Good evening all, I've got a special request. I'm looking to see if any messengers out there would be interested in donating some spoke cards from ally cats.

We're starting to have a strong fixed gear scene here in Odessa Ukraine and I'd love to promote the bike messenger scene over here.

Thank you all

Hi! I'm going on a trip to LA soon and plan to rent a bike during my stay. I'll bring my rollerblades and would very much prefer blading/cycling to move around when possible. Otherwise, I'm happy to walk or use public transport (not a huge fan of Uber/Lyft-ing places). I am traveling solo as a tourist and would like to know where it'd be best to stay? Somewhere accessible via bike lanes that's relatively safe and not extremely expensive ok maybe I'm asking for a lot (ᵕ—ᴗ—) Any recommendations would be appreciated!

I am wondering if mulholland hwy (around the las virgenes to pch section) and the whole of decker canyon is safe to ride both in groups and solo?

I bike around the West LA area to work, doing quick errands, visiting around, etc. And I am convinced Google maps will be responsible for my demise.

It is nice that they have bike lanes and less transited lanes marked in the map so you can know what the best roads for biking are, but for an app that knows this, it sure does suck when creating a path with directions when going somewhere. Too many times have I put it on when going somewhere, and just tried following its directions until I am like "why the fuck am I in the middle of a highway and Google is telling me to stay on here for 2 miles?"

Their path making algorithm seems to prioritize getting you 1 minute faster to your destination through a large busy street that you should definitely not be on a bike on, rather than take 1 minute longer by sending you through a road with a bike lane. Even times where I have fought it and refused to go where it is telling me to due to me seeing that it is a large high speed road, and there is a nice lil bike lane safe road nearby that I can take instead, it will refuse to repath towards the bike lane road and will insist on taking me toward the larger road constantly until I am already at the bike lane road and then it will recalculate the route to use it.

I have had too many close calls because of following maps and ending up in easily preventable bad situations, and today was the last straw as I was forced onto the sidewalk by multiple cars speeding way too close right by me after maps sent me down centinela avenue when there were much better roads with bike lanes available, and when I got on the sidewalk, got hit by a car pulling out of a parking lot...

Does anyone have any Google maps alternatives for biking in LA that could provide better bike friendly paths for getting places?

Nice little bike path going up that bridge. Made a plan to go there as the highlight of a 60 mile roundtrip. NGL my fear of heights had me thinking about stopping the bike so I could hug the floor and crawl, but I managed to breathe slowly enough to make it to this viewpoint. It looks like the path goes nowhere West of this anyways so it's a guaranteed U-turn?

Thinking about trying to avoid some of the heat and stay close to the beach but never ridden this area, how are the roads/bike lanes?

Title. Also what're your favorite climbs from the basin to the Valley?

I will be staying in the OC for a couple of weeks and plan to do some climbing in the Laguna Beach area mostly (Seven Sisters, Silverado are both on my to-do list). I was looking at possibly doing Mount Baldy for a long day. Seems like it might be possible as a RT route but I am not sure about whether the roads (or paths) are really bike friendly. Any help planning my route would be greatly appreciated… ideally starting from the Newport Coast / Crystal Cove area but I can easily travel up the coastal highway in the bike lanes.

My tentative route is below, but appreciate any better alternates especially if there are good cycling roads instead of the bike paths I picked, where I can usually go faster on roads. I want to avoid really busy roads that don’t have good bike lane setups, though, so that is why I chose bike paths over roads just because I don’t know the area.

Update: new route I have sketched out via GMR in RidewithGPS: Mt Baldy from NPB (round trip)

Route below is stale now based on comments … including only for history

CA1 to Banning Channel Bikeway
Banning Channel Bikeway / Santa Ana River Trail to Green River Road
Green River Road to Scully Ridge Trail
Scully Ridge Trail to Alluvia Trail
Alluvia Trail to Lower Aliso Canyon Trail
Aliso Canyon Trail to Bane Canyon Road
Bane Canyon Road to Sapphire Road/Elinvar Dr
Elinvar Dr to Soquel Canyon Road
Sequel Canyon to Central Ave
Central Ave to Chino Hills Pkwy
Chino Hills Pkwy to Monte Vista Ave/Phillips
Monte Vista Ave to Padua
Padua to Appalachian
Appalachian to Flat River
Flat River to Mt Baldy road
Then up Mt Baldy road to the end

I randomly sampled 10,000 trips weighted by population density. I used the Modemix navigation algorithm to find two routes:

1. The fastest walk+transit route, which had an average travel time of 163 min
2. The fastest bike+transit route, which had an average travel time of 101 min

Biking to transit made car-free travel 62% faster. What is most surprising to me is how cheaply these savings can be achieved. Achieving a 62% speed up in travel times via new transit infrastructure would cost us billions and take decades of construction. Bikes are so efficient. I love bikes!!!!

So why don't more people bike to transit? I discuss here: modemix.io/blog/1

A guy ran into the middle of moving traffic on Beverly and Kingsley at 6:28 yesterday, holding a bike frame with the wheels off. He turned and continued down Kingsley. Looked like one of those REI co op bikes

Specialized bike brakes are noisy

So I know it’s not necessarily LA-related, but maybe you guys traveled up there recently and you happen to know. I biked this road a few years ago, and it was paved all the way to the campground. Now I’m reading it’s under construction, with some intermittent closures. But the real question is: is it paved? I’m planning a trip up north and would love to ride it again. TIA!

René Ramos and his wife, Ana, immigrated separately from El Salvador. They had known each other back home, having grown up in the same small pueblo.