Bicycle Co-op in Long Beach—The H.U.B.—Feb 8

Great news!  Our friends with Pedal Movement are starting up a bicycle cooperative called the H.U.B. Congratulations Graham Baden!

The first Pedal Movement meeting at the H.U.B. will be Monday, February 8 at 7:00 pm. Click EVENTS at the top of the longbeachcyclists.com page for details, for a map, and for contact information.

The H.U.B. bicycle cooperative is being created from scratch with volunteer labor—you are invited to pitch in!—in a lot and building across the street from the Pacific Coast Highway station of the Metro Blue Line.

At the February 8th meeting, Graham invites all to participate in the planning and roll-up-your-sleeves work of making it happen. The agenda includes volunteer hours, clean-up procedures, leadership, project direction, and 2010 planning.

Long Beach Cyclists February Ride—Tweeds, Feb 7

Sunday, February 7, at 10:00 am, Long Beach Cyclists joins Cyclone Coaster for a Tweed Ride. This means we will share a fun, slow-paced ride with cycling friends. Cyclone Coasters mostly drive vintage bicycles—the Tweed Ride will be quite a show!  You’ll want to be dressed in your tweeds, wool knickers and old-fashioned best. But dressed up or not, and driving a vintage bicycle or not, show up ready for fun. We will meet at Portfolio Coffee House on Fourth at Junipero, and we will depart at 10:30 sharp, bicycle bells ringing.

Trophies will be awarded for Best Tweed Garb-and-Bike Combo, for Best Beard, for Best Mustache, and for Most Creative Undergarments.

Click EVENTS at the top of the longbeachcyclists.com web page and scroll to the February 7th entry of the calendar to see a map of how to get to Portfolio. You can find the Tweed Ride blog page at: http://lbtweedride.blogspot.com/

Long Beach Cyclists meeting at Jax—Feb 3

Long Beach Cyclists meeting — Feb 3 at Jax

Long Beach Cyclists meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:17 pm. Hope to see you at our next meeting… and at any or all other events. Click EVENTS at the top of the page to view our calendar and a map of how to get to Jax (corner of Bellflower and Spring).

Note that many of us cycle together to the meeting from near the shore. We depart Orange and Second Street at 6:30 pm.

Discounts for cyclists, Friday, Feb 5

Support local bike-friendly businesses.

On the first Friday of every month, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, many Long Beach cafés and restaurants offer lower prices to customers who show up on a bicycle and dine in. To participate, we are asked to show our helmet or bike lock key.

Click on the thumbnail Lunch Breaks PARTICIPANTS LIST to the right to see the list of the 27 current participants for addresses, web sites and discount particulars.

Lunch Breaks for Cyclists is part of the Car-Free Fridays initiative coordinated by the City of Long Beach (as promoted by BikeLongBeach dot org) in which all people are encouraged to bike to work, one day per month at the very least.

The current list is based on the participants list found at bikelongbeach.org, and an almost identical list published in the current District Weekly.

Reading Group discusses cycling issues Sunday, January 31

January 31st at 6:00 pm, join us at Portfolio Coffee House on Fourth at Junipero for an additional opportunity to discuss interesting ideas found in Jeff Mapes’ book Pedaling Revolution.

The Long Beach Cyclists Reading Group, organized by Kevin Flaherty, meets monthly to discuss books and news of interest to the local cycling community.

Click EVENTS at the top of the page, and scroll to the January 31st calendar entry to view a map pointing to Portfolio.

Memberships are tax deductible

Join Long Beach Cyclists.

We’re about community, education and advocacy.

Click on MEMBERSHIP at the top of the page for more information and to print out a membership form.

Long Beach Cyclists Historical Ride and Picnic

Day trips on bicycle are easy and fun. Recently, Bernadette coordinated the recent ‘historical highlights’ tour and picnic. Travis dubbed it the P.A.L.B.I.F. Ride—(pack a lunch because it’s fun). We met up at Portfolio Coffee House on Junipero and Fourth.

The Drake Park neighborhood (Willmore City Historic District) is one of the oldest in Long Beach.

Docents from Long Beach Heritage awaited us at the Bembridge House near Drake Park. The Bembridge House was built in the early 1900s.

We made sure we didn’t scuff up the old, restored wooden floors.

A typewriter of sorts, that only types numbers.

Carlos is a cyclist and a pianist. He was given permission to play a tune on the old piano.

After the Bembridge House tour, we cycled north along the LA River trail. In places the river is very pretty. Decades ago, before levies were built to make the Los Angeles River run straight, all lowland areas were subject to seasonal flooding. The Bembridge House and other houses in Drake Park were built on high ground. The Bembridge House looked out over lowland areas that were considered ‘mud flats.’  Areas that were once ‘mud flats’ are now residential neighborhoods.

We get a great view of the Metro Blue Line as it crosses the river.

The river also includes a beautiful area where water can soak into the earth, to replenish our aquafers. You can see egrets, ducks and other wildlife here.

We enjoyed a rest, and picnic lunch, in a small park just off the river bike trail.

Many Long Beach Cyclists rides are for the entire family.

We cycled to Rancho Los Cerritos, which goes back to the first half of the 1800s—long before this area became known as Long Beach. You will want to visit Rancho Los Cerritos to learn about early California history. There were no bicycles in the early days… and of course no motor vehicles. Imagine how nice and quiet it was around here. 

