Join us on another lovely, slow-paced, bike tour to sample fine beer on Saturday, February 4, 2012 on our Brewery Ride.

Meet at the Flying Pigeon LA bike shop (located at 3714 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90065) at 3 p.m. The ride leaves at 3:30 p.m.

This month we’re heading to Golden Road Brewery in Atwater Village to sample the beer they make locally and their collection of craft beers.

This month’s puzzler: “How many blog posts does it take to keep a bike shop running?”.

No bike? No problem! We rent single speed beach cruisers at $20/ea. on our rides. Want us to set one aside for you and a date? Email us at info@flyingpigeon-la.com

There is a Facebook event page for this event.

Any questions? Email us at info@flyingpigeon-la.com or call 213-909-8986.

In this video: Brompton bikes, some of our Pashleys, Montego & Amxdam dutch bikes.

The 2-speed Amxdam bikes we have left are going for $420 – half of what other bike companies ask for their Dutch bikes. These don’t come with lights, racks, and a built-in lock but we carry these accessories and without them the bike is pretty lightweight.

Any questions or comments? Email us at info@flyingpigeon-la.com

All sorts of old fashioned roadsters and old school Dutch and English bikes get repaired at our shop on a monthly basis. This old Union roadster needed some new tires and tubes, a little bit of polishing with 0000 steel wool, and some small parts replaced.

The spoon brake on the front is a nice touch (not the best for stopping power, but reliable enough to slow you down with no maintenance needed). The dynamo has seen better days, and after getting the bike all wired up properly, we’re going to try and swap out bulbs in the lights and see if replacing the dynamo makes things light up a little brighter.

The tires on the bike are creme Schwalbe Delta Cruisers in a 28 x 1 1/2″ size (40-635 is the ERTRO designation).

Any questions or comments? Email us at info@flyingpigeon-la.com

I grew up around Larchmont and have continued to hang out there for half a century or so, almost always on my bike. In that time, I’ve watched it change from a Mayberry-with-money Main Street vibe to a movie industry hangout to a generally hip-but-not-too-hip almost-a-town-square kind of place, truly engaging and relaxing to be in, and offering lots of “third place” spaces. It is, though, afflicted, like most of LA, with too many cars.

Therein lies the rub, of course: Larchmont suffers from the presumption that car parking spaces mean prosperity–even though most of its customers come from within a three mile radius, and many already walk or bicycle over. There is diagonal parking, there is a surface parking lot, and there is an expensive underground parking structure–and there are around thirty-three bike racks, which are inconspicuous compared to the acreage given to motorists.

You can’t add more car parking–not without destroying the stores you’re trying to serve–but you can add more bike parking, and at almost no expense. And you can do it without removing a single one of those singularly ineffective car slots (each of which takes up a vast swath of asphalt to bring in, typically, one lonely customer–a bike’s worth, that is!).

Look at the photo again: Larchmont has a full-length two-way left turn lane, interrupted at two places with crosswalks.

Couldn’t we put a bike corral right behind each of those little planters that protect the crosswalk? (Or even between the planter and the crosswalk?) They wouldn’t block anyone turning left, and they would prevent delivery trucks from parking too close to the crosswalks and blocking motorists’ view of pedestrians, which the trucks now do. A few well-placed bollards would protect the bikes from errant drivers, and stepping stones in the planters would give cyclists a clear path to the crosswalk.

You could easily put five inverted U racks on either side of each crosswalk, more than doubling the bike parking on the street–without taking anything away from anyone else!

There must be dozens of streets in the city where this could work.

Mission Meridian Village has an incredibly high Walk Score (94 out of 100), a New Urbanist pedigree second to none, and is a beautiful collection of buildings in a quaint and prosperous small town – but like most places in America, it cannot pay its own bills. The reason for that funding shortfall? As in most cases, it has to do with “free” and “low cost” car parking.

It took $25 million and 385 parking spaces but, right around the turn of the 20th century, South Pasadena got the holy grail of “Transit Oriented Development” (TOD) plopped right into the middle of its downtown.

The Mission Meridian Village has been praised for a New Urbanist design. It has allowed young couples and older folks to find a place to live in this quaint old town that fits their budgets and needs where single family houses did not. It opened up a car-locked village to the metropolis it finds itself surrounded by.

