Bikerowave’s server was hacked in mid January which brought it offline. After some rebuilding and time off, it’s now tanned, rested, and ready.

We will be closed on December 24th, 26th, and 31st. Happy holidays!

This last Sunday, despite threat of rain and what seemed like the coldest day in LA ever (to me, anyway) the Bikerowave held it’s first ever Bike Swap Meet.  I’d estimate about 250 people came by and checked-out some really cool bits and pieces and complete bikes being sold by locals and cross-town bikeophiles alike.  Speaking for myself, I did quite well for the efforts and actually sold more than I bought.  I suspect we’ll be doing more of these, at least off in the early Spring.

Thank you everyone who participated by selling and shopping.  Thank you Lucas for planting the seed and thank you Steven for making sure the coffee was there and the donuts were fresh.  Oh, and who was the mystery girl who patiently unknotted her giant ball of yarn the whole time?  Jason?

Pedal With Me is a group ride that is being put together to address homelessness. United Steps is a non-profit organization which finds unique solutions for homelessness and is sponsoring this event. If you’d like to help out, ride, donate a bike, money or time to this event, contact them here.

There are two rides. One leaves at 9 am and the other leaves at 11 am.  If you’d like to help us, the Bikerowave, with getting everyone from point A (The Bikerowave) to point B (Venice Beach, less than 3 miles away) great!  We need help getting folks fitted properly to bikes, escort them safely to the beach for the rally there, and provide a valet service for the bikes.  We’d love to see you there helping out.  You can contact us at info@bikerowave.org

Bikerowave will be having its first swap meet to celebrate the holidays. Come get good deals on bikes parts from our hard-working and attractive volunteers/members.

Come early for a chance at Steve Mattson’s fabled parts bin. Come earlier and get some tamales at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market across the street. Come even earlier and hang out in front of the Bikerowave by yourself in the dark.

If you would like to sell some things at this swap meet, please send emails to stevenhma@gmail.com with what you plan on selling. We would like to keep the items bike related, but other items would be fine.

Coffee, donuts, fruit, and good times will be provided.

What a great way to start the holiday season than to do a demanding, kick-butt 8 mile roller coaster of a bike ride.  Short, brief and all worthy justification to indulge in another slice of pecan pie…

The 7 Hills of Mar Vista (Plus a bonus hill)

When:  Thanksgiving Day, November 26 2009 (we’ll be closed)

Start from: 3270 Stoner Avenue, Mar Vista CA 90066

Start time: Meet and greet, route maps at 9:30 am  Ride at 10:00 am

This is going to be a challenging ride–”More Difficult than you think!”

Click here for the route map.

Questions or to RSVP: Lew Roth 310-962-4501   lew@uidesign.com

Have a nice day of eatin’, watching TV, going for a ride down to the beach to watch the sunset, hanging with friends and family and generally sharing your gratitude for the amazingly wonderful life you have!   We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Yo!

Bikerowave has ambitions to hold art showings and display photos at Bikerowave – bike oriented of course.  Toward that end, we could really use a matte cutter, similar to the one in the photo above.  We’re looking to cut board up to .06″ thick, and 30″ in length, and we’d like to be able to cut beveled edges, so that would be nice.  Email M-rock, at iron.robot AT gmail DOT com if you’ve got something you could donate to Bikerowave that will do the trick.

Photo by Alex-S - visit his Flickr stream

Bikerowave’s lounge is coming along.  We have two couches, two tables, a library, some shag carpet, and a TV w/ build in DVD player.  Score!

NEED CAFFEINE.  Specifically, we need coffee.  If you’ve got a coffee maker – low end, gets the job done – or a full service espresso cart with volunteer staff that you could give us, it would be greatly appreciated.  Just bring it by Bikerowave and leave it in the lounge.  Future generations of bikers thank you.

Imagining a shop full of bikers on a rainy Saturday in LA, brewing up some coffee, makes me all wistful.

Bikerowave has a new library.  We took all our non-repair books, and stuck ‘em between two book ends in our lounge area.

Bikerowave's new library, photo by Steve Mattson

Would you be willing to donate a book to our library?  Some of the book’s are directly related to cycling – John Forester’s Effective Cycling for  instance.  But some are only tangentially connected, such as the Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, and some are connected to orgs like Bikerowave, but not cycling, such as Building Powerful Community Organizations by Michael Jacoby Brown.

We would love a donation of one or two books (but not a million – we get easily overwhelmed.)