BikeSage

Bicycle Lifestyle Guide

There's a bit of BikeSage wisdom that says if some of the people in Los Angeles made some of their short trips some of the time by bicycling instead of driving, then there would be bicyclists everywhere. Imagine that. As we all know, this is easier said than done. Our friends at C.I.C.L.E. published a fantastic "Bicycle Lifestyle Guide" that a real resource for anyone considering bicycling. Check it out and pass it on. Enjoy your ride!

LA Streets Summit - March 20

L.A. STREET SUMMIT 2010 Biking, Walking and Beyond! March 20, 2010 LA Trade Tech College 10:30 am - 5:00 pm tentatively Admission is FREE!! In March 2009, more than 300 community residents, activists, researchers, and others gathered at L.A. Trade Tech for the 2009 L.A. Bike Summit. Building on that experience and broadening the agenda to include the parallel issues of biking, walking, and related streets issues, The Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College is helping facilitate the L.A. STR Save EET SUMMIT 2010: BIKING, WALKING, AND MORE. Along those lines, we are seeking individuals and organizations to provide educational and action-related workshops for this 2010at the Streets Summit 2010. If you would like to submit a workshop, please fill out the Call for Workshops form located here.

Facilitating by Bicycle

A good facilitator brings some important materials to a meeting including an easel, markers, a small clock and most challenging of all to carry on a bicycle, a full sized posterboard to scribe notes to capture everyone’s good thoughts. Up until now, I have always asked clients to bring the posterboard because it was too challenging to secure on my small bike rack. For a recent peer learning session I led for the Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the leading funders of social change movements in Los Angeles, I decided I would incorporate a little social change in my own lifestyle and bring everything to the training by bicycle. Knowing I couldn't fit everyone on my existing bike, I remembered one of my neighbors here at the LA Eco-Village has an XtraCycle I could borrow, which is a bicycle trailer device designed to carry heavy loads. I’m excited to report that I successfully carried the following items on one bicycle: that big posterboard, an easel, markers, handouts, my laptop computer and three bags of groceries that fed an impressive group of 15 leaders working on social change here in Los Angeles. I really enjoyed the ride and the discussion that followed it. Now that I know it can easily be done, I look forward to hauling all of my facilitation tools on bike to future trainings, retreats and meetings. While I can’t confirm it, I just might be able to say I’m the only bicycling facilitator in Los Angeles! If you need a facilitator or want to know more about what a facilitator does, check out my website. See you on the streets of Los Angeles and remember that you can always carry more stuff on a bicycle than you think you can.

What GOOD ideas do you have fo

What GOOD ideas do you have to improve the physical environment in LA? Bike Boulevards? Bike Parking? Bike Lanes? Check out Ron Milam's post about the subject and please share any thoughts you have.

Tree Donations By Bike

These folks sound like BikeSages... > For our second service project, the Global Debate Team will be donating > trees to schools around LA by bicycle. Beginning Friday the 4th, we will > transport some of the trees. This will promote two ways of reversing climate > change: planting CO2-converting trees, and using alternatives to > CO2-emitting cars. We hope the schools we visit with our trees will agree to > replant and take care of them. We also hope they will feature us in their > newspapers and blogs, as Venice High School has already agreed to do. > > Venice High School is 14 and a half miles from Santee Education Complex. > We invite anyone who wants a little exercise to join us on the ride to the > school along Venice Blvd. on Friday, December 4th, leaving Santee at 11am. > > > LA Times article: > http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santee29-2009nov29,0,5774015.story

Los Feliz Ride Saturday

Explore Santa Monica 7/18

Our next BikeSage exploration is Saturday, July 18th at 11am, leaving from the 3131 Arizona Ave. in Santa Monica, led by BikeSage Rosa This low-key, slow, and short bicycle ride will explore quiet streets in and around Santa Monica, making some stops at interesting sites along the way. Every BikeSage has learned the most pleasant places to ride through trial and error - these rides are designed for BikeSages to share their local wisdom of great places to ride with you. These rides are small and are a mix of experienced riders and their friends who haven't biked as much lately. Please email BikeSageif you plan on attending. If you're experienced cyclist, this is also a good opportuntiy to invite a friend of yours who hasn't biked much, but is interested in joining a relaxed ride. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Letter to the Editor

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Re: "Driving on the L.A.'s Westside" Dear Editor, I wanted to follow up with readers of the Times on a point made by Ms. Glueck about her attempts to bicycle as a means for avoiding traffic. In my opinion it is excellent that she made the effort. Especially with kids in tow, however, shifting to a bicycle-based transportation on the west side can be intimidating. Her reasons for abandoning the efforts, and reverting to automobile transportation were also reasonable: she felt that cars were "too scary," especially as they pulled in and out of driveways. I can offer a connection to the many readers who have similar desires to bicycle, but also share the fears that Ms. Glueck expressed. An organization I am part of, Bike Sage , is specifically designed for cases such as this. For no charge they offer to anyone interested in bicycling the chance to ride with an experienced cyclist who can offer safe routing advice and how to safely deal with cars. Our research has found that fear is the single biggest factor in keeping people off bicycles, but we have also discovered that much of that fear is unfounded. We can help parse out which fears are related to perceived danger, which fears are related to real danger, and how to avoid the real dangers so that more of us can contribute to reducing traffic throughout the city. Sincerely, Nicholas Bauch BikeSage

Cycling and Society Book

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The following blogpost is from Nick, who's been part of the BikeSage community for several months: Hello Sages, I ran across this book that I though the Sage community may be interested in. Rosen, Paul, Peter Cox, and David Horton, eds. 2007. Cycling and Society. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. "The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action. Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies."

Follow BikeSage on Twitter

Now you too can follow BikeSage on Twitter. These occassional updates will share informatoin about the work BikeSages are doing, widsom we've learned along the way as well as notices for upcoming BikeSage rides and events. We look forward to having you be part of the BikeSage community.