The Mission Meridian Village also lost the City of South Pasadena money, and continues to do so. Not a lot, as these things go, but a nice chunk of change every year that isn’t going to parks, police, fire protection, sewer line reconstruction, library books, or any other civic purposes.

How could a nice new development, following all the best ideas of urbanist thinking, underwritten by massive piles of outside dollars, turn into a revenue loser for South Pasadena? Didn’t they just get a practically “free” building?

Sure, the building, the construction, the utilities, the pavement improvements around the site – all of this was mostly provided for by outside dollars for construction. The catch is that there was no pot of money set aside for maintenance. The 385-space parking garage underneath this fantastic new development is at the heart of why Mission Meridian Village is going to continue to be a drain on South Pasadena’s budget for years to come.

Now, before we start marching on the parking garage in South Pasadena in protest, it is important to remember that the situation South Pasadena finds itself in with this parking garage is not unique in the region. In fact, most American cities find themselves in similar situations these days – with large public projects constructed with outside funds now looming as massive financial burdens.

Why does the City of South Pasadena find itself where so many other cities do with these large pieces of infrastructure? They cannot and, in fact, never could make up the maintenance costs of this parking garage by selling parking passes. Now, the machines that collect the money have broken and replacing them will cost more money than will be collected in recently increased pass prices.

“It costs a lot of money to maintain [the garage],” said Dennis Woods, Transportation Manager for the City of South Pasadena, “Association fees, lighting, police, sweeping, cleaning. It all adds up.”

South Pasadena loses $20,000 to $80,000 annually to operate and maintain the Mission Meridian Parking Garage. The MTA pitches in some cash, and parking fees were recently raised from $2 to $5 (cost of new ticket vending machines notwithstanding), but none of that money closes the gap.

How can the city afford to underwrite this parking garage? South Pasadena provides its own fire, police, library, and sewer services (amongst other things) – a full service city, which means there is no wiggle room in the budget most years. The City also had to borrow heavily to replace large portions of its sewers. Keeping up with bond payments for maintenance on their sewer system is a huge financial burden on a city with such a tiny tax base.

“Everything in a city is not about cost recovery,” said Woods, adding, “The garage is filled and is being used, keeping cars off the streets. We want people to use the garage and not park on the streets.”

Compared to many cities in the region, South Pasadena is doing pretty well to maintain services and keep a big stack of cash, 20% of an annual budget, in a reserve fund. Still, the city walks a tight rope every year with salary and pension obligations, infrastructure maintenance, and services – and $20,000 to $80,000 can be made to go long way.

With the city’s recently passed Bike Plan, that money could go to maintenance of the planned “green lane” that is set to be installed on Mission Street. The concept of a green lane was first executed locally by the City of Long Beach in their Belmont Shore neighborhood. A green lane is a wide stripe of green paint in the right hand car lane.

“Once we put in the green lane, maintenance is a big concern,” said Woods. In light of Los Angeles’ trouble with the green paint on their recently installed Spring Street green lane, it is clear that maintaining these bike lanes does require some extra money and resources.

Most Americans would consider themselves lucky to live in one of the units at Mission Meridian Village (naysayers need to take a visit!), but few of us would want to pay through the nose for a parking garage that can’t pay for itself.

As compared to some of the more bizarre expenditures made in cities across the U.S. that have driven them to bankruptcy, Mission Meridian Village is actually a great type of project for a city to lose money on – but it is still losing money. There are bigger projects and problems in South Pasadena, but this is one I think deserves a thoughtful look by the citizens of this fair town – your city could be $80,000 richer every year if you can figure out a way to make car parking pay for itself.

In this video I make an attempt to describe a repair job we did on an old Raleigh roadster from the late 1970′s. The audio has some issues, but this is my first ever attempt at voiceover, so please forgive me. The music was supplied by my ukulele.

A bunch of cleaning and some shining was done on the bike, we reset the cotters with some high quality cotters (using a Bike Smith Design cotter press) we stock. The tires (or “tyres”) were changed out for some new Schwalbe Delta Cruisers HS 392 in creme. We stock these tires in creme and in creme with a reflective sidewall. They come in a bunch of sizes – the size you see in the video above is 28 x 1 1/2″ (aka 40-635, or 700B).

