship Women’s Masters 30-34 category, and 4th place in the Women’s Elite race. Doesn’t she look great in the Stars and Stripes?!

You can read more about Dee Dee, aka “Grasshopper” on her team’s web site Team Velo Bela - Kona. And here is some coverage of the Cyclocross National Championships on Cycling News.

Dee Dee just had a baby last year, and has come back from her pregnancy stronger than ever! Dee Dee is having a phenomenal year on the bike. She recently won the Iron Cross, a brutal cyclocross race, that is known for being the longest cyclocross race in the country (something like 40 miles I think?). I should also mention that Iron Cross is in Pennsylvania and has some of the classic (muddy, snowy, friggin’ cold) conditions that are synonymous with cyclocross, as opposed to some of the local Southern California cyclocross that apparently goes down where I live.

She really worked hard for this and we’re all so proud of her! I really admire Dee Dee as a an athlete, as a friend, and I feel lucky to know her and her family (aka, “The Gords”).