CicLAvia!

CicLAvia kicked ass.

The people that slept at my apartment the night before met friends for breakfast at Margarita’s in Downtown. After breakfast we took the Red Line to the western end of the route in the “Bike District” to meet the daytime C.R.A.N.K. Mob. It started later than advertised, but that’s how it goes. It gave us time to have our little gatherings.

The only sucky part about CicLAvia was overcrowding. There was not enough room for the participants, especially considering the amount of families and cyclists not used to group riding. Next CicLAvia needs to be much longer. How about a giant loop?

I remember a woman cyclist with live birds on her shoulders and a “cage cart.” Right off it seemed like a bad idea and seconds later one of the birds fell off her shoulder and caused a small accident.

We stopped at a liquor store to buy refreshments and wait for the speaker bikes. The owner opened a big bottle of water to fill my water gun over and over. What a sweetheart.

The speaker bikes made the day. There were two of them; a mother ship with the DJ equipment, sub-woofer, and satellite speaker, and a smaller bike with another satellite. The two speakers were connected wirelessly transmitting the left and right channels separately. It was outstanding. After the sound bikes met the group at the Liquor Store we stopped at Lafayette Skate Park. Rolling through downtown was dream like. Once we got to Hollenbeck Park we set up shop and relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

Click the photos for more photos. There are 30 in all.