Pedal Power

STAFF UPDATE! We’re happy to share that Brenda Yancor joined the LACBC team last year as the Middle School Encouragement Activities Coordinator. With school out of session, Brenda has become our Community Engagement Manager and is leading our communications efforts and will be providing support for our Chapter and Bicycle Ambassador engagement initiatives. Brenda says, “I love sharing information and facilitating experiences for people in the outdoors, whether they’re biking or hiking. I’m happy to be here and look forward to learning more about LACBC’s membership.”

Here you can see Brenda taking a selfie while pretending to contemplate existence at Yosemite National Park in 2018.

After reviewing all of your survey feedback, we’re sharing the first Family Fun Ride in the San Fernando Valley. The ride is 6.2 miles roundtrip, starting at the Van Nuys Orange Line station and looping around to the Tujunga Wash Path, where we coast along with a view of The Great Wall of Los Angeles, and meeting our halfway point at the Tujunga Wash Greenway & Stream Restoration Project. We’ll be using an app called izi Travel to facilitate these self-guided tours. To view the details for the route and listen to the audio guide, click here: “Know Your Place: Tujunga Wash”. Make sure to download the app before heading out on your bikes. You may even want to download the route itself to avoid any setbacks from a bad internet connection. For those who would prefer old fashioned paper, we will be making the routes available as PDFs on our website. Please let us know what you think and if there’s ways we can improve upon this ride. We’ll be featuring routes in different areas in the coming weeks!

Whether or not you decide to do our first Family Friendly Ride, be sure to follow the current health guidelines to keep yourself and everyone else healthy when you ride. Earlier this week. County of Los Angeles Public Health modified its Health Officer Order to align with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s directives to prevent more cases, more serious illnesses, increased hospitalizations and more deaths. The Order requires the closure of the following sectors for all indoor operations:

1. Gyms and Fitness Centers

2. Places of Worship

3. Indoor Protests

4. Offices for Non-Critical Infrastructure Sectors as identified at covid19.ca.gov

5. Personal Care Services(including nail salons, massage parlors, and tattoo parlors) Hair Salons and Barbershops

6. Indoor Malls

After a short hiatus due to the pandemic, Metro BEST classes are back as virtual sessions! Our first virtual class at the end of June attracted over 100 registrations so we are continuing to work with Metro to provide even more options, especially for those of you who don’t have access to reliable high-speed internet. In the meantime, our next Metro BEST Bicycling 101 class is coming up at the end of July! This is the perfect refresher for someone who hasn’t ridden a bike in a while or who is just getting into riding a bike on the streets. Class details are available at here METRO BEST CLASS: BICYCLING 101 – ONLINE July 25 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am.

Make your voice heard. Metro Bike Share needs your feedback on how they’re doing and what they can be doing better. Complete their survey for a chance to win a $200 Visa gift card! The survey is open to everyone, even if you have never used Metro Bike Share before (we want to know why not). All feedback is welcome. This survey is scheduled to be open from July 1 to July 31, 2020.

And while you’re thinking about the future of our streets take a moment to check out the concept for the Walk of Fame Master Plan and fill out their survey to provide your feedback.

It’s LA2050 voting season again! Let’s build the LA2050 of the future – Public voting has started for the LA2050 Grants Challenge. Here are the initiatives we are supporting to make LA the best place to CREATE, PLAY, CONNECT & LIVE! If you haven’t already, please take some time to vote! Voting ends Monday, July 20.

1. Help Las Fotos Project open a youth-centered photography studio in Boyle Heights! https://challenge.la2050.org/2020/create/las-fotos-project/

2. Public Matters is developing creative ways to get involved, take action and achieve street safety! https://challenge.la2050.org/2020/play/public-matters/

3. Support SAJE in preventing homelessness caused by illegal evictions! https://challenge.la2050.org/2020/live/strategic-actions-for-a-just-economy-saje/

4. LA Forward wants to demystify local government with LA 101, an interactive guide to help you plug into local politics https://challenge.la2050.org/2020/connect/la-forward/

And finally, make sure you check out our latest video in our Covid-19 #readytoride video series on fixing a flat, featuring Eli’s son Asa!