You don’t often associate warm-fuzzy feelings with actual armed and helmeted fuzz on the streets, but June 24th’s Critical Mass ride at Wilshire & Western was one of the best ever precisely because LAPD decided to ride along.

LA activist Stephen Box chats up the po-po

After May’s debacle in Hollywood, LA’s cyclists were wondering whether Chief Beck’s promises to work for better relations with us were just more of the hot air we’ve come to expect from the city’s Establishment, and in particular the LAPD, whose motto seemed to have become, “To Protect and to Serve…Our Corporate Masters.”

Now I’m almost giddy with the realization that not only Beck but a good many officers in the ranks are sincere in their desire to play fair with bike folk.

The issues have been many, of course, but interfering with freedom of assembly and of speech and ignoring bicyclists’ statutory right to use the roads are among them, and are not minor issues.

But last Friday was beautiful! Fifty or sixty bicycle cops came to the meetup, schmoozed with the crews, and behaved like regular guys and gals (albeit regular guys and gals with clubs and guns on their belts).

They mixed in with the thousand or so massers, corked intersections for us, and even admitted they were having fun!

The motorcycle escorts that joined in later were unnecessary, but the chance for us and the LAPD to meet on level ground–bicyclists all–was priceless.

For a few more posts on the ride, see Streetsblog Los Angeles, BikesideLA, and Bicycle Fixation…or any of your favorite LA bike blogs.

Well it took long enough but….. I’m Happy to announce the Re-Opening of the Orange 20 Online Store. The Online Store has the same inventory and the same prices as the actual store and inventory gets updated about every 24 hours.



First 20 online orders get 5% off! (Just Type “Holla” in the Discount Coupon Box) Sign up for the newsletter to receive additional customer coupons and Orange 20 news. If you were already a customer then you should still be able to log in. We Hope you like the photos and the new format, there is more to come. Our goal is to offer the same support and selection that you get at our shop. We have most of the bugs worked out but Please bare with us as we attempt to run and manage the new online presence.

I’ve been working on a DIY bicycle photo book called “BIKE LIFE” for the last couple months (or the last few years if you count actually shooting the photo’s). Well – it’s finally done and I’m releasing the edition along with 10 unique, one of a kind, one-off, Red Riding Hood x Yanco Pads frame pads!

The Party is this Sat night at Orange 20 Bikes and is sponsored by PBR (yum;) Please see the flyer below for RSVP info!

About the books:
There are 27 black and white photo’s in this 4″ x 5.5″ soft cover book. The shots are from different places I’ve been to and different rides, races and events I was lucky enough to be a part of. Including Bike Messenger championships (CMWC’s and NACCC’s), Worldcup velodrome championships, Black Label’s Bike Kill in Brooklyn, the Bicycle Kitchen and Los Angelopes in LA, street shots of fixed gear tricksters under the BQE, kids fixing bicycles in DTLA and the Lower East Side, and a couple of my favorite artists rendering bicycles into their work.

Each has a hand printed cover and a stitched binding in neon orange thread.

Submit your bicycle movie to The Ninth Annual Bicycle Film Festival!

The Bicycle Film Festival is a 16 city, world wide celebration of bicycles through film, art and music.

This is a call for submissions to all creative people – MAKE A BIKE MOVIE!!! (Or finish the one you’re working on!!!)

Submissions DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 7, 2009.

Check out the website (www.bicyclefilmfestival.com) where you can look over past programs and watch the trailers to see what they have screened in the past.

Films shorter than 10 minutes are easier to program for the shorts programs.

But they will screen a really good movie no matter how long it is.

LA has contributed some incredible films in the past and we’d love to see some good LA films get screened worldwide again!

Fri night was awesome! We raised some buck$ for Wormser and gave toys to the kiddies! Here’s a couple photo’s and a video (starring our very own Killa’) from the GoldSprints at the new shop.

Untitled from Joe W. on Vimeo

photo by Jenwolf of LAFixed.com

photo by Jenwolf of LAFixed.com

The flyer says it all!