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By Johnny, May 5, 2010 12:11 am

I unofficially kicked off my fundraising campaign for the California Coast Classic ride. I decided to look through my Gmail contacts and come up with the names of friends who maybe able to help. After 125 emails later, not even one donated to the cause. I did get an email from Tammy who said she will be donating pretty soon.

Hopefully my second group of people, co-workers, will fill this void. The good part about these folks is that our company has 100% match after $25 donation. I’m hoping to see if I can at least raise a few hundreds with these folks. My next approach is to do a letter writing campaign to the businesses that I frequent and see if they can contribute. Other ideas that is in the works is a fundraising party in which Ron has graciously offered to brew some beer for. I was also offered a fundraising ride with the help of The Flying Pigeon LA guys. I’m also thinking about jumping in the Facebook world and get contributions from people I haven’t talked to on a regular basis. Yes I’m that desperate to be thinking about breaking my silence and joining the Facebook masses.

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By Johnny, October 9, 2008 10:23 pm

I recently found out the founder the Bike Oven opened his own bicycle store down the street from the Oven. I dug around his website and found that he organizes a “Get Some Dim Sum” ride every Sunday morning. Last Sunday was the 9th iteration of such a ride.

Coincidentally, my schedule allowed me to take part on this ride last weekend. I woke up early on Sunday morning and pedaled my way to the South Pasadena Gold line station and rode the train one stop south to Highland Park station. Upon arriving I was accompanied by a few others who also wanted to be part of this morning’s adventure. There were 2 other bloggers who joined us. Shannon from Sha In LA and Pat from Eating L.A. (stunning picture of me on this post). Check out their blogs for additional point of views.

I was joined by a few familiar faces besides Josef. Veronica, DJ Chickenleather, and Martin showed up. We casually strolled through Northeast LA. The bikes looked really cool but seemed restrictive. I kept hearing that the brakes were as effective as any coaster brakes. Also they were more of a sit back and cruise bike. I wanted the option to cruise and the ability to kick it up a notch should I need to. Luckily I was on my fixie. During the ride, I finally realized the beauty of riding fixed. I didn’t have to use my brakes as much as some people while we traveled on a slight decent and was required to stop frequently.

Our pack made it to the San Antonio Winery and we immediately made our way to the kitchen. The food took awhile for some (they were cooking 20 meals just for our group) but when it came I polished off my Italian Omelette without any hesitation.

We were invited to tour the winery. Our tour guide guided us through the few rooms explaining the history and process of making wine in the middle of LA. You don’t have to drive to Napa or even Temecula to get your winery fix. We had the opportunity to try some wine (Pat’s blog should have details on what was given to us).

By the time we were done and ready to go, the sun came up and warmed everyone up. It was pleasant a pleasant ride back. I especially like that Chickenleather was documenting the whole experience. One of these days I’m going to see if I can get a copy from him. We passed by a group where someone yelled, “Are you guys Midnight Riddazz??” CL wittingly replied, “Of course we’re not! It’s daytime.” That made me chuckle. Riding in a group like that made me feel like a kid again. It’s similar to riding in a group of motorcycles but slow enough to carry on conversations. Hard to describe unless you’re there.

I bid farewell to the group when I stopped at the Oven to help out for the rest of the afternoon. I’m definitely going to do this again. Hopefully more peeps can join me.