Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers?

Or simply, tire recycling! MaBell and Kelly made a run for CRM a couple of weeks ago. Per the guiding hand of Dr. Rot we took a truckload of crappy bike tires to this rubber recyclery. Apparently, they make rubber mats. Ironically, we drove! Double whammy--the driver's side front tire had a slow leak due to a screw, discovered as we hurtled along the 110 and a fellow driver frantically pantomimed that something was up. Luckily, we made it there and back in one piece.

This load of tires cost us $10 bucks plus gas, we saw a sweet black and white cat slipping in between the bundles and were good-naturedly told we were not allowed to take photos. I snuck the last one of MaBell as we were ready to drive away.

Holidaze Bikes

From Dr. Rot, a.k.a. Kreigh Hampel
of the Burbank Recycling Center

Thanks to the Kitchen, a little cash, some spare parts, locks, lights,
helmets and a few "Oh, I have a bike in the garage you can have"
manifestations, we wrenched eight bikes back to life for kids who are
hungry for a little of the good stuff.

Getting these bikes back up on their wheels was made easier with some
generous helping friends and their stories of first bike rides as kids.
There were plenty of (oh, funny now) crash and burns, bruises and
scrapes, wind and G forces, eating gravel in curves, near-death jumps at
the bottom of hills and street hell at the mercy of cars. Collectively,
there were life years spent exploring back waters, empty lots and lost
worlds. These simple wheeled machines running on muscle, pulse and
breath are rhythmical, musical, joyous.

Thanks to you and all the BK cooks for making the holidays over here a
treat for not only the kids who will ride off on their first holiday
indie adventures, but also for the working wrenchers that came together
for the greater good and some sweet story telling.

Everyone who sees the new recycled fleet lights up in
amazement...

Happy holidays!

drot

Happy Holidays!

We had our quarterly cooks meeting this past Sunday, hosted by the fabulous MaBell and Xotchil at their Love Shack. We voted in 7 new cooks! And discussed lots of fun new changes, opportunities and milestones for 2010. Next year it's FIVE YEARS since we moved to the storefront on Heliotrope and Melrose! You can bet there's some celebrating in the works. This is just to let you know that we are going to be closed for the Holidays starting TOMORROW, the 18th. We will re-open with regular hours on Monday, January 4th. Over the break, we are doing a little re-organizing and painting. If you want to lend a hand email us!

CLOSED: December 18th - January 3rd.

Have a merry holiday and an super tricked out bike of your dreams New Year! We'll catch you on the fourth day of Aught Ten.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Cooks.

Echo Park Community Parade

Every year the Bicycle Kitchen is invited to lead off the Echo Park Community Parade. This year we got rained out! But that didn't stop Gabriel, Kelly and even Paolo from Echo Park Film Center to show up with soggy santa hats, a wacky outfit and our trusty bikes! We even recruited neighborhood bmx bike buddy, Michael to join us. While standing around waiting for the parade to begin, there was a respite from the rain, but THE MINUTE they gave us the go sign, it started to pour! Gabriel, Kelly, Paolo and Michael rode loop-de-loops around the flag-carrying boyscouts laughing and smiling and whooping it up and as we crossed Sunset and Echo Park, they announced, "Leading off the parade, representatives from the Bicycle Kitchen!" and someone ran out and handed us a trophy! Tradition has it that we ride the trophy over to the Saturday crew at the Kitchen right after, but not this year. We had to pass that trophy on to our rad new friend, Michael. Handing him the trophy and asking if we could take a photo, he said, "I never got a trophy before!" If that doesn't put you in the Holiday spirit, nothing will!!!

WoOoT WoOoT!

Get Your Holiday Bike On!

Don your Santa Hats and wrap some garland or other holiday decor around your bicycle and join us tomorrow for the Echo Park Community Parade!

"The Parade will take place regardless of weather (rain or shine.)"

Join the Cooks of the Bicycle Kitchen as we lead off the parade. Meet at Sunset and Elysian anytime between 10-11:30 a.m. Parade starts promptly at Noon!!!!

Hope to see you there!

Sometimes a Lead is a Bust

150 bicycles!

2 trucks and a van and we couldn't scrape together 10 bikes.
Even in Hollywood the weather cuts to the core.

Mobile Bici

Photograph by Emma Ceddia at Occidental.

From time to time the Bicycle Kitchen hops on our extra cycle with two toolboxes and a stand, if we're not feeling lazy, and rides places and does mobile workshops! It's super fun. A few Fridays ago Emily and Kelly coincidentally both wearing green rode over to Occidental and gave a basic workshop to the group WOMEN!

If you have questions about our Mobile Bici please email us!

TAKE BACK OUR BIKES: Meeting Report

Last night Orange 20 hosted the second community meeting about the escalation of bicycle thefts and violence and what our cycling community can do. (The first one was at Echo Park Cycles about three weeks ago.)

There were two LAPD senior lead officers there, one from Rampart Division and another, Irene, from MacArthur Park, who had been at the first meeting. The Rampart officer was really surprised to have heard about the escalation and said he had no idea. He said that really the only way for LAPD to legally help us and track is for us to report EVERY THEFT. He acknowledged that trying to get a car out to you when you first notice the theft is going to take a long time if at all because unless an assault is involved it's a low priority for them, but he couldn't stress enough that it's important to file a report. You can call 311 or go to the Rampart division on 1401 West 6th St.(2 blocks east of Union Ave.) to do this.

They also suggested that you photograph your bicycle and valuable parts and write down the serial number which can be located here.

Roadblock from Midnight Ridazz is fulfilling TJ of Orange 20's dream of creating a Web 2.0 application that will allow cyclists to track not only bike thefts or assaults, but also problem areas, altercations with motorists and other good info. He's a true gem of a bike buddy. LAPD may then be able to take a report that was filed and use this site to track common problem sites.

Finally, as some of you may already know, Chief Beck had a community meeting also addressing this and he has appointed Lieutenant Andre Dawson as a Bicycle Liason. You can reach him at 213-792-3551.

Bottom line: we as a cycling community are lucky to have folks who are willing to take a leadership role and come together using all of the resources at our disposal to take our bikes back! It's enough we have to deal with just navigating the streets everyday, we can't fend off bike jackers on top of it all.

Ride On!

Take Our Bikes Back: The Second Meeting

Tonight at Orange 20 | 8 pm!

Community meeting about the escalating Bicycle Thefts.