bi [sic] le

Lately I’ve been thinking about the general marginalization and rejection of cycling in Los Angeles and something dawned on me that may be sociological or profound. Or both. Or neither.

I realized — while biking, of course — that here in this city, content isn’t nearly the king that the container is. Instead of our characters being of influence, we are judged — and make judgments — based on what we put ourselves in, from our clothes to our cars to our homes.

We basically can’t help it. Sure, we’re all quick to spout the old adage about books and their covers, but it’s a weak line of defense given how early we were indoctrinated and are propaganized all our lives about how meaningful and fulfilling the superficial and material is. Possessions are power! Style is status!

On that level, it’s not about who you are, it’s about what you wear. No one cares what you think so much as what you drink. It’s not what you’ve done or where you’ve been, but what automobile you drive to get where you’re going.  And where you’re going better be a snazzy place full of snazzy stuff inside a snazzy zip code.

As such, one of our ingrained drives as card-carrying homo angelenii is to make money so that we can afford those things. And if we don’t have that wealth than we put ourselves in debt to acquire those things. And if we don’t have the credit rating, than we covet. Some who covet too much, resort to crime to achieve such things.

None of that should be revalatory. It’s how we function. We are consumers in a consumable world. Relentlessly bombarded with how important it is to surround ourselves with symbols that engender regard and define us as better people, we are powerless not to.

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Stopped on Redondo Boulevard waiting for the green to continue south across Pico Boulevard on my way to Venice Boulevard on my way to work this morning, there I was just minding my own business when came an “Excuse me?” from the woman driving the vehicle that pulled beside me on my left that got my attention.

I replied “Yes, ma’am?” And listened to her request for assistance, which I then provided.

But I’ll quit writing about it now and let you listen and observe the brief encounter, as caught by my sunglasses cam:

The What:  The 8 Presidents Ride
The When: Saturday, February 13; Gathers at 10 a.m., departs at 10:30.
The Where: Meet at Wilshire and Hoover by the tennis courts on the south side of Wilshire across from Lafayette Park.
The Where We Going: About 30 miles, pretty flat; the route is mapped here. Ride ends where it begins.
The How: This is a casually paced ride, probably averaging around 10-15 mph. There will be improvised snack/drink stops along the way and No Rider Left Behind. Helmets encouraged, so are functioning street-able bikes, along with the gear needed to fix any flats that may occur.
The Why: The why not?

Pretty uneventful commute this morning. Everything was safe and sane and the most interesting thing I encountered being an elderly gent in full suit and tie — looking like someone straight outta Copenhagen — biking south on La Brea this morning as I was stuck on 4th behind a line of cars waiting for the green. I was hoping to catch him and get a nice image to share, but sadly I didn’t catch up with him until I got to Wilshire and by then he’d hung a right and was west and out of angle and range of any decent image my sunglasses cam could capture.

But I certainly caught this guy who made me sigh as he rolled the red at 4th and Normandie while I waited for it (click for the slightly bigger picture):

First things first: I love that this guy’s out there on his bike, using it to get from his A to his B. He is simply righteous and awesome because of that and I applaud him. And I award bonus points for having the brains to protect his brains. And furthermore, when I arrived at the intersection, he was even more righteously and awesomely stopped and considerately awaiting the green on the other side of the street.

Or so it seemed. Because in the blink of the Don’t Walk sign, the good Dr. Cykyl sudeenly turned into the evil Mr. Ryde and he ran it — you’ll note from the opposing traffic signal that the crosswalk counter was at 3 by the time he reached the above point. So for the sake of argument maybe it was at 5 or 6 when he commenced.

Dude couldn’t've waited all of one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand six one-thousand? Clearly not.

But see here’s the deal from my hunched and curmudgeonly perspective over the handle bars. I am in no kind of second-shaving hurry when I’m on a bike. Certainly I’m not always ahead of schedule when I ride, but rarely do I saddle up intent on undertaking a trans-city time trial. Instead of aiming to get there as fast as humanly and illegally possible, it’s pretty much a given that I’ll get there when I get there. I’m on a freakin’ bike for crank’s sake.

Not to be the pot calling the kettle black, over the course of my life as a cyclist, I’m guilty of jumping a red or 200. But if I do so, it’s usually after some interminable wait at an intersection whose sensors won’t ever detect my bike and is devoid of any traffic, cross or otherwise. And honestly when I am seen committing such a violation, even if it’s by a motorist way up or down the street,there’s a twinge of embarrassment involved. Crazy, right?

I prefer “conscientious.”

Because showing my fellow travelers that some of us cyclists do obey the law and respect others’ right of way is worth far more to me than that 12th of a minute the fellow saved reinforcing the popular myth that cyclists don’t give a shit about the rules or how we look breaking them.

