We at GCN love coffee and we love adventure, so we planned a 200km ride to combine the two. The idea: visit 11 cafes in a single ride to fill out a coffee loyalty card and get the 11th one free. Si, Hank, Conor and Ollie tried out the new Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM to make sure they didn’t get lost on the way. It’s the ultimate cafe ride… what could possibly go wrong?
From Bicycling.com
By Damian Kevitt, as told to Emily Shiffer
Name: Damian Kevitt
Age: 45
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Occupation: Executive director, Streets Are For Everyone
Time Cycling: 28 years
Reason for Cycling: I ride for enjoyment, to get around (especially when it’s easier than by car) and for my health. Cycling is my form of meditation—me, my body, and the environment around me working as one.
I grew up cycling. My parents used to take me on mini cycling tours as a kid, riding 20 to 30 miles as a family. Dad was in the front, I was in the middle, and my Mom rode behind me. Sometimes we’d pack the our bike panniers and cycle down the coast of Southern California, staying the night at hotels. I loved it. (The only issue: The helmets back then were awful. I looked like an alien.)
As I got older, cycling became the way I got around and helped me be independent. Even after I got a car when I was 17, I would still ride around. Cycling was both enjoyable and a mode of transportation. Later, I got a nifty Cateye computer for my bicycle (it was so cool!) to track my miles and speed, but that’s about all that it did.
I never did a race or a challenge until after I was hit and nearly killed while riding a bicycle in February 2013. I was cycling with my wife in Griffith Park, going on a picnic to the Los Angeles Zoo. Only a few hundred feet from my destination I was hit, pinned underneath a car, and dragged underneath nearly a quarter mile from the streets, onto and down Interstate 5 at freeway speeds. My right leg was ripped off and about 20 pounds of flesh in two minutes. Miraculously, I survived. (I now wear a prosthetic.) It was a hit and run. The driver never stopped and was never caught.
How I survived and my struggles in the hospital and afterwards is worth its own article—but what I can say is that eventually, I got back on my bicycle and started to teach myself how to ride again.
Photo by Hannah Carr on Unsplash
Cycling isn’t all about the coffee stops, explaining to non-cyclists why you shave your legs, or riding through beautiful scenery and enjoying the feeling of the fresh, crisp air. There are actually a few life lessons we can learn from being cyclists! Here are some of our favourites…
Cycling in the summer can be the absolute best time to ride a bike, but there are some crucial mistakes which you may be making! Conor is well versed in riding and adapting to hot weather, and he has some top tips to bear in mind – he’s made the mistakes so that you don’t have to!
From LATimes.com
By Jonah Valdez
At its best, biking in L.A. is a cost-effective, climate-friendly means of transportation, leisure and exercise. Yet at its worst, biking in L.A. remains a dangerous errand of twisting through an incomplete network of fading white paint, miles of unprotected bike lanes that vanish into thoroughfares where cyclists compete with cars moving at high speeds.
“The concern is very simple,” bike activist Michael Schneider said. “People feel like they’re gonna die if they bike in L.A.”
Over the past five years, 96 cyclists have been killed on Los Angeles roads, an average of 18 a year, according to LAPD data. So far this year, six have died, including Andrew Jelmert, a 77-year-old real estate agent struck by a driver in Griffith Park in April, and days later, Leonidas Accip Serech who was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Koreatown. That same week, a third cyclist, John Hermoso, was killed while riding near Santa Clarita, outside Los Angeles city limits.
And yet a hardy 3% of L.A. residents, about 120,000 people, through wit, will, joy or necessity, carve out their daily commutes and other trips on two wheels.
Michael Runnels, an assistant professor of business law at Cal State L.A., speeds down Griffith Park hills, catching glimpses of the sun rising over the city. Lena Williams, a community organizer, slows down to take in the murals of South L.A. that reflect their experience as a Black queer person. Through thin rubber tires, cyclists feel the city’s inequality, gliding between neighborhoods with smooth pavement and those whose roads are riddled with potholes.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Cycling is great, and it’s even better when you know exactly what you’re doing! Conor takes you through his top tips to master the cycling basics, so that you can get the most out of your time on the bike!
