I’ve been in LA visiting friends for a few days, and while I was taking a break from my bike project, I thought it would be fun to do at least one #BikeLA portrait before leaving. So I reached out to the #BikeLA Twitter crowd and Alex volunteered. We met up on Sunset Blvd on his morning (10 mile) commute. Alex has been commuting in LA for years. Among other things, he’s a blogger and he sells really cool STRiDA folding bikes like the one pictured. To me, Alex’s getup is a nice illustration of the reality of biking in the car culture of LA – it might be a good idea to try harder to be seen – and heard. While there are plenty of cyclists on Sunset, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it bike friendly, bike lane notwithstanding.
Actually, I was happy to see plenty of cyclists of all kinds here during the last few days – hipsters, commuters, roadies, homeless… but I did get the impression, from my purely unscientific observation, that the cycling scene in LA resembles that of NYC 10 years or so ago. Since LA is so car-centric, the area feels a few years behind NYC in terms of mainstream acceptance of cyclists (again, purely my observation and feel free to let me know if I’m wrong in the comments). Males in their 20s and 30s are definitely the predominant demographic. It will be interesting to see this change over the coming years, as I’m sure it will.
As a bonus, I saw this guy while driving:
What could be more California than that?
Back in NYC tomorrow.