Well after a quiet start to these first few weeks of 2010, I made up for lost flats last night. Got three — count ‘em: three! — on the ride home from work. Silly me: Earlier in the day I’d actually dared to consider that I might get through the first month of the new year without one. Jinx!

But before anyone gets all preachy about a flat’s occurrence being in direct proportion to the cheapness of the tire involved,  understand that I finally took that sage advice and instead of my usual $14.99 brand I have been rolling on a pair of $40-each Continental Gatorskins since the latter third of December.

I’m no stranger to flats. Over the course of the 6,741 miles I rode in 2009 I had to fix 31 of the suckers — and a lot of them had to do with the crappy tires I used.

But with last night’s first two flats even the touted Gatorskins were helpless to prevent them. Witness my assailant, newly developed on Centinela just west of Sepulveda thanks to last week’s rains (click for the bigger picture):

Sure, you’d think something this gargantuan as this freaking crater of doom could be avoided by a cyclist even half as alert as I usually am, but the problem began with a broken patch of roadway just out of frame to the left that I’d dodged to the right.  Coming past that hazard I came left to get out of the debris-filled gutter and with no room for oversteering I ended up zigging a little too far back into the lane and the next thing before me was this monstrous black hole looming. At about 15 mph all I could do was roll through it. And pray.

Dropping in the trench was no problem. But coming out the other end over what amounted to a sheer continental shelf? Problematic. It was like trying to climb over a sword’s edge. I felt and heard the clang as the  front tire compressed and the pothole’s edge came into contact with the wheel’s rim. Then came the inevitable POP!-sssshhhhhhhhhhh.

Little did I realize that when my rear tire followed the front over the sharp edge of asphalt it couldn’t help but do the same thing. And since it popped only a micro-second apart from the front I didn’t know I’d double-flatted until I came to rim-riding stop about 100 yards down the street.

Wow! My first-ever double flat. Never in my long history as bicycler had I experienced such a predicament. Had it happened in front of a bar I might’ve gone inside to celebrate the milestone, but instead in that desolate and dark no-man’s land I just grumbled, turned the bike wheels-up and got busy swapping out the popped tubes with the two spares I’m never without.

Thirty minutes later 8Ball was mobility-enabled again, and after returning to the scene of the crime to snap the above shot of the culprit, I got the hell on my way.

Not more than three miles later, on the Ballona Creek Bikeway approaching Overland Avenue, I feel my rear tire going flat, and as I slowed cursing, my first thought is that the existing patch on the replacement tube, which had been salvaged from a previous flat, had failed. So I pulled over, and called Susan to alert her as to why I would be home much later than I’d hoped.

She graciously asked if I wanted her to come pick me and the bike up, but I was game to do one more flat fix, and while on the phone with my hand spinning over the rear wheel, I chanced upon a protrusion from the allegedly bullet-proof tread of the Gatorskin. Telling her I’d take her up on her kind offer if I had a fourth flat, I soon extracted the organic little demon pictured below, partially pissed that the 1/8th-inch bastard had breached the tire’s touted defense system… and partially relieved  that it wasn’t the previous patch that had failed (click  for the bigger picture):

In short order I’d applied a glueless patch to the puncture, and after immortalizing the pointy thing that caused it got on with the rest of the ride home — flat free.

UPDATE (10:38 a.m.): As expected, I found the rear tire flat this morning. Glueless patches should never be considered anything more than a temporary fix. Even if the tire was still full this morning I would have deflated it and replaced it with a far more durable glued patch.

Coming home east along Venice Boulevard I spotted a black coupe a half block up poking out from a side street fully across the bike lane waiting for motor traffic to clear so the driver could make a right. I slowed hoping he’d get his chance but the flow of cars was too thick and I ended up having to merge in with it to get around him. Silly me: I dared give him a disapproving look in passing and in return he deemed it wholly appropriate to give me the finger.

I’m still doing pretty good at not getting goaded by such idiocy, but I couldn’t help stopping and turning  and shrugging an incredulous WTF at his display. He then responds by gunning into his turn, making sure as he comes out of it to angle a bit toward me as he zooms past — a shortsighted maneuver because the light at Cattaraugus was red and he then had to come to a quick stop behind the line of cars in front of him. When I arrived beside him and looked into the cabin at the trapped dickbag suddenly he wasn’t so bold. Sucker just stared straight ahead with something of a wide-eyed cross between defiance and embarrassment for the 10 seconds I examined him, which was just as well. If he’d given me even the slightest excuse I think I would have lost my senses of peace and humor. Insetad I just shook my head, crossed Cattaraugus and left him behind to consider what might have been had I been a bigger Francis than him.

It is in the interest of fairness and balance that I post these two slow-mo clips from this morning’s ride. Submitted for your perusal, the following bits of video are a demonstration not only that I can recognize and applaud the good behavior I encounter on the road, but also that I’m not afraid to call bullshit on the bad behavior cyclists perpetrate as well.

