Bike Riding in Los Angeles: Mostly Infeasible

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 1 Comment

I’m big advocate of the bikeability of Los Angeles. We have great weather, wide streets, many accessible parks and a highly active bicycle social scene. A big gap in this vision is the one left by an unsupportive city. Five years ago this did not bother me so much because our numbers were small and I could understand how the demands of a fringe group of bicyclists in a car city could be easily ignored. But the situation has changed. Dramatically. We have way more rides and riders, new bike collectives and shops, bloggers, activists and a more involved advocacy group. The other Gold Standard cities, Portland and NYC, have really stepped up their game. I guess you could say I started to get my hopes up.

Then the city releases the new LA Bike Plan.

I know we aren’t Portland. I know we don’t have a whole lot of civic engagement. But this is embarrassing. And people are going fucking nuts (note 4 different links).

The Senior Bicycle Coordinator of the LA DOT then claims she knows nothing about the details of the maps or them being released. And this is the city person in charge of bicycle projects? In NYC bicycle advocates working with streetsblog.org started a campaign called Weinshall Watch to keep tabs on how then Commissioner of NYC DOT, Iris Weinshall, was actively working against bicycle infrastructure. Would a similar tactic be useful here to watch the person who is suppose to be working on our behalf? I’m not sure if I know the answer. But something needs to change. Mountain bike Hall of Famer, local journalist and DIY-advocate Dan Koeppel voiced his opinion here and as this topic makes its rounds in the blogosphere I’m sure we’ll be hearing more.

Rough Riders!

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 1 Comment

Chris Kostman, best known as the energy behind, AdventureCORPS, also runs a site/group/idea called Rough Riders, where the basic philosophy, best explained in the article Mountain bikes: Who Needs Them?, is that you don’t need a fancy dual suspension mountain bike to ride amazing off-road trails.

Yesterday he organized a ride leaving from Brentwood into the Santa Monicas that was mostly off-road. I rode some familiar terrain, some amazing new terrain and added some new links connecting my road-bike mental map with my off-road mental map (which I guess should be just one map?). Thanks Chris!

The details of the ride are here. Not everyone did the whole ride. Even when it was down to Chris and I we had to cut it short due to the heat and it taking much longer than we had planned. With my ride to and from I got about 65 miles in. Is it possible that this year I have more miles on my cross bike than road bike? Uh-oh!

Backbone trail

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In mountain biking I see three possibilities:

1) Fast, fun technical

2) Brutal climbing, hard effort stuff

3) Epic transversing/exploration

Usually we do number one. It’s what I love about off-roading. It’s the bike equivalent of this (well, almost):

http://www.youtube.com/v/VwVhANL2oOQ&hl=en&fs=1

Yesterday we did all three when Brian, Max and I rode Backbone from Corral Canyon to Zuma/Edison and back on Backbone from Kanan-Dume. It’s the western part of this epic geoladders route. That section of backbone between Corral Cyn and Latigo is orgasmic. Tight, technical, fast, shaded, packed. Lovely.

To make it extra epic we ran out of water and took a full 2 hours longer than anticipated. Had to walk that steep section of Edison, which is described as overgrown fire road turned single-track, but there’s really nothing single-track about it. Above photo is from backbone just east of the Corral Canyon parking lot. Note ocean in background.

Driving down PCH in traffic we came upon a pack of 8 roadies sporting Midnight Ridazz jerseys. We slowed and I opened the van door to harrass/chat with them awhile. Here I’ve spent years promoting road riding to urban bike kids and we roll up on them in a motor vehicle! Very cool to see all of these connections being made and most importantly more people on bikes more often.