Women on Bikes SoCal May/June 2013

I didn’t always love bikes. Actually, I really disliked them. My dad is a cyclist and growing up I remember feeling shame and embarrassment whenever seeing him come home in spandex. My sister and I instituted a rule requiring him to change out of his riding gear in the garage. I didn’t understand what drove him to ride a bike (pun intended).

Fast forward 10 years to when I moved to San Luis Obispo, CA for college. I considered myself an environmental advocate and I sure let everyone know. I was always preaching about what others should do to reduce their impact on the planet, whether it was eating less meat, recycling plastics, or driving less. I found sustainability-related clubs a great outlet for my teachings and joined as many as I could.

After a couple years of volunteering, I landed the position of co-director of a campus environmental group. The group organized events for volunteers, including beach clean-ups, tree planting, and Earth Day celebrations. In preparing for one of our monthly beach clean-ups, my co-director came up with a novel idea. He suggested we ride our bikes to the beach. WHAT? Ride there? I was shocked, confused, and mostly terrified of the idea. I mean, this was a 10 mile ride! One-way! I thought there was no way my legs could get me there, let alone back.

Letting fear get the best of me, I offered to drive to the beach those people who didn’t want to ride. When my carpool arrived to the beach, I was surprised to see how many people showed up with bikes. These people weren’t wearing spandex, they weren’t all on racing bikes, and they weren’t all insanely athletic men, which was my conception of bicyclists up until then. This was the first point I remember thinking that bicycling might be a viable transportation option.

With my tail between my legs, I admitted to my dad I wanted a bike. He bought me the cheapest Schwinn he could find, assuming it would spend most of its life in the garage, but boy was he wrong! I started with small trips to the grocery store and then slowly worked up to the 1.5 mile commute to downtown San Luis Obispo. I realized very quickly how easily I could get from one place to another without using a car. I never thought bicycling would be something I would be able to do, but the more I rode, the more comfortable I got with being on a bike.

Today I am an avid bicycle commuter. On most weekdays I put my bike on the subway to get to work in downtown Los Angeles (I still haven’t found a way to not be sweaty all day) and I ride my bike five miles home. I find that driving, taking the subway, and riding a bike to/from my job all take about 30 minutes, so why not ride?! I notice that I’m happier on those days that I ride home because I feel proud of myself. I am proud that I am staying healthy, that I am conquering my fears (yes, the streets still scare me sometimes), and that I am practicing what I preach.

When I am on a bike I feel like I experience more. I take in the streetscapes and can smell the food trucks. I can make eye contact with pedestrians and say hello to other bicyclists. I feel like I’m a part of the scene, rather than just moving through it. When I’m riding, the commute becomes part of the fun, not just a means to get where I’m going. I now understand my dad’s love of bicycling and I hope others will learn to love their bikes, too!

Jessie Holzer grew up in San Clemente, CA. She recently moved back to Southern California after completing her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Jessie now works as a bicycle and pedestrian planner at Alta Planning + Design in Los Angeles. In her free time she enjoys exploring LA and discovering all that Southern California has to offer.

For me riding bikes never sounded like a good time. Of course this was when I was still in High School and would have much rather preferred staying in my room painting, or blogging on live journal than going outside and getting some fresh air. I blame this largely in part to the fact the bike I did own, was a 30lb beach cruiser, which despite having gears still seemed like more of a chore to ride than a leisure activity. But all of that seemed to change when I was about 22 and found the art of fixed gear. For Christmas I had asked my mom for a new bike, and was stoked when she agreed and told me to do some research and find exactly what I was looking for. Leaving it up to me was probably her way of making sure that she wasn’t going to spend another $500 on something I would just let sit in my garage.

At that time, a lot of my friends were riding the Bianchi Pista, a steel brakeless frame, that to be honest sort of intimidated me. However Bianchi with its reputable name and vast selection of bikes in my price range, also offered the San Jose- a cyclocross bike that came stock with front and rear brakes. I was sold. Shortly after receiving my bike for Christmas I was out everyday riding all over the city. It was around that same time that I had moved from the city of Orange to Costa Mesa and found a few group rides starting with Orange County Critical Mass. Critical Mass (a slow paced 15 mile ride that was open to anyone and everyone who owned a bike) not only introduced me to so many people who road locally in my area but also provided a sense of community like I had never before experienced. Some of my closest friends were made through that bike ride, including my current manager at LBFG Citygrounds (a local specialty bike shop located in the East village of downtown Long Beach).

It wasn't long after that I became more comfortable with riding that I had decided to make the switch from single speed to fixed. Another provided feature on my San Jose that I had looked for when purchasing my bike. However what I didn’t know at that time was the meaning of a “gear ratio” and the fact that my bike was set up for cyclocross and not for basic street riding. So while my friends were pumping away and gaining speed, I was trailing behind spinning and spinning but going nowhere fast.

I knew what had to be done it was definitely time for an upgrade. And so in the summer of 2008 I was given the bike I still ride today, a 2006 Fuji Track Pro. It’s aluminum frame and larger gear ratio were just the tools I needed to keep me up with the pack. Little did I know all that time I had spent riding the Bianchi was slowly turning me into a strong competitive rider, just like Lance Armstrong training for the tour.

Britney Dub is a 26 year old SoCal native. She graduated with her Associates in Art from Orange Coast College in 2006. She's traveled to over 15 countries world wide and loves painting and riding bikes in her free time. By day she works full time at LBFG Citygrounds in the East Village of Downtown Long Beach, and by night she's an amateur taxidermist specializing in animal preservation using alcohol and salt. In the future she plans to sell her creations to local businesses and perhaps one day have her own shop.