My Midlife Bike Makeover

Me on a borrowed vintage cruiser of Bernard Serrano at Christmas time 2009

On November 1, 2011 we will launch the new website "Women on Bikes SoCal" website to encourage, engage and empower women and girls of all ages, races and walks of life in the Southern California region in the beauty and benefits of bicycling. While preparing for the launch we are actively seeking bike "love" stories from women around Southern California. In hopes to inspire you to share here is mine.

My bike story is one of a mid-life renaissance. Just over two years ago, at 45, the bike brought surprising new strength, increased mobility and fresh new opportunities into my professional life. Like the author of the the beautifully crafted and very popular bike blog Lovely Bike I too suffer from health challenges and felt unathletic and frail.

In early spring 2007 I gave up my car. It had just become too much to deal with. It was an old Honda that had been a marvelous companion but was starting to really fall apart. I live in the charming but parking limited Long Beach neighborhood of Alamitos Beach. Finding a parking spot within 3 blocks is a challenge after 5:30 pm, come home from a party or event at 10 pm and I'd be walking 10+ blocks. Certainly the exercise was good for me, but working from home as a freelancer I didn't need my car every day. I would often forget to move my car for street sweeping, or even forget where the heck I'd parked it in the first place. Between increasing gas prices, piled up parking tickets and frequently needed repairs I simply couldn't afford the car anymore financially or physically.

It was hard to give it up, it was. I worried about the stigma that would be attached to no longer owning a car. Fortunately I'd spent a summer living in Italy at 19, and lived there for school at 21 and knew in Europe almost everyone takes some form of mass transit at least part of the time. I also knew I was lucky that Long Beach has a very good mass transit system. It seemed that every place I had a client there was a bus stop within a block and half (and one about a block from my apartment as well).

Once the car was gone my main feeling was a sense of relief. I was still very challenged with fatigue and daily migraines and riding the bus was simply easier than driving had been (I could read while traveling what a plus!). I began to take mental notes of how walking was tough in the city. Where sidewalks were completely missing and things like that.

Working in Naples for two different clients I learned that the high median speed of traffic through that section of town meant that it was challenging for local businesses to thrive. I met people regularly who came into a flower shop and a very famous local wine shop I worked with admitting they'd been driving by and meaning to stop for 5/10/15 years but just never had before. I had honestly never before equated street speed with street economic vitality. It was a real eye openener.

To my delight I met fascinating people on the bus, including a lovely young woman named Amanda who lived in my neighborhood and worked in Naples as I did. She was active in the Long Beach cycling scene and shared with me how a motorist had purposefully hit her while she was riding her bike because the motorist was apparently angry she was sharing the road on her bicycle. I became aware of how many people in Long Beach were riding bikes. I loved riding a bike as a child but felt it would be too physically challenging for me, still I certainly wanted others who road to be safe. And I was getting very clear that in our hurry hurry hurry speed obsessed culture many were paying for the ease to get across town on side streets quickly.

In 2008 Georgia Case and I began talking of collaborating on possible projects. By then I considered myself a pedestrian and transit advocate. What I would do with this new mental attitude I had no idea. My background is in creative writing, design, and marketing and public relations. I didn't realize there were people who had jobs specifically for advocacy. But I did know Georgia and her husband John had founded Bikestation in Long Beach and I began to actively research the fascinating new world of bike and pedestrianadvocacy. Still I wasn't ready to get on a bike yet myself. I still thought of bikes as a mobility tool for very fit people.

In the summer of 2009 Georgia and John hosted a party to welcome Charlie Gandy, Long Beach's new Mobility Coordinator to town. He was a charming guy and the bike-friendly crowd was very pleased Long Beach had brought someone so knowledgable about bike and pedestrian advocacy to town. I went home and googled him. He had quite a resume (but no website of his own yet). The idea of Charlie plus the news that Sumi Gant, as the head of Bike Long Beach, had raised millions of dollars of grants for bike projects for LB was pretty exciting for many of us in Long Beach.

But I still wasn't ready to get on a bike.

Charlie became a neighbor and a friend. About six months later Charlie invited me to officially get back on a bike for Belmont Shore's famous Christmas Parade. Council member Suja Lowenthal and her staff, and Bernard Serrano of Cyclone Coasters and his friends were all going to ride in the parade. Charlie said Bernard had a vintage cruiser I could borrow. We'd ride in the parade and the next day go with Bernard and his crew for his famous vintage bike cruise around town.

I decided to go for it. It was time. I was very nervous. I was afraid I'd forgotten how to ride and that I might take a spill right in front of hundreds of people, but instead I took to riding again like a duck to water. My body hadn't forgotten. What fun it was and what a great reception the crowd gave us that night.

The next morning I was still game and went for the vintage bike ride as well. A large crowd met at Portfolio's coffee house (mostly men I must say) with a fascinating array of vintage and new bikes. We rode down through Belmont Shore and toured through the canals of Naples. I had a couple of epiphanies. The first is that you move much faster and much easier on a bike than I had thought. The second is that bike speed is the perfect touring speed and that Long Beach is really beautiful by bike. I made it 3/4ths of the way through the ride before my body gave out, and I simply bowed out gracefully and went home. My world had shifted. I could ride a bike again!

When my brother and sister-in-law heard about my ride they offered to give me a vintage cruiser a friend had given to them. For Christmas my family helped me get the bike repaired and paniers for the back so I could use it to run errands. My mobility around town was now complete.

In the summer of 2010 Georgia and I won the bid to create the road safety marketing campaign for Bike Long Beach. The campaign is called "SOS: Share Our Streets" and will launch late this fall. It is one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever worked on. Later that year I began to work with Charlie Gandy at Livable Communities, and the following summer with the local non profit Bikeable Communities. I am convinced none of this would have happened if I hadn't given up my car.

Sadly this past summer my wonderful cruiser was stolen. I've decided I can be even more mobile if my next bike is lighter and has a few speeds so the few hills around Long Beach aren't such a challenge for me. I also want to make sure that I can sit completely upright - it makes it much easier on my back and neck. I've been researching the hot bikes of Electra, Public, and Linus and I recently found out that Long Beach has it's own bike design company 3G. In the meantime I rent a very comfortable Raleigh hybrid from Bikestation when I need one.

Deciding to propose the Women on Bikes SoCal program came about for a variety of reasons. I now understand that the bike is the perfect urban transit tool, even for women like me who deal with some physical health challenges. I am honored and excited that Charlie, the Bikeable Communities Board Members and especially Andrea White-Kjoss of Bikestation (who created the first Women on Bikes bike safety training + bike scholarship program for at rish and low income women in Long Beach) Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, April Economides of Green Octopus Consulting and Elizabeth Williams of Calibike Tours are so supportive and ready to move forward with me.

We know, unfortunately, the needs and desires of women in regards to bikes are not always taken into account. I hear stories all the time of boyfriend's and husband's talking women into purchasing (or even buying for them) mountain bikes when the woman really wanted a bike for around town, or of sales staff in bike stores completely ignoring female shoppers because they assume they weren't going to buy anything. We want to change that. We want to give women a voice and a real presence in the bike world. And we want to invite women who hadn't thought they could ride a bike to give it a try.

Would you like to share your own inspriational bike story? If so we'd love to hear it. We're collecting stories now for our Women on Bikes SoCal website launch. We want 30 stories for 30 days! Write to us at wobsocal (at) gmail (dot) com if you'd like to be included!