Tell us your story!

Everyone has a different story when it comes to biking. We want to hear yours. Are you a bike commuter? Do you like touring? Is riding fixed or SS your thing? We are compiling a series of personal testimonies of people that brave the LB streets. Let us know what inspired you to ride? What are the joys and challenges of riding? What do you like/dislike about riding in Long Beach? What is your vision for a bike-friendlier Long Beach?

We want to know!

Write and send in pictures of your ride to lbcyclists (at) gmail.com.

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LBCyclists, April 29th 2008 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Current News, Education, Featured, ride

LBCyclists in the Downtown Gazette


There’s an article in an April 2008 edition of the Downtown Gazette on the Long Beach Cyclists that talks about some of our long-term goals and our upcoming projects. You can read the complete article here.
Here are some excerpts:

Long Beach Cyclists formed around 1994 with the intent of offering city staff feedback from actual cyclists as they tried to expand the city’s Bicycle Master Plan. But beyond hosting several community meetings, the city did very little to include cyclists in the policy planning process, explained Chris Quint, longtime member of Long Beach Cyclists. In fact, the city formed a committee to work on the plan that included members from Long Beach Transit, the police department, the school district and other agencies — but no cyclists, he said. 

…

The group’s ultimate goal is to become the organized bicycle group that city leaders come to when trying to make bike-friendly changes, he added. 

“We want to be involved on a real planning level,” said Roca, adding that public meetings tend to be the end of cyclists’ involvement in policy making. “Why are we depending on people who don’t ride bikes to design spaces for bikes?”

Ultimately, it is our wish as an organization to work closely with the city. We feel that it is only logical and reasonable that bicyclists have a say in decisions that will affect their lives in a very real and direct way.

As bicyclists we are equal but vulnerable road users. It is time that we are recognized not just as traffic problems to be solved, but valued members of the community, who through our simple actions are improving the city one pedal stroke at a time.

There is a lot of talk about “greening” Long Beach.

We’re doing that now.

We’re doing it every day.

Come join us.

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LBCyclists, April 29th 2008 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Past News, advocacy

Be our friend on MySpace!

For those that are MySpace savvy, we’ve also got a MySpace profile. So be our friend today! We’ll put regular updates on this site as well as our MySpace page.

Need a reason to be our friend? Well, I can guarantee we’ve all got better looking calves than Tom.

Add us today!

http://www.myspace.com/lbcyclists

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LBCyclists, April 29th 2008 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Featured

1st Bikepool a success!

Even though it was a scorcher of a day, we still got a pretty good attendance of riders for our first BikePool, which took place in April of 2008.



The ride first started at Bikestation, where we picked up the first few riders.

Then we rode to Portfolio and picked up a few more riders.

Then off to Jones where we got even more riders!

Then a final push to the Farmers Market where almost everyone came back with a jug of chilled juice.

Thanks to all that attended and hope to see at the next Farmers Market Bikepool.

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LBCyclists, April 28th 2008 | Tags: ,
Posted in Featured, Past News

BikePool this Sunday! (spring 2008)


Click the image above to view larger.

Join us for Long Beach’s first ever BikePool! As seen in the Grunion Gazette, we want residents to “go green” in a simple, fun and social way. If you shop at our wonderful Farmers Market on Sunday and want to get there by bike, come join us. The ride will be casually paced and family-friendly. We’ll have ride captains give you some tips in riding on the street and will guide you safely to the Farmers Market.

We will depart from three meeting locations (Bikestation, Portfolios and Jones Bikes), so go to your nearest departure point and join us. A ride captain will be there to greet you and tell you about the route.

The participating businesses are also offering some great incentives. You can enter to win a free bike tune-up at Bikestation, get 10% off all drinks at Portfolios and 10% off on locks, lights and helmets at Jones!

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LBCyclists, April 24th 2008 | Tags: ,
Posted in Past News

Long Beach Cyclists and Partners at 2008 City Council Meeting

If you were watching or were at the City Council meeting on Aprill 22, 2008 (Earth Day), you might have seen a few familiar faces. The Long Beach Cyclists and their partners Bikestation and Russ Roca (Eco-Friendly Bicycling Photographer) were recognized for their environmental stewardship for promoting and advocating bicycling as a cleaner transportation alternative!

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LBCyclists, April 24th 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Featured, Past News, advocacy

Bicycling Street Smarts Online!

This small book is an awesome resource on the basics of riding in traffic and now it’s online! Check it out!