The rod brake work consisted in us pounding out the old rod brake pads and then spending about two months tracking down replacement inserts from a domestic manufacturer. We found some, in black AND in salmon. Ridiculous! The last batch of rod brake pads I bought took an earth-moving PayPal postal service transaction in a New Delhi bicycle market involving an uncle and a lot of hassles. Now you can call up Ye Olde Flying Pigeon and order some in a jiffy. They run $25 for a set of four pad inserts, and really only work on old Raleigh brake blocks.

The brakes on the rear of the bike gave me the most trouble. Rear rod brakes are always the worst to setup. Once you have to move one brake clip you know you are in for it.

First, the rear brake pads have to be setup in the stirrup so that they are parallel to the face of the rim. In the rear, this is hard to do since access is blocked by a kickstand, crank arm, or chain case.

Second, the brake clips have to be adjusted to account for “toe-in” as well as the distance the pads will be from the rim. Sounds fine until you try to do the work and see that the slightest squeeze inward or outward from the brake clips moves one pad closer, the other farther away and at a weird angle. You end up walking around the rear of the bike, fiddling with the both clips, until they are set so that each pad is parallel to the rim, about 2mm away from the rim’s braking surface, and is not being squeezed too tightly inwards (pads can hit spokes and rod brake action will be horrible due to friction of stirrups against clips), nor too loose outwards (stirrups will jump out of clips on bumpy roads).

Third, the brake clips are typically secured to the frame with horrible, low-grade, flat head bolts. These are notorious for slipping and sending your flathead screwdriver plunging into your palm or finger. Wear a falconer’s glove if you don’t want to bleed.

Finally, rear rod brakes have an extra rod sleeve that adjusts for forward and backward movement of the rear stirrup. This should not be pulled tight, as rods tend to slip when they are set up holding a lot of tension and the bike rider pulls hard on the brake lever. Don’t let this piece dangle loosely, as this will also affect brake performance negatively.

Once the rear pads were installed I ran through the gears on the bike, checked a bunch of other stuff, and then installed a brand new Brooks B66 in honey as well as matching leather ring grips.

I wish I’d gotten a picture of the final product, but I am sure it will show up in some cycle chic photo shoot some day.

If you are looking for Raleigh rod brake blocks, or replacement inserts, Flying Pigeon LA sells them. Shoot us a line at info@flyingpigeon-la.com

This:

Or this:

The mural at the top was painted in September of 2007 as part of the Meeting of the Styles in Los Angeles. Meeting of the Styles is an international event put on by a West German collective. They touched down in the U.S. in 2007 and did a few events.

“[...]Mural-Art has a strong history, older than property, not only because of the political roots of the Meeting in the conflict of preservation and destruction of Europe´s legendary Wall-Street-Meeting, but also because we as the organisation feel responsibility to work for unification, in order to raise conscioussness and to resist a system that takes away freedom for order, control and profit. Politics affect us each and every day, locally and globally. Your consumption has a direct impact to the destruction and exploitation of environment and the manipulation and enslavement of humanity.”
- “Why do you have so much politics on your site?” in FAQ, Graffiti Events Worldwide

The second image is after a going-over by contractors for Los Angeles County. At the behest of Supervisor Gloria Molina, this massive installation was “buffed” (painted over) in late 2007. Since then, millions in grants from the federal government, and general funds from the County of Los Angeles, have been spent to obliterate Los Angeles’ street art heritage in the Los Angeles River.

You can see more images of the Meeting of the Styles in my Flickr account and in the Flickr account of user lavacado.

Call it what you want, but if I had a 55 foot tall cement wall, I know which image I’d prefer.

In a recent interview with KCET Departures, outdoor survivalist and native foods expert Christopher Nyerges described the path of the Arroyo Seco River from the LA River, through Highland Park, to Pasadena as a prehistoric highway – moving goods, culture, and people. Today, the Arroyo Seco Parkway (aka “110 freeway”) has paved over the trails of aboriginal peoples of the region, conveniently connecting Pasadena to Highland Park and the greater Los Angeles area for those driving cars.

What has been great news for people driving cars has become bad news for those of us that ride bikes. How do you get from Highland Park to Pasadena on a bike? There are lots of different routes, but I’ve got one that has become my “North East Passage” – avoiding as much car-only ugliness as possible, passing through beautiful areas and streets, and sidestepping as many grueling climbs as possible on the way from Highland Park to lovely Old Town Pasadena.

