A Look at L.A.’s First Bike Wrangler, and His Wrenching Space

2011 is looking to be a great year for Greater Los Angeles' do-it-yourself-do-it-together bike wrenching spaces. The Valley Bikery is moving into their new space at 14416 Victory Boulevard; that's Victory at Van Nuys Boulevard. The Bikery has their grand opening party coming up on Saturday January 29th.

A veritable Bike!Bike! of seven (seven! count 'em, seven!!) local wrenching spaces - the Valley Bikery, BikeRoWave, the Bike Oven, the Bicycle Kitchen, Pedal Movement Bicycle H.U.B., la Bici Digna, and Bikesanxs del Valle - have teamed up with C.I.C.L.E. and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition to create the County Cycling Collaborative's Bike Wrangler.

The CCC's wrangler supports the wrenching spaces, by rounding up abandoned and donated bikes and making them available to folks who need them. The bikes will go to the wrenching spaces, and will be distributed via workshops in low-income high-obesity risk areas. The CCC wrangler program is part of the L.A. County Department of Public Health's (LACDPH) obesity prevention program known as Project RENEW - for Renew Environments for Nutrition, Exercise, and Wellness. In recent years, the LACDPH had begun to focus on how to get Angelenos to do more regular healthy physical activity - including bicycling and walking. LACDPH started their Policies for Livable, Active Communities and Environments (PLACE) program which partnered with community groups and governmental agencies to promote changes to the built environment that will foster more walking and bicycling. LACDPH funded Project RENEW via a federal stimulus grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

LACDPH's RENEW funds two CCC programs: C.I.C.L.E. (with wrenching spaces) hosts bike workshops and LACBC hosts the Bike Wrangler program. The LACBC advertised the wrangler job last year and hired Jonny Green, a Bicycle Kitchen volunteer "cook", to be the full-time Bike Wrangler. LACBC's bike parking maestro, Bobby Gadda, also a Kitchen cook and president of the CicLAvia board, is also setting up the Wrangler program and space.

Streetsblog got an early look at the Bike Wrangler space, still getting set up, but already accepting used bike donations. It's a storefront at 1205 West 6th Street, a former liquor store storefront in L.A.'s Westlake neighborhood, right across from Good Samaritan Hospital.  Bobby and Jonny are looking to host volunteer parties to fix-up and paint the space, and wrenching events to fix-up donated bikes. If you're interested in getting involved with the wrangler's work of reclaiming abandoned bicycles, or if you have any tips or ideas on sources for bikes, or even an old bike in your garage that you'd like to donate to the program, contact the Wrangler at 213-629-2142 or  jonathan [at] la-bike.org.