The Bike Oven gets some sweet bikes rolling through our doors every now and again, and the fixed gear pictured above is a great example.
The owner of the bike, Johnny Lam, posted pictures of his ride in the Fixed Gear Gallery, and gave us a shout out for the assitance we provided him:
Here is my first conversion (actually first time wrenching on any bike) of a Nishiki International. A buddy of mine gave this to me with missing pieces. With the kind volunteers at the Bike Oven (www.bikeoven.com), I was able to pull apart parts I didn’t need, reassembled and greased up the BB, headset, and rear hub. I even had the chance to redish my rear wheel. I’ve learned plenty from this build.
You can see the rest of Johnny’s pictures in his post on Fix Gear Gallery.
Well I’ll be - that ivory tower isn’t so far away after all! Occidental College’s Robert Gottlieb has included the Oven in an article adapted from his book “Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City” (MIT Press).
The book excerpt is available in the March/April 2008 issue of Sierra Magazine (the Sierra Club’s bi-monthly publication) in an article entitled “Bikeway or the Highway” by Richard Nelson.
Way down at the bottom of the page, the Oven gets some online ink:
“The Bike Oven … started as a free repair and do-it-yourself bicycle maintenance shop, but the garage where it operates has now become a social space and meeting center where neighborhood rides are launched, monthly art shows are held, and “bike-in” movies are screened. And while policymakers still largely ignore the bike’s potential as one alternative to the car, L.A. cyclists have begun to coalesce into a force that promises to become more formidable in the months and years to come, as the congestion, pollution, and cost of driving become the movement’s most effective recruiting tool.
Surprisingly, this print description has captured the Oven, and L.A.’s social cycling scene, pretty well! Thanks for the mention Dr. Gottlieb, Richard Nelson, and Sierra Club. You’re welcome to ride down the hill from Occidental College anytime and join us in the fun. Tomorrow night our Bike-In Theater will be screening “Vampiros lesbos” after our normal Sunday shop hours are over. It’ll be fun for the whole family (as long as they’re all over 18).
The screening of eat!sleep?bikes! was a great night at the Oven. We were able to raise some money for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and we got to watch an awesome short film, drink good beer, eat free soy ice cream, drink fresh brewed coffee, and generally mix it up with a group of fellow cyclists and cycling ethusiasts.
We got some coverage in the L.A. Blogosphere, when one of L.A.’s transportation bloggers wrote about the eat!sleep?bikes! screening on his blog, Street Heat.
I took a few photos and put some of them together into a Flickr photo set (click on the photos to read captions):
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
| October 26, 2007 |
| 6:00 pm | to | 11:00 pm |
This ride is going to be off the hook. How do I know? Let me count the ways:
- Planned by Ratt_Bones (he set up the Heavy Metal show at the Oven)
- We’ve got coverage of the ride in the L.A. Times
- We’re starting with a party
- We’re ending with a party
- Everyone will be in costumes!
The dealio with this ride:
Start at the Bike Oven (3706 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90065). We’ll be hanging out, and doing silly bike-related things, at around 6 p.m. The ride is leaving at 10 p.m. (on the nose).
The ride is going to end at 782 Valencia, Los Angeles, CA 90017  - where there will be enough revelry and libation to put Mardi Gras to shame.
Bring your bike. I’m riding a rickshaw.
There is more info about the ride available via the Midnight Ridazz event posting.
To discuss this ride, go to the Midnight Ridazz forum post for the Halloween Ride.
I got home today and plugged in my cell phone. The batteries had died halfway through the work day, so I missed a few calls. My voicemail had a gem hidden in it - the Bike Oven was featured in the an article entitled “Peleton Panic” by Cole Cooper in the September 13 - 19, 2007 issue of Los Angeles City Beat.
Some of the facts in the article are a little off, but who really cares? Not me. Just for the record: the guy who started the Bike Oven in his garage is named “Josef”; he’s not semi-retired, he’s just lazy; and, the original address was on “Avenue 42″ (not 42nd Street), but I digress.
Onward toward glory, and the blockquote:
“It was a sweet and sticky summer night, and the Highland Park ‚ÄúBicycle Oven‚Äù on 42nd Street was certainly cookin‚Äô. A swap-and-shop co-op operated by Joseph, a semi-retired thirtysomething bike mechanic who has altruistically opened up his apartment garage‚Äôs doors, the Oven on any given Wednesday night attracts a motley assortment of bicycle enthusiasts and advocates. On that night, some geeky white kids were trying to build up a stripped-down, surplus road bike frame and were mulling the differences and nuances of a pile of sundry salvaged derailleurs and gear clusters and whether to shit-can the concept of changing gears altogether and just turn the lonely frame into a single-speed ‚Äúfixie.‚Äù A Latino dude offered his two centavos about at least screwing on some brakes. An Asian gal on a PowerBook scammed on a neighbor‚Äôs wi-fi signal and was perusing Craigslist and Google Maps. Joe fielded questions from customers and directed traffic as some donors pulled up in a Toyota pickup stuffed with sun-blasted frames with rusted handlebars.”
-Cole Cooper
Wow - we got press! How ’bout that. Follow the link below to catch the full article.
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