This ride is a moderate difficulty climb from Highland Park to Old Town Pasadena. The start point is convenient to the Metro Gold Line Heritage Square station and the 81 and 83 Metro bus lines (which run 24 hours). Total cost for the day if you arrive by bike and pack your own lunch: $0. Free parking at the Flying Pigeon LA bike shop if you want to arrive by car (and then leave on your bike).

The start of the North East Passage, for me, is always at the North East LA (aka “NELA”) bike industrial complex at the corner of Avenue 37 and North Figueroa Street – where my bike shop, Flying Pigeon LA, and the bike repair collective the Bike Oven are located. The street address is 3714 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90065.

So, let’s get mounted up and riding!


View North East Passage in a larger map

Heading North on North Figueroa for one block, hang a right on East Avenue 39. One block down and you’ll swing left onto Midland Street, a quiet residential road that T’s into a jungle of native plants behind chain link fence at East Avenue 42. That jungle of plants is the back side of the Lummis Home – a local landmark and former home to one Charles Fletcher Lummis, LA’s first librarian and an important figure in local and regional history.

A right turn on East Avenue 42 and a left onto Carlota Boulevard (a right-of-way that parallels the 110 Freeway) will deposit you at the Avenue 43 on- and off-ramps to the 110 freeway. This “parkway” was under construction in the late 1930′s, and if you look closely you’ll see the year the bridge was completed stamped into the walls.

“Dedication of Arroyo Seco bike path ca. 1983″. This low-resolution image is from the collection “Shades of L.A.: Mexican American Community” housed at the Los Angeles Public Library. It depicts City Councilman Art Snyder (holding scissors with boy) at dedication of the Arroyo Seco bike path some time in 1983.

Turn right on East Avenue 43 over the bridge. Take the first left onto Mosher Avenue. This will take you to the parking lagoon for Montecito Heights Recreation Center. Off to the left of some dumpsters you’ll spot a cement path – the beginning of the Arroyo Seco Bike Path!

The Arroyo Seco Bike Path was completed in the 1980′s and runs for about 2 miles in the river bed of the Arroyo Seco.

Riding along the cement lined walls of the Arroyo, you’ll have a chance to appreciate the geography of the region, and the multiple overlapping periods of human habitation. On your right looms the hills of Ernest E Debs Regional park, home of the Audobon Center. To your left, the noise of rushing water and high speed freeway traffic.

LA County worker spraying the walls of the Arroyo Seco bike path with green-tinted glyphosate and other herbicides.

The high walls of the cement-lined Arroyo are the canvas for local taggers, and a workplace for the County’s paid graffiti cleaning crew, each one wiping away the work of the other in a weekly cycle of reinterpretation and redefinition. The Arroyo is also home to a team of herbicide spraying County workers, literally painting the walls of the Arroyo green with toxic chemicals to keep plants from cracking the walls of the flood channel.

As the Arroyo Seco Bike Path ends, the scent of horse manure and the crow of feral roosters will beckon you up a ramp and into the parking lot behind the Arroyo Seco Stables. The stables are a reminder of the area’s pastoral legacy. People keep horses here to preserve their heritage, plus horsies and chickens are cute.

Ride out of the parking lot and hang a left onto Marmion Way. There is a short, steep, climb up to Pasadena Avenue. Make a right on Pasadena Avenue. On your left, hidden behind the trees, is a golf course and driving range. There is also a great foot path that starts at the intersection of Pasadena Avenue and Marmion Way if you want to walk the rest of the way to Pasadena on a narrow dirt trail.

Up a short distance ahead is Arroyo Drive – turn left here. Arroyo Drive will curve off to the left and cross a span of bridge over the Arroyo and the 110 freeway. This is a nice spot to stop and catch a view of the region looking South West towards Downtown Los Angeles (the benches are at the intersection of Arroyo Drive and Arroyo Vista Place). If you are riding with someone you like, this is the place to kiss (just don’t linger, the neighbors might get annoyed).

Cross over the bridge and hang a right onto Sterling Place, then a quick left on Grand Avenue.

