friday fun times: red bike and green's tour & las ovas

so in my not so much anymore spare time, i've been keeping up with the amazing trip going on in the east coast right now. it's led by red bike and green and they are traveling from dc to brooklyn's afropunk festival. as they put it, it does sound like the experience of a lifetime.



image is from red bike and green's fb page. check out for more pics. they are beautiful! here's a quick video they made for people living in brooklyn to join them on their last leg to the show!

RBG Bike Tour > DC to AfroPunk 8/24 @ Dixon's Bicycle Shop from eli•zah on Vimeo.

also, clitoral mass is happening again in LA this saturday. those ovas are something else. LOVE THEIR COMMUNITY BUILDING! here's their bikey check list.



have a fun bikey time peeps! i'll be parking at the america's cup. come say hi.

two for tuesday: mexico city and nyc bike share programs

SF has a bike share program, but it is nowhere to the extent that mexico city and the newly introduced new york city programs. the sf program has been discussed since before ade and meli started this blog, but we haven't seen much progress due to delays, politics, delays, delays and more delays.

well, in the meantime, mexico city introduced its ecobici in 2010. as regular readers know, i went to mexico city late last year, and my boyfriend and i were very excited to try it out. we didn't realize at the time that we needed to live in mexico city in order to use them. disappointed, yes, but we were pleased to see that the bikes were used often. we also saw trucks at night redistributing the bikes among various stations. not to mention physically separated bike lanes and a diverse bike community. there are group rides every day.





as you may also know, i lived in nyc for quite some time. 8 years to be exact. i rode my bike while i lived there, but i didn't ever consider it a viable transportation option since legendary stories of bikes being stolen are bountiful. bill cunningham has had a bike stolen 28 times (at least of the time of his documentary--hope that's it though)! so i rode, but just casually.

as has been plastered everywhere in the media lately, NYC introduced its own bike share this past monday. i wish nothing but the best for this program. since i've lived there, over 300 miles of bikes lanes have been introduced, and nyc streets are slowly changing in order to accommodate less cars, more bikes.



incidentally on my old evening commute, i would ride by a spin class and i would always glance in...but i digress.

bitchcakes, whose blog is sadly on infinite hiatus, is still on flickr and shared some pictures of her citibike trip.



that picture reminded me of the bike i rode in DC last year.



can't wait to see how this citibike share goes. if interenet pictures are any indication, this will be a well documented event.



i don't know what it is going to take for SF to finally introduce its own widespread bikeshare program. in the meantime, i know of some extra bikes for tourists and newbies to borrow. heh. or maybe it'll take going to mexico city and learning something about efficient public transportation and bike infrastructure...kinda like what city leaders are doing. hmm.

using d.c. bikeshare

when i was in DC a couple of weeks ago it was humid and hot. oh and with that humidity came some drizzles. i didn't let frizzy hair stop me. i was on a mission.

i had a couple of hours to spare before i needed to be en route to catch my flight, so i, of course, thought of only one thing to do: DC CAPITAL BIKESHARE. luckily the hotel i was staying in was merely 1/2 a block away from the nearest station.



as you can see, most of the bikes were already checked out. there was someone behind me in the process of checking out a bike, leaving two bikes remaining.

i went up to the sign to see what i needed to do. thankfully, it was very informative.

i needed to put down a $100 deposit to use a bike for 30 minutes which costs $7 total. it did take awhile for that $100 to be returned to me, but such is life i suppose. that was their day pass rate.

while i was reading these signs to make sure i got everything down correctly, some frequent user hopped on one of the remaining two bikes. i figured i needed to hurry up before there were no bikes left to choose.

i put the seat down to a comfortable height for this shortie, put my bag on the front and i was ready to go.

i had no idea where i wanted to go, so i just decided to follow some bike lanes around. i figured they would take me somewhere i would have wanted to see.

i noticed some things never change. empty bike lane. full car lane. full curbside parking. typical.

i also noticed that DC (in this neighborhood at least) appears to have done what JFK drive wants to do in golden gate park. DC's is possibly more effective due to their "soft hit posts" which separate the parked cars from the curbside bike lane.

then i just rode around and noticed signs and the riders.

i also saw a vandalized bay area original.

and when i was done wandering around, i parked at a station in front of a grocery store and got me a sammich for the plane ride back to SF.

it was a pleasant and easy experience to use the bikeshare. i can only hope that SF has been taking notes on their WAY long and overdue bike share system. time to get with the program already. stop the politickin, and get people on those bikes already!

scenes from DC

there are more, but these are a few of the scenes i saw while walking around in the mist of DC. before anyone starts a helmet/no helmet war, please refrain from doing so since plenty has been said on the topic. these are just observations.

friday fun times: where are you going this weekend?

i'm currently in vegas en route to DC. on a total and complete whim i decided to apply for the first ever latina blogger conference. and....i got an email earlier this week saying i was accepted to go. we are going to go to the white house and hopefully (not set in stone at all...) MEET MICHELLE OBAMA! please go on over to LATISM (latinos in social media) to check out what they are doing and thank them for this amazing opportunity!

we've been tweeting up a storm. check out #topblogueras

and i cannot WAIT to try out DC bike share while i'm there! off to do some research (but only a little bit since i'm in VEGAS).

mwa. have a great one!

--CTX.