Invisible Riders

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The major arteries from South Central into downtown are huge-sometimes eight lanes wide. Because they pass through some of L.A.'s oldest and poorest neighborhoods, road surfaces are generally crummy. The bridges that cross from East Los Angeles into downtown, spanning the concrete-covered flood-control channels of the Los Angeles River, are narrow and long. Traffic quickly accelerates to freeway velocity-a nearly impossible situation for any rider, let alone one on a bike with heavy wheels and poor brakes. On the sidewalk, in comparison, the guarantee of safety is nearly absolute.

What would it take for Diaz to use the streets?

He answered instantly, without a hint of irony: 'Owning a car.'

The Los Angeles yellow pages list many more bike shops in the zip codes that cover South Central and East L.A. than in the wealthier parts of town. But the definition of bike shop is different. Some double as florists, gift shops, or even auto-repair outlets; some also sell groceries and hardware. At the Alameda Swap Meet, a sprawling indoor-outdoor marketplace that resembles the traditional town-square mercados found throughout Latin America, Tony and Maria Mata sell bikes and baby carriages in a stall bordered on one side by a tattoo parlor and on the other by a butcher shop. Few riders actually take home a bike on their first visit. Most bikes, Maria says, are sold on layaway: 'It usually takes three or four months for somebody to pay.'

Independent shops find it hard to compete with high-volume department stores on price, even though they sell the same bikes. Inner tubes, at two dollars each, make up the bulk of Tony and Maria's sales. Yet even that purchase can spell disaster for their customers. Jesus Galvez, who owns a shop on South Central Avenue, says the typical customer is desperate. 'Somebody comes in and says, 'I have three dollars-can you please make it work?' '

Maybe these riders won't leave behind the idea of bikes as something to be used, rather than enjoyed, as we have. Maybe, as they and their children struggle up the American ladder as all immigrants have, they'll tell nostalgic stories of how two wheels made it all possible. Maybe the invisible riders will be the catalyst that transforms our polluted cities, fulfilling the mission at which the conventional, more-well-heeled bike community has so far failed.

So why not now? Why not build bike paths, and safer streets, and secure parking, and inexpensive, practical bikes, and financial incentives for riding, and all the other things we recreational riders dream of-and that riders like Francisco actually need?

The answer is simple, and cruel: because Francisco and the other riders like him are invisible. And the answer is wrong. The question, in fact, is wrong.

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