You’ll probably have noticed by this time that the character of the neighborhood is quite different from the starting point. You are now in the City of South Pasadena. South Pasadena broke away from Pasadena in the 1880′s and is chock-full of college educated people living in well-to-do early to mid-20th century homes. It is a quiet town, which has recently begun overhauling its streets to make the more bike friendly.

Grand Avenue doesn’t need much to be made more bike friendly – it is wide, well
paved, low traffic, and provides a gentle incline as you make the transition from the riparian valley below to the foothills of the Angeles National Forest in Pasadena. Stay on Grand Avenue, which will turn into Arroyo Drive for a brief patch. Keep your head up! You don’t want to miss the Y in the road up ahead. Veer right, back on to S. Grand Avenue.

Pretty soon you’ll see a bump up ahead. This is the worst part of the trip! A few hundred yards of actual hill climbing on your bike … oh no! Trust me when I say this: this is the easiest climb of all the other alternative routes in the area.

Make a right on W. California Blvd., crossing over Orange Grove, passing Singer Park on your right, you’ll come to the intersection of California Blvd. and S. Pasadena Ave. On the corner is the massive Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Hang a left onto Pasadena Ave. – be mindful of the zombies driving cars here. Most of them are trying to slam on the gas in the left-hand most lane to enter the freeway. You will want to stay on the right hand side of the road. In a block or so, a bike lane will magically appear under you wheels.

Another couple of blocks still, and you’ll be deposited at the corner of S. Pasadena Ave. and E. Colorado Blvd. – also know as the western tip of Old Town Pasadena!

The return trip to LA is always an easy one, since it is downhill the whole way. You also have the option of hopping on the Gold Line at one of several stations in Pasadena to return to Heritage Square station at the NELA bike industrial complex.

Before you go, hop off your bike, find a watering hole, and enjoy! You made the journey from Highland Park to Pasadena, from low river valley to the foothills, past the living history of Highland Park, NELA, and Pasadena.

Last week, I rode from Long Beach to Arcadia along the Los Angeles River and Rio Hondo bike paths, running a little handlebar-mounted videocamera the whole time. I was filming the paths and the river for the GRID Consortium, a project I’m involved in that has its own plans for progressive transportation in that corridor. In the process, I rode the Rio Hondo trail for the first time, and in El Monte I came upon the scene in the photo below:

That’s the bike path in the foreground, of course, while the horizon is defined by a Metrolink train on its viaduct–below which is a span of the El Monte Busway!

And for good measure, a little airport a mile or two beyond.

In other words, a wealth of transportation options besides the car. Far better than in most parts of the Mighty Megalopolis of LA.

This extends beyond El Monte. While Arcadia, where I left the bikepath, can be pretty bleak–Peck Road is an insult to the soul–Temple City, a little ways west, was full of people walking from local store to local store. And that same Temple City has just passed a bike plan that includes what will probably be the county’s second separated bike lanes (after the ones in Long Beach).

Another few miles of pedaling takes you to South Pasadena, which also just passed a bike plan and is starting to lay paint on the ground.

Furthermore, the Rio Hondo isn’t the only local watercourse sporting a bicycle freeway: the San Gabriel and Santa Anita rivers also do–and the former will take you all the way to Seal Beach if you want.

Tired of pedaling? No problem: the Metro Gold Line extension is a-building already, reaching eastward from Sierra Madre, and of course you can take your bike on any of its trains. (Which can drop you off a block from the Pigeon if you need a bike fixed…or a bike fix!)

So all hail El Monte and the San Gabriel Valley!

While we’re thinking about it, check out the BikeSGV website.

Josef from Flying Pigeon LA tossing his daughter in the air during January 2012 dim sum ride. Image: Kelly Simpson

We were joined by Kelly Simpson, from KCET Departures, during out last Dim Sum Ride. She took some great photos, talked about transit and the city, and wrote a nice ride report:

“I felt like Alice in Wonderland being led through an unknown passage and pulled in by my own curiosity”
-from Get Sum Dim Sum: A Ride for All Ages by Kelly Simpson for KCET Departures on January 19, 2012

If you’d like to join us on our next Get Sum Dim Sum Ride, we hold them monthly on the 3rd Sunday.

Many thanks to Kelly and the entire KCET Departures team for reporting on LA’s neighborhoods.