I got invited to a race that will be held in San Francisco, organized by Red Bull. Some of the best racers in the country got invited to this race and it’s a complete honor to make the cut and represent Los Angeles. There will be a few other races around the Red Bull Race. Macaframa is hosting an Alley Cat race on Friday night. Red Bull’s race will be on Saturday. And MASH SF is hosting a Hill Time Trial race on Sunday. Lot’s of races with a very competitive field. It’ll be really hard to come home with a win, still, that doesn’t stop me from trying to win.
Friday!

Saturday!

Sunday!

Wish me Luck!
Hern

The Ciclavia event two weeks ago was inspiring to me and I want to say thank you to everyone involved. The LACBC has made a lot of progressive moves this year. They have been a driving force behind Ciclavia as well as the recently approved Bicycle Master Plan. The Ciclavia committee and all the volunteers did a magnificent job and city appreciated all of your hard work. I want to say thank you to the city of Los angeles, to the mayor, the various organizations involved and most importantly THANK YOU to everyone (Aprx 130,000 people) that showed up to ride bikes.

Next event is Sunday July 10th and again on Sunday October 9th 2011!

WideBicyclePanAndZoom from Nicholas Dahmann on Vimeo.

Check out the coverage of Ciclavia from the KCRW radio show Which Way, L.A.?

Orange 20 on the News!

View more videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com.

National news

Click pix for bigger

The LBC can be justly proud of their accomplishments in urban cycling, with LA County’s first bicycle boulevard as well, plus an aggressive program to put bike racks just about everywhere you look.

(Though I rode down via the LA River bike path, I took the Blue Line back, and I saw that the bike rack placements reached all the way to the Long Beach northern border–unlike, say, Santa Monica’s, which disappear within a couple of blocks of downtown.)

But the party was for the cycle tracks–set right by the curb, with plenty of room for one cyclist to pass a slower fellow, then bordered with a painted median or an asphalt berm, outside of which is the car parking.

There are also dedicated bicycle turn signals, coordinated with the car signals, to prevent conflicts at intersections.

Speeches were given, during which the benefits of cycling to local businesses was prominently mentioned, and then off we went–at a sedate pace, to be sure, as the ride was led by longtime local cyclist Octavia Orduño–who is 103 years old.

True, he sticks to a British-style shopping trike nowadays, but he still moved right along.

Los Angeles could learn a lot from its little sister down south….

Here’s Octavio!

Question: What has eight wheels and belches fumes while taking up an inordinate amount of road space?

Answer: An SUV carrying two road bikes….

Of course as a utility cyclist of nearly half a century’s standing (or should that be “sitting”?), I am deeply prejudiced, but I couldn’t help being both amused and annoyed when, during my Sunday (door-to-door) ride to Hermosa Beach, I came across the scene in the snapshot below:

Yes, dozens, in fact surely hundreds, of cars, most of them SUVs and other so-called “light” trucks, parked right, left, and center on a side street leading to Westschester Parkway…for a bicycle race.

As BikeSnobNYC always reminds us, it doesn’t pay to get too smug about cycling’s greenness. And while the emissions of all those cars certainly paled next to the miasmas farted out by the airplanes taking off just beyond them, still, this event drew far more cars than would normally come to that neighborhood on a Sunday–and who knows from how far. (Even Westchester is not a road that sees a lot of weekend traffic, let alone this little residential street.)

I know, I know, it’s a “sport,” not bicycling as it’s practiced at Hel-Mel. But that doesn’t make the end result any better. Especially when a significant proportion of the roadie world (to judge by their Internet utterances) regards any riding not done in the name of competition to be “junk miles.”

I beg to differ. Miles you use to “humiliate” your fellows, or train yourself to do so, are the real junk miles; miles dedicated to commuting, shopping, visiting, eating, drinking, or just being in the world without an insulating cocoon around you, miles spent traveling in and to fellowship…are pure gold.

Question: You know why old British track frames had dropout eyelets?

Answer: Because in the classic racing era, racers used to ride their bikes to the track, then take off the brakes and fenders, race all day, and ride back home. With a stop for a pint on the way.

The good old days!
 

More info here!

See you there this Thursday! More info here.