Aww, I should’ve been at that big California bicycle conference right about now.
Sitting in Bristol Farms, having had a big fat cookie from the bakery hot plate in the front and still sipping on a butterfly elixir, I exit the message thread from where I’d started the group call with Rashan and Raven, I see this image on my home screen.
CalBike describes it’s California Bicycle Summit as a “biennial gathering to share ideas and work toward more equitable and sustainable communities.” | photo: @aroundwithTK
It’s a photo that I prompted we take after doing a lighthearted, yet critical thinking city-design competition between tables during a breakout session of California’s largest gathering of bicycle riders, advocates for safer streets and even infrastructure decision makers.
Let me go click on CalBike.org’s website to see… oh, California Bicycle Summit, that’s the name of this huge cyclist meetup.
Baby, when I tell you I was thrilled looking around the rooms at the t-shirts, tote bags and even some tactical gear that attendees were rocking to represent their rider status!
Look at all these people that enjoy riding a bicycle as much as me!! Ahhh!
The representation was only the surface, the badges being worn. The credentials to wear these bicycle-icon adornments was visible in the ideas that participants were presenting, initiatives they were supporting and causes for which they fought.
I took the train down SoCal’s Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to San Diego for CalBike’s big biennial conference.
You mean to tell me that I’m not crazy?! There exist all these people as passionate about the power of pedaling as me?! Whoah!
Of course, I’ve done research and I’ve found papers where authors have obviously given considerable amounts of time to projects to improve public safety and such of bicycle riding, but… all these people at once?! Right in front of my eyes?!
Hm, let me see if there are any more images around that date that I want to include on this page while we’re here on the subject of California Bicycle Summit.
Surprise, surprise, I have more video clips than I do still images from California Bicycle Summit. I’m good for saying that I’m going to create content, planning out the idea to create content, gathering footage to create the content that I plan to create, only to never actually create the content. [melting face]
Oh, I did post one InstaReel from this first California Bicycle Summit that I attended, but the moment that the algorithm didn’t show it the least bit of attention and no one could really get enjoyment, I left it alone.
It’d be great if I could share this gathering with others whose interest it may peak, but what if it doesn’t? What if I’m the only one that cares? Why share? This was probably my thinking, even if only subconscious. Oh well, I enjoyed it!
Day 2 of California Bicycle Summit in San Diego, I rode an e-bike for the very first time! In my mind, it had always been a dumb idea. If I want to ride a bicycle, why would I not ride a bicycle? I could get on an electric scooter if all I want to do is press a throttle to accelerate.
It’s dumb.
I had fun!!!
I’m tickled.
Myself and two other attendees, that I met doing an activity in a breakout session, choose e-bikes to use on a group ride during California Bicycle Summit. | photo: @aroundwithTK
A bike ride around San Diego was on the California Bicycle Summit program and no other breakout session was pulling me a different direction at the same time. I wanted to go, I hadn’t brought my bicycle though.
Oh, miss ma’am, had I?! I’d’ve had no trouble looking for parking during this California Bicycle Summit with a bicycle valet hosted by @bikeSD, whatever that organization may be, I’m into it!!
I absolutely adore when an establishment or event has clean, safe, dedicated bicycle parking, regarded as highly as parking for motor vehicles.
As much as these big tech companies have to offer at their office locations, my favorite part about visiting the Netflix headquarters in Hollywood was the fantastic bicycle parking! I smile, as to giggle a little as I type this, but I’m serious. Bicycle parking is a selling point for me, honey!
It’s only right there was secure and elevated bike valet at California Bicycle Summit.
Though I didn’t bring my own bicycle to California Bicycle Summit when I rode the train out to San Diego from Los Angeles, I still popped in to Bike SD’s bike valet because that’s how obsessed I am with it.
My first time riding an electric bicycle was at California Bicycle Summit and I was immediately sold.
Not having brought a bicycle to California Bicycle Summit in San Diego, I wouldn’t have been able to participate in the group bicycle ride if it weren’t for Rad Power Bikes powering a loaner situation.
We signed a little waiver and boom! Hopped our butts onto the e-bike of our choice from Rad Power Bikes.
If I would’ve been given a choice, naturally, I’d’ve gone with a manual pedal bicycle. I had never been on an electric bicycle prior to California Bicycle Summit and I wasn’t interested in trying. However, I’m glad that it was only Rad Power Bikes there offering e-bikes to use for the group ride portion of the conference because it forced me into a new experience that I ended up enjoying GREATLY!