Exhibit A: I am particularly impressed at how the cyclist you’ll see can’t even wait until the cross traffic has passed and instead has to shamelessly inch out into lanes before the southbound motorist clears the intersection, thus elevating my disdain and enthusiastically reinforcing the belief that cyclists are self-entitled scofflaws. PS. The light turned green about 30 seconds later.

Exhibit B: Only a few blocks west of the redrunner shown above, I approached a two-way-stop intersection in which the right of way was mine. After stopping, the driver of the red minivan that you’ll see starts to proceed north, but upon seeing me decides against gunning it across (which there was ample room to do), and instead to considerately wait for me to pass. PS. I waved my appreciation as I crossed.

Alternate Title: A Less-Attentive And Intuitive Cyclist Would Have Become A Momentary Hood Ornament

Here’s the slow-mo video of the slow-speed encounter beginning when I proceed from my stop on 4th Street a couple blocks east of Western Avenue as the northbound vehicle crosses the intersection (worth noting in that first frame below how the southbound vehicle hasn’t arrived at the limit line):

All in a day’s ride, folks. Aaaaaaaaaaaall in a day’s ride.

So I’m on 4th Street this morning, dutifully waiting for the green at Wilton like the conscientious and grown-up cyclist I am — a green that is always ooooh so slow to arrive. Finally, as if a gift from gawd the flashing red hand appears, and the countdown commences until I am morally and legally free to go.

But across the street on the southwest corner are two peds feeling decidedly less contractually obligated, the youngest of which just can’t wait those few more seconds so he jaywalks. A couple seconds after he goes, so does the older man who sets out at a more casual pace.

But then: bonus capture! Into the frame races a silver Ford Mustang running the red. Had the driver gunned it a mph or two faster or perhaps arrived across the intersection a second or two sooner there could have been a total collision with the second jaywalker. Conversely had both pedestrians waited for the green chances are one or both might have stepped off the curb and been hit. So for all concerned impatient lawbreakers, everything worked out. And fortunately for me I didn’t get to witness any carnage.

It’s not actually this visible at night. This is an 8-second exposure of the creek
and bikeway looking downstream near the Duquesne overpass in Culver City.

Nevermind after dark, some consider biking along Ballona Creek during the daytime a risk simply not worth taking. As recently as last month there was a report of the latest in a series of assaults that goes back years, this one taking place on the bikeway about halfway between the 405 Freeway overpass and Inglewood Boulevard.

Ironically it happened on the same day that the renovation/beautification to the bikeway’s entrance at Inglewood was formally dedicated, with officials and dignitaries lauding the results to the people and media in attendance as an important step toward making the creek more welcoming to the community.

Not more than a couple hours after all that feel-gooding, a cyclist notified police that as he was biking about a quarter-mile east of Inglewood, he passed a male on foot who surprised him by sending a wild roundhouse his way — missing, thankfully — as he pedaled by. When the cyclist stopped a safe distance away and turned to find out what the hell just happened, the suspect motioned for him to come back, but he wisely just kept going and called the cops, who again demonststrated their chronic lack of familiarity with the channel by repeatedly asking him what “street” he was on at the time of the attempted assault.

So why do I make it a point to ride along the creek bike path, especially at night? For two reasons. One, because not to do so for fear of being mugged is just not how I roll.  And two, because it’s the most efficient and serene — and frankly, safest — way for me to get from the office in Westchester to Culver City.

Fact is, in the two-plus  years I’ve been biking from Silver Lake to work and back, I’ve been on Ballona Creek at night somewhere between 200-300 times. And the worst I’ve directly encountered was a belligerent malcontent in the form of a recyclables scavenger — possibly mentally challenged — who repeatedly called me a “faggot” as I passed. In fact, since I’ve seen him several times in that stretch of the creek  between the 405 and Inglewood and he’s always surly to me it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a local and perhaps then the the same guy who swung so unprovoked at the cyclist in the incident mentioned above.

Foreboding or fascinating? Found last night on the
bikeway near the Duquesne access point in Culver City.

I do it for another reason — I’ve said it before and it’s the same reason why I ride the streets: to disprove those fearful perpetuators — most recently Councilman Tony Cardenas at a recent meeting who trotted out the old tried-and-true myth that cyclists on the streets in L.A. take their lives in their hands whenever they ride.

Shut. Up. Especially if at best, Cardenas rides maybe once a year… probably on Bike To Work Day. And accompanied by a police escort.

I’m sick and tired of our officials. Either they’re showing up for a few minutes in Mar Vista to pretend a bikeway is suddenly more welcoming or they’re throwing such fearful exaggerations out under the guise of hopeless empathizing — as if that’s enough. It’s not.