So you are in "the business," as they say in Los Angeles. Because of your insider knowledge, you laughed hard at Tim Robbins's caricature of a Hollywood über-mogul in Altman's The Player. You chuckled smugly at the uncouth gas-guzzler he drove. Later, a couple of production deals came your way - somewhat beneath your artistic vision and your dignity - but you figured the cash was worth the freedom it bought you. Eventually, you would do good things with the money. Just like Robert Altman.

Besides: You weren't like the others. You possessed values. You know: vaguely green blue-state politics and the requisite KCRW decal on your Volvo. The deals kept coming, and somehow the Volvo became the Range Rover. Hey, wait? Wasn't that the same rich man's three-ton tank that Robbins was doing his business in?

Ooops. You became a cliché. With very expensive "car" payments. The reality television show you produce/score/host/key-grip didn't get renewed. And you are in between projects this summer ... and petrol is three greenbacks a gallon.

And, like your mode of transportation, you too have gotten fat.

Don't fret, young Los Angeles stereotype. This is your opportunity to do penance: Welcome to Bike Summer Los Angeles.

***

Bike Summer Los Angeles (Bikesummer.org) is a loose calendar of events put on annually by a looser consortium of cycling advocates. Its "home" is a different municipality each year; for 2005, the organizers have chosen L.A. as a base. Included are a plethora of group "fun" rides for cyclists of varying abilities, as well as a "Ride to Work Week" commuting seminar; mechanical assistance/advice for the price of a six-pack and a pizza from the nonprofit Bicycle Kitchen (706 Heliotrope Ave., 323-662-2776); rolling civil disobedience in the forms of "Critical Mass" rides in L.A. and Santa Monica, and more.

But Bike Summer or no Bike Summer, cycling in Los Angeles is OUTSTANDING, if one knows where to go ... whether it's getting on a vintage Schwinn and pedaling back from Trader Joe's with a basket of summer sausage, brie, and French bread, or something more Type-A, be it the Ballona wetlands, the beach path from Malibu to Redondo, the improvised maximum-velocity velodrome that surrounds the Rose Bowl, the climb up "Trash Truck Road" from Traveltown to the Griffith Park Observatory, or the Poor Man's Tour de France up Big Tujunga Canyon into the Angeles Forest.

On a more prosaic and utilitarian level, the Southland cyclist can get plenty of miles, merely by mothballing the motorcar and carving a commute across town on a bicycle. This hinges on how comfortable one is mixing it up with traffic whilst on two wheels. This cyclist prefers the perils of slicing and dicing down Washington Boulevard - amid city buses, SUVs, and low-riding hoopties - over taking my chances on the beach path at, say, Venice Beach and the constant risk of getting Tammy the Teenage Timebomb's rollerblades stuck in my spokes, not to mention trying to avoid decapitation by the guy who just took a hit off a crack pipe and is juggling chainsaws for the rubes. But I digress ... .

Defying the Carbon Cycle

It was a couple or three years ago. I was stuck in crosstown traffic. Again. It seemed like an inhumane, absurd way to get through life. So, as I sat there, idling and fuming in a gas-guzzling 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix (J Series, to be specific), I ran the numbers: "Let's see: I live in Silver Lake and work in Culver City. That is 11 miles from my driveway to parking garage. It takes me 45 minutes. If I bought a bicycle and rode it on surface streets at 11 miles per hour, that same commute to work would only take me 15 minutes more. And I probably wouldn't want to shoot the architect of the L.A. freeway system when I got home."

That weekend, I bought a bike. My life has been better ever since.

***

"Ummm, I used to ride a 10-speed when I was teenager and was too poor to own a car."

"Okay," said the bored clerk behind the counter at the only bike store on the east side of town open on a Sunday.

"Well, I understand they have more than that now."

"More what?"

"Speeds."

After figuring out I was serious about buying something, the guy showed me a "hybrid" bike, somewhere between a "mountain bike" (fat tires, upright handlebars, shocks, and "suspension" - the SUVs of bicycles, in my opinion) and a "road bike" (skinny tires, built for speed - depending on the budget, visualize the cycling equivalent of a Mazda Miata ... or a Ferrari).

I rode this steel-framed "hybrid" to work, not every day, but a couple of times a week. Sometimes it was as stressful as the job. Sometimes it was pretty exhilarating.

One day, the boss saw me climbing off my bike, arched his brow and asked, "What on earth for?" in reference to the bicycle commute.

"I guess to avoid staring at brake lights every day," said I. "And to try and keep in shape and maybe lose some weight."

"Oh, you'll lose some weight, all right," he said. "But the only weight you are going to lose is the blood you are going to spill where Crenshaw meets Venice Boulevard."

