Please join us for CicLAvia on the same date in Los Angeles!

Bring your whole family, your friends, your coworkers and ride/skate/jump rope/party in the streets of Los Angeles on 10-10-10.

Santa Monican Gary Kavanagh, of Gary Rides Bikes, invites anyone who would like to join him on a ride to the event

Editor:

James Walsh, in a letter to the editor on Aug. 12 (“Ban bikes”), would have Santa Monica ban bicycles because they are “too dangerous.”

But what makes bike riding precarious are auto drivers who refuse to share the city streets the way the law mandates.

These 2-ton, four-wheeled steel chariots — cars — are the true danger at hand. Besides, they are exorbitantly expensive to purchase and upkeep, they guzzle oil, cause accidents, injuries, and deaths — and take up far too much of our land space in roads, parking lots, and freeways.

James Walsh: join us in Downtown Santa Monica Oct. 10, as the city shuts down the roads to the almighty automobile, and opens Santa Monica to the likes of bicyclists, walkers, and see how the clean, renewable, inexpensive means of transport bicycling offers us.

Andy Liberman
Santa Monica
August 13, 2010

Jennifer from LACBC (sponsors of the equally fabulous Los Angeles CicLAvia) gave insightful commentary and great support. Asuka Hisa from Santa Monica Museum of Art described their upcoming bike-centered event, Tour Da Art. It’s already full!

Asuka also steered the committee toward keeping ciclovia santa monica art focused on bike art. Artist Diana Myer shared insightful, well-considered ideas. Discussion of requirements for the five-hour events also included mention of two necessities: food and toilets. Plans are to make both available in evenly-spaced locations throughout the 1.3 mile event space.

Programming of music presents challenges: how loud can the music be at an event that begins at 8 am on a Sunday? Discussion of music from bike-mounted systems programmed by individual cyclists drew interest and support.

Inclusion of merchant participation ranked highly among priorities. Talk of possible yoga sessions focused on getting merchant participation from the many yoga studies spread along the route.

Liaisons will contact other merchants, too, to find ways for them to participate. In weeks to come, these planners will meet on Mondays at the Ken Edwards Center, beginning most likely at 7 pm. If you’d like to attend, you are welcome to show and use the bike parking or free car parking available for those attending.

Contact us at info@cicloviasantamonica.com for more information.

Here’s how: No matter where your friends live in LA, you can use the Metro Trip Planner. Test it out:

• Enter “Centinela/Culver Blvd 90066″ as your starting point (because that’s along the Ballona Creek bike path.)
• Enter 1685 Main Street, Santa Monica, 90401″ as your destination.
• Set your “Arrive by” day and time as “Sunday” and “8 am”, because this matched the ciclovia santa monica day and start time. (You can, of course, arrive at ciclovia santa monica anytime before we disperse at 1 pm.)
• You’ll see a list of possible bus routes, including one that uses Metro Rapid 720. Choose that one.
• You’ll see that you can catch the 6:45 am Metro 720, load your bike on the front of the bus, change to Big Blue Bus Line 14 (remember to take you bike with you), and arrive at the North end of ciclovia santa monica in time to catch the opening festivities.

Driving cost (estimated): $3.75, plus the task of finding parking and walking to ciclovia santa monica.

Bus fare (exact): $1.25, plus the ease of arriving exactly where you want to be.

Savings + lessened environmental impact + health benefits + fun: ∞

Try this a few times. You might find it extends your biking range.

Once you get good at it, you can help your friends outside of Santa Monica plan their bike trip to ciclovia santa monica in October. You’ll be all set to enjoy the festivities and the bike paths to the beach.

*No, I didn’t say “priceless”. That’s the infinity symbol.

No problem. Go here and view a great map that displays the Big Blue Bus lines AND Santa Monica’s bike paths in one view. You’ll find out which Big Blue Bus will get you closest to your meet-up — looks like the 4. To get info about time points and stop locations, see this page at the Big Blue Bus site. You might need a doppio when you get there, but you won’t miss your ride.

Or suppose you’d like to participate in The LA Wheelmen’s 8/8/10 (that’s tomorrow!) Viva San Fernando ride. You live in Santa Monica, and because you got festive Saturday night at the newly reopened Santa Monica Place and Third Street Promenade, you wake up late.

Easy: Go here and use the Metro Trip Planner. Use La Cienega Park’s address as a destination, since it’s at the corner. The Trip Planner offers two options: Metro Line 20 or a Metro Rapid, Line 720.  If you take the 720, you’ll walk farther — wait, no, you won’t: you’ll have your bike with you.

To check the timepoints, go here and you’ll find a .pdf for the 720. Remember to check the Sunday schedule (page 3) and you’ll get there on time.

Try this a few times. Once you get good at it, you can help your friends outside of Santa Monica plan their bike trip to the Ciclovia Santa Monica in October. You’ll be all set to enjoy the festivities and the bike paths to the beach.

LA Wheelmen: 9:00 am start:  The “Corner”, Olympic Blvd, 1 block west of La Cienega in Beverly Hill (Long 61, Medium 56 – 2300 feet, Hilly Short 29, Flat Short 26) Newcomers welcome; helmets required.

Bike Oven is a bike repair collective so popular it has already outgrown its single-car garage roots. Their location near Heritage Square Gold Line Station is bike-friendly from all over LA, if you know how to combine LA’s Metro resources and bike travel.

Use the bike rack, and, instead of walking between buses, ride your bike. You’ll arrive in Downtown Los Angeles, charming Pasadena, the impressive Museum District in West Hollywood, or any one of our great beaches well equipped to sightsee and shop on wheels, not feet.

The Spoke(n) Art Ride concludes with an after-party at Bike Oven, and participants can enjoy visiting the Second Saturday open galleries, a project of Highland Park’s NELAart.

Tomorrow: How to use Google Maps to plan your bus+bike route.

After you read that post, you’ll enjoy browsing her blog. Discover shortcuts (so necessary in LA traffic) and air your Traffic Pet Peeves. Cyclists, prepare yourself: pro-bikes, anti-bikes, it’s all there.

Thanks, Kajon, for your support of all things bike-related!

Friendly officers conducted bike safety inspections and instruction throughout the event. Bike Attack raffled off a bicycle, and the SMPD, not to be outdone, gave away prizes. A lucky young woman won an iPod Nano.

Sadly, the Fire Department had to doff their chef aprons, abandon the grill, and come to the aid of an attendee who had a brief and (happily) nonserious medical emergency. Kids (and some of us adults) watched wide-eyed as they surrounded the patient, stabilized the condition, and calmed the crowd. Great work, SMFD.