This experience, my first time attending California Bicycle Summit was exactly two years ago today. You can probably look at the meta details on the photo, if you’re a techy-stalker-ish person, to see that I’m not exaggerating.
(I can’t forget — It’s my mom’s birthday, right now, April 19th, as I type this from Los Angeles, and in 2024, my camera roll shows me in San Diego this same weekend. Don’t you worry, my mother was sure to remind me how bad a daughter I am when I was on the phone with her on my short walk to Bristol Farms. It’s okay, come June, I’ll be back home in Louisiana for her mother’s birthday, which I don’t miss. Guess I’m better as a granddaughter [shoulder shrugs].)
Right now, my main source of transportation in Los Angeles is an e-bike from RideOn! Bike Shop’s E-Bike Lending Library.
Last year, there was a program giving low-earners in California a twenty-five-HUNDRED-dollar voucher to purchase an e-bike of his or her choice at any participating bike store!! Baby, I had me and the man that I was dating at the time trying to get in that [virtual] line!
I am extremely upset that the powers that be cut the ALREADY APPROVED funding for those e-bike vouchers to continue going out. The program was underway and doing well, greatly received, policy f*ckfaces or whoever had the power to make the call said, “CUT!” Ugh! Sick. You hear me?! Sick.
I wonder if the lucky few Californians that received e-bike vouchers used them (if they went and retrieved an e-bike) and if they’re still using the e-bikes. I know that I would be!
Shoot.
[long face of a 4-year-old that didn’t get her way]
Man oh man, how I love this living, California dreaming! Living in California really lives up to the hype, I ain’t lying. Did I get $2500 from a statewide grant program to go get an e-bike? No. Would that have even been a possibility back home in Louisiana? No. It’s the fact that such programs even exist in California that adds to my quality of life even if I’m not a direct beneficiary of what is being given.
Californians care about matters that matter to me.
On the walk to where I’m sitting now, in Bristol Farms on the cuff of Beverly Hills, there were signs on fences of homes promoting the fight against zoning laws that would allow small apartment buildings on the blocks of these single-family homes. These homeowners ain’t going for that sh*t and I respect it!
These big-dollar developers want to squeeze in new buildings wherever tf they can to continue increasing their profit margins. They want to stuff tenants in half-ass buildings and charge high-ass rent. (The cost of living in Los Angeles is already ªhigh as giraffe pussy and developers or property managers will REALLY run it up for the prime location of West Hollywood West).
Child, that’s a-whole-nother rant for another day, anyway…
I think the UV rays should’ve calmed down enough by now. I popped into Bristol Farms’ cafe to nail down some items for this trip Rashan planned for her birthday, but I start a group call and Raven is at French Quarter Fest. I knew as I was walking that as soon as I got into some shade and a/c, I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. As much as I enjoy getting my steps in, not at high noon! Got dawg’on heat be done made me order a car home, which would defeat half the purpose of having decidedly going out for a walk. Since we couldn’t have our “meeting” or whatever, I needed to burn time some kind of way. Phone showed me that California Bicycle Summit pic, boom, open Squarespace.
Yeah, it’s getting to that time of year in L.A. where I need to go on walks while mister soleil is making his initial rise, then get my sensitive, light brown behind back inside!
After walking all of a few stoplights over from the bike summit’s host hotel, Wyndham San Diego Bayside, I arrived to Santa Fe Depot to board the train back north to Los Angeles. | photo: @aroundwithTK
I don’t know why, I continuously try… my stomach. I know it wants to say, “girl, please, stop playing with me.” How much I expect it to process is ridiculous. Ugh. Sint Marteen in less than a month, TK, and you were looking 5 months pregnant last night. [sobs dramatically]
After two days of protected lanes during California Bicycle Summit, I walked a few blocks over from the bayside to the rail line, right on time for my soon departing train, and bid adieu to San Diego, headed back up to the much-less-supportive, yet all the more invigorating City of Angels.
Other writers have readers, if you’ve come to this page, you might just be a rider — what I like to have here on aroundwithTK. Today, I talked about an experience from two years ago that was quite a delight. Tomorrow, I may cry on the page about an impending fright. I strive for the writing to make it interesting, whatever it may be. Thank you for riding with me!
Glossary
ªhigh as giraffe pussy = a classification of cost, created (to my knowledge) by my mother, for an item or experience that’s far more than she wishes to ever pay; expensive.