I didn't know if he meant from a gun drawn in a ghetto or from getting thwacked by a motorist. But both were viable possibilities, come to think of it.

Swappin' Paint and Sucking Exhaust

On a bike in Los Angeles, you get to see and know the city far more intimately than by driving or taking a bus. You get to explore. The smells and paint schemes of the first, second, and third world neighborhoods appeal to the amateur explorer in all of us.

There is an intimate anthropology that happens on a bike.

The worst part about cycling among traffic is not the threat of having your ass turned into a spandex-covered hood ornament for Tim Robbins's Range Rover. The real bummer is the constant drone of the combustion process and the rank odor of car exhaust.

I was in the bike lane on Venice Boulevard, traveling west after work. A couple of cars were parked in the so-called bike lane, so I stuck out my left hand and signaled to traffic that they would have company in the slow lane.

The city bus driver had his own agenda, however, and no recognition for mine. He never eased off the throttle and was seemingly oblivious to my presence in his lane. He caught up with me as I paralleled the parked cars. I had nowhere to go. My choices were to steer the bike into a parked car or to throw myself under the wheels of that fucking bus. So, in racing parlance, I held my line, threading the needle between the parked car and the city bus. The bus made contact with my left handlebar, and the rubber handle scrubbed some paint off the bus. Somehow, I managed to stay upright, and avoided taking off the parked cars' rearview mirrors. The bus driver kept blubbering down the boulevard, like nothing had happened.

I was beyond apoplectic. Enraged, I stood on it, pedaling furiously to the next intersection until I caught up with the bus and began banging on the driver's compartment with my fists.

"Listen, Mister Magoo," I yelled at the guy behind the glass. "I'm all for hiring the handicapped. But just because Ray Charles can play the piano doesn't mean that you should be driving a bus!"

I am not sure if he could hear what I was saying, or if he even saw my lips moving. He could've been deaf as well as blind.

Tour de Smog and the Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cyclist

I was climbing Big Tujunga Canyon last summer, pretending I was in the Alps. I was high as a snow leopard and equally as alone. Or so I thought. I never heard or saw the interloper - another cyclist who came out of nowhere - power past me, graceful as a gazelle and nearly as fast. I might as well have been standing still.

I didn't put it together at the time, but after reading a subsequent bio piece in a men's magazine, I now believe that it was Mr. Sheryl Crow hisself - Lance Armstrong - who, come to find out, was training for his fifth consecutive Tour de France victory in those lonely and magnificent mountains that shadow and shroud the north end of the San Fernando Valley.

This summer, it could be you - humbled by arguably the greatest athlete of the 21st century.

Like the man said, "On yer bike!" Just wear a helmet ... and keep your tools close. S

Between encounters with city buses and human superheroes, Cole Coonce fights boredom and blogs about bikes on Kerosenebomb.com.
******

10 Cycling Tips for a Bitchin' Bike Summer

1. Drool is unbecoming. A brainbucket (helmet) is your friend. Do not leave the house without it.

2. Learn how to change a flat before you need to. Most bikes nowadays have quick-release wheels. Don't bother with a patch kit. Just swap out tubes. Changing a flat should not be an ordeal.

3. Stay hydrated.

4. Eat carbohydrates. Complex carbs are best, but if you are putting in 15 or 20 miles a day on a bike, you can tell Atkins to take a long ride off a short pier.

5. Travel light. Rule of thumb: Pick up any item you want to pack for a cycling trip. Drop it. If it hits the ground, it is weight and should be left at home. Weight is a drag, in both the Newtonian and karmic senses.

6. Exceptions to rule No. 5: Water, two tubes, a pump, a micro-tool kit, and some astronaut food.

7. Unless you are cycling off-road in the mountains, among tree stumps and rattlesnakes, don't buy a mountain bike. Mountain bikes are not made for urban cycling. The tires are too fat (more rolling mass, which will just make you work harder). Get a road bike and assume the position. You'll adapt far more quickly than you think you will. If you're intimidated by a road bike, buy a "hybrid" (half mountain bike, half road bike).

8. Leave the iPod at the gym. Cycling can be relaxing and stress-relieving. But you need to be aware of what's happening in front of you, beside you, and behind you. Instead of being lost in music, learn to enjoy the om-like sound of a well-tuned bike. It's far better music than anything stored on your iTunes library, anyway.

9. If you're afraid of traffic, ride the bike paths around Griffith Park, the Rose Bowl, and the beaches. If you are in traffic, hold your line and never assume you are seen.

10. For the menfolk, invest in a saddle that protects the li'l Lance Armstrongs. Crotch-numbing is a very real phenomenon and will short-circuit your sex life. If you want your divining rod to be able to point to azimuth north, make the investment.