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LBCyclists, April 20th 2008 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Education

Bicycle Education

Contact Long Beach Cyclists for updated Traffic Skills course information. The following was published in April of 2008:

As roadways and bike trails become increasingly complex and congested, do you know all you need to know to safely ride a bicycle? Do you feel you know enough to teach your children how to ride cautiously and conspicuously while on their own? When you drive your car, are you confident on how to share the road with bicyclists?

The Long Beach Cyclists, Bikestation and the League of American Bicyclists invite you to answer YES to the above questions after attending a two-part Bicycle Education Road 1 course.

Road 1a
Who: League Cycling Instructors Chris Quint and Dominic Dougherty
What: Bicycling Street Skills, Classroom Lecture
When: April 30th, 6pm-9:30pm – (plenty of breaks)
Where: Main Library Meeting room (50 people max)
101 Pacific Ave., Long Beach, CA 90822
Prerequisite: None
Cost: FREE

Day 1 will be a classroom lecture open to anyone consisting of a PowerPoint presentation, flip-charts, hands-on, videos and lots of Q&A.
If you wish to continue on to Day 2, please sign up at the end of the class.

Road 1b
Who: League Cycling Instructors Chris Quint and Dominic Dougherty
What: Bicycling Street Skills, Bicycle Handling and Vehicular Cycling
When: May 4th, 9am-3pm – (plenty of breaks)
Where: Bikestation (15 people max)
221 E. First St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Prerequisite: Road 1a
Cost: $15 each
Bring: A bicycle and a helmet.

Road 1b will consist of parking lot drills, bike handling techniques, emergency manuevers, vehicular cycling, and some testing.
At the end of the day, those that have successfully completed the course will be presented with a certificate from the League of American Bicyclists.

Able to attend Road 1a and not Road 1b? Don’t worry! We’ll be having a lot more classes in the future. Your Road 1a attendance is good for 6 months so you can attend a Road 1b later on.

On our roadways, bikes are treated as vehicles. Simply knowing how to ride a bike is not the same as knowing how to operate a bike safely and legally.

The Bike Ed program is a set of curricula for adults and children and the certified instructors that teach it. BikeEd classes are taught across the United States by certified League Cycling Instructors (LCI).

For more information, email ddougherty(at)bikestation(dot)org
or visit http://www.bikeleague.org

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LBCyclists, April 18th 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Education

Bike to Work Day is coming together and Great News!


Thanks for those that made it to the meeting tonight (April 2008). We’ve got a small but efficient group and I think we’ll be able to pull off a great event with the resources we have.

Some good news to share:
-Long Beach Cyclists on BikePortland.org! Bikeportland is a great site that covers all the local news in Portland but has also become an inspiration for bike advocates around the country.
-PlanetBike is donating some awesome giveaways for Bike to Work Day! PlanetBike makes some great and well thought out bike accessories (like the awesome Superflash, regarded as one of the best bike tail lights ever) as well as giving 25% to advocacy. They’ve also re-done corporate offices to run off solar!
-WalzCaps is donating caps for BTWD! They make some of the best cycling caps in town. Everything from sporty cotton to stylish wool caps.
-KHS and Bikecommuters.com are donating a great 3-speed commuter! Perfect for trips to the farmer’s market.
-We’ll soon be doing a partnership with JensonUSA where 5% of sales will go to help support the Long Beach Cyclists! How awesome is that! Look for it soon. So the next time you need to get some neat swept back handlebars or bar tape you can help the LBC at the same time.
-We’ll soon be partnering up with Bikestation, Portfolios Coffeehouse and Jones Bikes to create Long Beach’s first bikepool from downtown to the Farmer’s Market! Stay tuned for more news about this fun community outreach program.

Also, our next meeting will be at The Small Cafe again on April 23 at 7pm.

And one more thing, special thanks to Carl who commutes from Anaheim Hills to Long Beach (20 miles!) for coming out to the meeting.

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LBCyclists, April 17th 2008 | Tags:
Posted in Past News

Ciclismo Long Beach — Espacio en castellano

Ciclismo Long Beach. Este espacio es reservado para artículos en castellano. Si quieres ayudarnos a desarrollar este espacio — reservado para ítems de interés a la gente de Long Beach que habla español— ponte en contacto con Michael Bos, lbcyclists@gmail.com.

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LBCyclists, April 16th 2008 | Tags:
Posted in español
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