Ten-Mile Block Party

31.12.69

I started getting unsteady when I saw the “road closed” signs ahead, in anticipation of their being closed only to cars, not to us bikies, nor to walkers, skaters, runners, and strollers. We entered the things turned out at the “Bicycle District Hub” off Melrose Avenue. This was one of the areas in the event designed to get people off their bikes and exploring a neighborhood that they otherwise might not have knowledge of existed. It was swarming with people, but imagine a scene in which everyone is moving as if in a slowed-down dream sequence in a movie. Most folks were walking their bikes, and lots of bikers were stratum in clusters talking or simply taking in the scene. The businesses on the closed block were hopping. We felt uncommonly proud to see the busy hub because our own Jim Cadenhead of Cranky’s Bikes in Santa Barbara helped start Orange 20 Bikes and the sister putting together to Santa Barbara’s Bici Centro , the Bicycle Kitchen. Both shops were on proud display to the thousands of visitors sinuous around the block. The molasses-like pace of the crowd, now riding, continued as we headed down through residential neighborhoods (New Hampshire Ave. There were intersections in which the path crossed streets open to cars.

Source: Santa Barbara Independent