{"id":3427,"date":"2014-05-20T18:40:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T18:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/kidical-mass-continues-to-grow-as-kids-and-adults-take-over-with-their-bikes\/"},"modified":"2014-05-20T18:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T18:40:39","slug":"kidical-mass-continues-to-grow-as-kids-and-adults-take-over-with-their-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/kidical-mass-continues-to-grow-as-kids-and-adults-take-over-with-their-bikes","title":{"rendered":"Kidical Mass Continues to Grow as Kids and Adults Take Over with Their Bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"KidMass<\/em><\/p>\n

Photos by Allan Crawford<\/a>. More pictures below.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blair Cohn\u2014Bixby Knolls\u2019 reinventing guru and head of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association (BKBIA)\u2014had a brilliant idea two years ago: take the hardcore cyclist concept that is Critical Mass and hand it over to the kids like they did in Eugene, Oregon.<\/p>\n

Hence, Kidical Mass in Long Beach was born. It was even stolen by Santa Monica<\/a> (though they don\u2019t want to admit it).
<\/a><\/p>\n

Critical Mass, founded slightly over two decades ago in San Francisco, is a simple concept: to congest streets by cruising through with their bikes. The social commentary was two-fold, with one side being advocacy\u2014to show that, indeed, people do commute by bike, a concept that in the 90s was baffling for most\u2014and the other side being a physical display\u2014to show cars what they continually do on a daily basis: take over 80% of the public space by driving. Everywhere. Even a block.<\/p>\n

When Critical Mass made its way down to Long Beach along Ocean Boulevard, our city\u2019s moniker of being the most bike friendly was inverted as several bicyclists had their bikes confiscated and were handed citations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was bizarre that such a thing was happening our \u2018most bike friendly city,\u2019\u201d said Cohn. \u201cSo Krista Leaders (BKBIA Project Manager) and I flipped the script and thumbed our nose at the issue\u2026 Charlie Gandy had asked me, \u2018Would you like Bixby Knolls to be a bike-friendly business district?\u2019 and I said, \u2018Of course.\u2019 But we hadn\u2019t found the right formula until then. Promotes bike safety for kids and community rides; it was the answer to our question of what we could do to promote the cycling agenda and further activate our business district.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Kidical Mass was massively successful with over 300 participants, including Mayor Foster, then-Councilmember Rae Gabelich, and the LBPD\u2014\u201cso the City and police could be represented as well,\u201d Cohn said\u2014leading little cyclists from Los Cerritos Park to Georgie\u2019s Place for a celebratory ice cream.<\/p>\n

It has since become a monthly event, with a 4.5 to 5 mile route that always starts and ends at Georgie\u2019s Place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to theme out the months to keep it fun and interesting,\u201d Cohn said. \u201cIn June, our Father\u2019s Day Ride encourages all participants to wear a tie. We\u2019ve had Zombie rides, Tweed rides, Bike Messenger rides\u2014to name a few. Each August we give out the Iron Man Award to the kid who has progressed the most over the previous year and\/or who has attended all the rides. The first two recipients were 4 and 5 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t partaken in the event, you should\u2014despite your age. And don\u2019t worry: every month there is plenty of ice cream and reggae music awaiting you every third Sunday of the month.<\/p>\n

{gallery}addison\/KidMass2014{\/gallery}<\/p>\n

{FG_GEOMAP [33.8287251,-118.18472529999997] FG_GEOMAP}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blair Cohn\u2014Bixby Knolls\u2019 reinventing guru and head of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association (BKBIA)\u2014had a brilliant idea two years ago: take the hardcore cyclist concept that is Critical Mass and hand it over to the kids like they did in Eugene, Oregon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":67952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25,555,426],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-bixby-knolls","tag-bkbia","tag-kidical-mass","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}