Every week we get a few phone calls from people interested in learning how to ride a bike, or those with questions about how to ride safely.
When it comes to learning how to ride, We usually send them to Eagle Rock-based CICLE.org’s “Learn to ride” page – where they can read up on how to ride a bike or find a workshop to attend.
Knowing how to ride a bike and knowing how to ride a bike in trafffic are two very different things. Riding in traffic requires a set of skills, and a mindset, that most people in the U.S. never get taught growing up. As a result, there are a lot of people that ride their bikes the wrong way on the sidewalk and don’t know where the danger points are when riding in the street. Fortunately, Sustainable Streets is there to teach those that know how to ride, how to ride safer on urban streets.
Sustainable Streets is holding classes throughout the month of November for those that would like to learn how to safely navigate LA’s urban network of surface streets safely.
At the Flying Pigeon, most of us picked up this knowledge over the course of years spent on group or solo rides, listening to grizzled road warriors tell us what to look out for. Some of us have even broken down and read John Forester’s treatise on cycling, “Effective Cycling” – which is an excellent survival manual for riding on any kind of road America can throw at you, and even has a section on picking up a date using a bicycle (Hint: get a tandem!).
Whether you’re learning to ride with CICLE.org, learning to ride better with Sustainable Streets, or learning how to ride with a date using Effective Cycling we at Flying Pigeon LA wish you the best and, please, keep those calls coming! We’re happy to help you get on a bike and riding the streets we share in this beautiful, mad, metropolis.