Southern California - If I can influence more kids like this, I will be very happy :)

I was riding my folder home yesterday, and was kinda tired, so instead of circling around the block like I usually do, I cut through the park in my backyard. There was a group of high schoolers fooling around in the basketball court, and as I passed them, one guy asked me about my bike. I him gave the usual 30sec rundown--it's a folding bike, Kent Ultralite, you can buy it online but there are MUCH better brands, here's how it folds, blah blah. After the usual "cool," "nice bike" etc. from the kids, I mounted my bike and made to leave. As I rode away, I overheard this bit of conversation between the kid who first asked and his friends:

"dude, when I grow up, I wanna have just that kind of bike, no drivers license."

"srsly?"

"yeah..."

He probably said something else, but I was too far away to hear.

I hope that kid was really serious, and if I ever see him riding around the neighborhood, I'll be glad that I was able to influence one kid to hop on a bike and reap all the benefits cycling can give. :)

That's way cool, and it was nice of you to stop and talk to them for a minute.

That's cool!

Very nice nekohime. A big message that just doesn't seem to radiate through Los Angeles is bicycles can be used for transportation. Kudos for taking a moment to talk with these kids. Sounds like you made an impact.

That's great that you took the time to plant a seed. Isn't it amazing how what we consider to be to simplest of things can have such an impact. You planted a seed that will get harvested years down the road. Hope it gets watered and not pushed out of the way by the weeds in life.

Folding bikes really seem to draw non-cyclists in! I dropped my Insight off at Norm Reeves Honda for some warranty work (yeah, I blew out the speakers), pulled my folding bike out of the back, unfolded it . . . and drew a huge crowd of Norm Reeves employees (mostly sales guys and service writers).

They all thought it was "So cool!" I gave them the "usual 30 sec. rundown" but then they had lots more questions. Mine is a KHS Mocha, so yeah, there are better ones out there, etc.

So then when I went to pick up the Insight they were all disappoiinted cause my wife dropped me off, instead of me riding the "Folder" in. Apparently they'd been talking about it and wanted to show it to other employees and were bummed because "the bike guy" (as they call me) didn't bring the bike!

Rick / OCRR

My fourteen year old calls my folder a "clown bike". But maybe other kids think it looks cool.:p

Wow, there are more people on folders than I thought! Uhm, if any of you folder owners are interested, I'm thinking of organizing a charity ride specifically for folders (was inspired by Happytime's charity ride plus that kid, lol). I think it's a good idea because, like Rick said, folding bikes attract people and will possibly inspire more people to bike, it'll be a chance to get to know other folder owners, show off our bikes and try out other people's much better bikes (i.e. not mine), it'll help a charity/charities, and will be very fun. Hop over to the folding bike threads and look for the one that says "SoCal folder people, I have an idea" if you guys are interested.

^^^ That's a neeto idea. You should have part of the ride use the light rail and show off the folding part of your folders. Hell I'd love to participate if anyone knows where I could rent a folder for the day or borrow one.