Rancho Los Cerritos was home to various families over many, many decades. Can we guess when this horse-shaped tricycle was new?  Note that one operated this tricycle by hand, not with one’s legs. The hand pedals connect to a chain that runs to the rear axle.

A group photo in the Rancho Los Cerritos garden.

Long Beach Cyclists organizes or participates in group rides and other fun events throughout the year. Click EVENTS at the top of the longbeachcyclists.com web page to see our calendar of upcoming activities.

If you wish to see more photos of the Historic Highlights Ride and Picnic, which took place on January 10, 2010, additional photos by Michael Bos and Jacob Dickinson have been posted on Flickr. For Bos’ photos, go to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46493017@N04/sets/72157623267925108/

Additional photos by ride participant Jacob Dickinson are now posted at:

http://flickr.com/gp/jjldickinson/m2g76j

Happy cycling, Michael Bos / lbcyclists@gmail.com

Bicycle Advisory Committee in Long Beach?

Click on this must-read letter. It’s from Russ Roca. Russ writes to friends and to all those who look forward to Long Beach becoming an even better city than it already is.

 

www.pathlesspedaled.com

Charles Gandy is the City of Long Beach Mobility Coordinator. Gandy is a nationally known cycling advocate who for the next year or two has made Long Beach home while contracted to assist the City of Long Beach in its efforts to make Long Beach a better, more livable city for all.

A League Certified Instructor (LCI) leads traffic skills courses for cyclists and other road users. Several members of Long Beach Cyclists are LCIs. Long Beach offers Traffic Skills 101 at CSULB Pyramid Annex. Click EDUCATION at the top of the longbeachcyclists.com web page for more details and to find out how to sign up for an upcoming course.

Russ Roca and Laura Crawford have been on a cross-country cycling adventure called Path Less Pedaled since August of 2009. They send us updates, this time from Arizona. For several years, Russ made a living here in Long Beach as the Eco-Friendly Bicycling Photographer. Daily, Russ was seen cycling here and there around Long Beach and beyond on his cargo bike—a long bike with an enormous rack to carry lots of specialized photo equipment. Many of Russ’ photographs have been featured in the District weekly and other publications. Both Russ and Laura were active participants in Long Beach Cyclists and cycling advocacy when they lived in Long Beach.

Russ and Laura, we send you a ‘hello’ from Long Beach, California!  We miss you. We wish you continued safe travels and more wonderful adventures!

Gustavo Ramirez Memorial Ride — Photos

Family, friends and fellow cyclists remembered local cyclist Gustavo Ramirez. Numerous photos of the Gustavo Ramirez Memorial Ride, January 16, 2010, taken by Long Beach Cyclist member Lee Tracy, can be viewed at

http://gallery.mac.com/yoshiyahu#100312&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Cycling Through Intersections

One type of potentially dangerous situation concerns right turns. Wherever motor vehicles make right turns, the cyclist needs to position himself/herself in a safe location, and be aware of appropriate, legal behaviors that can help avoid conflicts.

MAKE YOUR DESTINATION PREDICTABLE

The notion of destination lanes can be helpful. All road users are safer if they position themselves in a lane that makes clear their destination. A cyclist who wishes to continue straight ahead through an intersection should not drive in the right turn lane. It is safer, and more useful to motorists, for the cyclist to signal his/her intent to continue straight ahead by driving in the same lane that the motorist would also be expected to use to do the same maneuver. In that way, vehicles behind the cyclist can see and reasonably predict what the cyclist intends to do.

LANE POSITIONING COMMUNICATES YOUR INTENT

Note that in the ‘Incompatible Destinations’ image, a cyclist who drives in a right turn lane or bicycle lane who intends to continue straight ahead risks being struck by a right-turning motor vehicle. Traffic engineers are getting better at understanding how to design each lane to make them safer to use. The cyclist, for his/her part, needs to drive safely and predictably. The cyclist is safer if he or she is visible, driving safely, legally and predictably, and if his or her destination is made clear. Lane positioning is an effective way to communicate one’s intent.

Incompatible-Destination-Lanes-Draft-600x450

SIDEWALK CYCLISTS ARE LESS VISIBLE, AND IN GREATER DANGER

A beginning cyclist may mistakenly believe that driving on a sidewalk makes him or her safer. A major problem of driving on a sidewalk, besides the fact that cycling on many sidewalks is illegal, is that the sidewalk cyclist is less visible to the motorist. This is critical at intersections. A right-turning motorist may not see the cyclist. The consequences of not being seen by a motorist can be disastrous.

Right turns are common vehicle maneuvers. The educated cyclist is safer when visible, when not swerving, and when his/her destination is clear to motorists approaching from behind.

The cyclist who positions himself/herself in the motorist’s ‘blind spot’—to the right, slightly to the rear, but not visible to the motorist through the right mirror—is unable to communicate anything to the motorist at that moment. As soon as practical, the aware cyclist should attempt to position himself/herself once again in a place where he/she is visible and can communicate as necessary with other road users. 

The City of Long Beach, which is committed to helping Long Beach become increasingly bicycle friendly, will want to encourage traffic skills education of all road users—cyclists, motorists, pedestrians. Also, City engineers will want roads, lanes and intersections to be as well designed as possible.

Cycling Through Intersections text by Michael Bos. Thanks to Dan Gutierrez for forwarding us the CABO ‘Incompatible Destination Lanes’ graphic, copyright 2004-2007, www.DualChase.com.,