Bay Area Biker Bedazzled by Bike Bitchen

Watch out, San Francisco: Los Angeles has a Bike Kitchen set to populate the city with well-wheeled bikers, lent the confidence of a volunteer staff of “cooks” who know what they build and have a fully-equipped kitchen to work with. An amazing system of organization makes the small space run efficiently, easily accommodating 4 or 5 bikes being rebuilt by their not-yet-proud owners with the help of 4 cooks during the weekly ladies’ night this Monday (Bicycle Bitchen, 6:30-9:30 p.m.)… plus a team of journalists and a photographer researching a bike-centered fashion piece for an LA magazine. Dropped springs and rusted chains were replaced like magic from a compact system of drawers labeled half with Sharpie and half with examples of the parts hot-glued to the drawer. Tools were easy to find and clean up, being traced onto the wall below their hooks and labeled. Between the neatness of the place and the friendliness of the volunteer staff, the transition from driver to biker in LA suddenly seems easier than the ride up Twin Peaks. This is do-it-yourself philosophy at its functional finest, with ice cream next door and beer across the street thrown in for (very) good measure.