CicLAvia

I can honestly say this is the most amazing event I have ever participated in.  If you don't know, there are two more chances in 2013: Sunday, June 23rd AND/OR Sunday, October 6th.  Please make plans to join us in Glendale.  We had a car-free day by taking the Metrolink into Union Station.  All together, we took alternative transportation to get to Venice Beach from our front door.  It was a cyclist's dream to cruise down closed streets, I was constantly pinching myself to be sure I hadn't fallen asleep and drempt it.

When we got out at Union Station, we were a bit disoriented, but it was somewhat easy to follow the crowd of people on bikes.  We parked (our bikes) in Olvera Street for some much-needed breakfast at Rodolfos.  We mounted up and gathered in the square with all the other cyclists.  When the church bells rang 10:00am everyone started howling and ringing their bells.  Slowly the crowd began to roll through a starting line of sorts, maybe there was a camera there.  This is Los Angeles, after all.

At every stoplight, my dear husband said "take a picture" this is a once-in-a-lifetime view, and it was!  Usually I don't let the photos speak for themselves, but I think this time it's warranted.  People along the way, and afterwards eating our recovery meal at Traxx kept asking us what we thought of the experience.  IMHO, the news organizations got it all wrong.  The way we felt about it was: by showing up and participating in this event, we are showing our support of all cyclists, no matter their level of experience and we are saying to our local government (HEY) we want more bike lanes.  The safer the streets are for people, the more people will come out and ride bikes.  The more people on bikes, the happier and healthier we will all be.

We stopped twice, both coming and going, at the mid-city hub.  The port-a-pottys were much appreciated.  The food trucks and merchandise tent as well.  And as usual, a DJ saved my life!  By dancing a little and drinking ice water, we found the strength to finish out the ride even though streets were beginning to be re-opened for autos.

I don't know why we made such an epic ride out of it, most other people did just some portion of the route.  We rocked the whole thing from end to end.  Problem was, we didn't stay at Venice Beach longer than 10 minutes and we had to turn around. Even starting at 10am sharp, we didn't get back to Union Station until 3:30pm (missing the afternoon train, and having to wait until 5:40pm for what was probably the last train of the night, but maybe not).  Anyway, KUDOS to Metrolink for getting us there and back.  On the way in, we just bearly made it in before the doors closed and they didn't complain that we didn't have our bikes strapped in to the bike zone, in fact, we were in a handicapped zone, but the bikes fit within the yellow tape and they let us stay.  On the way back, we were in a car stacked 4 bikes deep (normally they allow only 2 bikes per car) but since we were going only one stop, they let us stay on.  So SERIOUSLY THANKS to everyone who coordinated this dream-ride.  In total we traveled 53 miles round trip, including the train.  To the sea...and back.