Urban Ride

Shifting Gears led riders on a unique training ride around Los Angeles, dubbed the “Urban Ride.” The route was created by Chris, one of the training ride leaders, and it was designed to take riders through some of the busy streets of Los Angeles so we can learn to ride and commute in traffic. I.Martin’s store manager, Jaime, and sales supervisor, Matt, joined us for the ride. Chris and Matt kicked things off by talking about key things to look out for when riding and commuting in Los Angeles. They shared riding tips and important lessons they have learned. For example, in order to stay clear of car drivers’ doors opening in your path, ride more toward the car lane than the parked cars and anticipate doors opening by watching through the cars’ rear windows as you approach from behind. It was a very helpful talk.

The training ride began at I.Martin and we started off by heading west toward Beverly Hills and then down toward Century City. At Olympic Boulevard, we turned and headed east. Normally, Olympic is a pretty busy street, especially during commuting hours, but it was still pretty early on Sunday so traffic wasn’t too bad. We passed the Miracle Mile section and turned north on Highland Avenue. We soon turned east again onto 4th Street, which has painted arrows and bicycle icons called “Sharrows,” indicating that bikes and cars are supposed to share the road. We were on 4th Street for about two and a half miles, but it felt like forever. There were stop signs at every block and since bikes have to follow the rules of the road, we had to stop at ever stop sign. That got annoying after the third stop sign. Argh!

We eventually made our way south to Koreatown. The pit stop was Chris and Mel’s house. They were kind enough to let us use their restroom and refill on water. Chris even shared some baked goods that she made. Yum yum! After a short break, we made our way back to I.Martin. Thank goodness we didn’t take 4th Street back. Instead, we headed north on Vermont Avenue (a very busy road) and headed west on Melrose Avenue, Beverly Boulevard and eventually Willoughby Avenue before making it back to I.Martin. Willoughby also has plenty of stop signs, but it didn’t feel as bad as 4th Street. We rode a total of 22.38 miles.

This ride is dedicated to this awesome sponsor: Alex F.