Bikeside LA

It’s four days to election day, and the Los Angeles bike movement’s first chance to elect one of their own, the illustrious Stephen Box, to LA City Council.  If there’s one thing you can do between now and election day, it’s come out to Stephen’s Sunday bike ride – the Tour De Box!  (on Facebook) [...]

We walk precincts and phone bank for Stephen Box, every Wednesday.  Hope to see you there! When: Every Wednesday, from 530pm to 830pm Where: Box4CC Campaign HQ, 5619 Hollywood Blvd What: Walk precincts canvassing in support of the bikeyist candidate in Southern California, Stephen Box! Contact Alex Thompson at contact@BikesideLA.org with any questions.

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked precincts.  I’ve phone banked, I’ve gathered signatures, and I’ve organized events.  I even shot 2500 photos at a Marcy Winograd event.  But I haven’t gotten out there and rapped on doors in support of a candidate in a long time.  Maybe all the way back to Kerry [...]

It’s time for cyclists to get out in numbers and support Stephen Box for City Council. He’s our candidate, he fights for us everyday, and if we get him in City Hall, the sky’s the limit for biking in Los Angeles. Come out every Wednesday from now till election day (3/8) to walk precincts in [...]

My main gripe with the latest release of Los Angeles’ 2010 Bicycle Plan is that it uses the word “bicycle” and it refers to “bicyclists.” Nerdy!  Cycling cyclists, bikers biking and riders riding are so much more sexy than bicyclists bicycling . . . the plan sets back bikers’ sexual prospects decades. On the other [...]

Transportation consultant Jeff Tumlin introduced the bike planning process in Santa Monica with a heaping spoonful of lowered expectations. The Nelson-Nygaard principal, who led Santa Monica in reworking their transportation plan, rattled off a series of bad frames, highlighting obstacles and limitations in a performance that could have landed him a job with LADOT. Tumlin [...]

The cycling community is unified on the draft bike plan – send it back, and we must be at the table for the next round.  The universal sentiment is: this draft has big problems that we ought to fix – give us our opportunity to fix it. This morning LACBC blogged that the draft needs [...]

Nearly three years ago the newly formed Bike Writers Collective gathered in West LA to hear what Alta Planning and LADOT had to say about making Los Angeles bike friendly.  What we heard was “there’s no time for questions” and “there’s no room for bicyclists.”  That was the beginning of the bike plan update process, [...]

There are two great events on Saturday that I want to make sure you don’t miss.  First, there’s the TDF.  No, not the Tour De France.  It’s the Tour De Fat . . . the bikes & beer festival sponsored by New Belgium Breweries!  New Belgium Breweries are the famous brewers of every cyclist’s favorite [...]

[Update: I originally got this story wrong and wrote that Lynch was a cyclist.  He was running across the street when this happened.  As a runner, I know it's very dangerous out there for runners just as it is for cyclists.  I learned the defensive riding skills that keep me alive riding in LA first [...]