Under a full moon on Saturday, April 16, a week after the Long Beach Grand Prix wrapped up, a new group took over the streets of Downtown Long Beach, this time on bikes.
Each month, dozens of bike groups meet in Long Beach and other surrounding cities like Wilmington to go on rides organized by Javy Andrade and his crew Harbor Area BMX. The riders fill entire streets, with numbers ranging from 200 to 600 riders on any given month.
“I think the best way to explore a new city is on your bike,” Andrade said. “In a car, you’re going too fast; you’re gonna miss something.”
By Andrade’s estimate, his bike’s tires have touched about half of Long Beach’s pavement.
The now-massive group started as a family affair with him, his four brothers, and their kids.
“I’ve been riding bikes all my life,” Andrade said. “As a kid, I can’t recall a time in my life that I didn’t own a BMX bike.”
About four years ago, they started going to bigger group rides that took place in Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica but realized that Long Beach and the harbor area didn’t have ride-outs of their own.
So he started the Harbor Area BMX Instagram account in 2018 and began organizing local rides.
Andrade wanted his children and their friends to see different parts of the city they may have never seen before, like Belmont Shore and the Port of Long Beach.
“We’re just trying to have a good time with it,” Andrade said. “It’s like a stress reliever. It’s always been a stress reliever for me to just get on my bike, even if I’m doing it by myself or like 500 people.”
Soon the group began to grow. By the end of 2019, monthly rides saw an attendance of around 80 to 150 riders.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and lockdowns began.
“People were looking for an outlet to get out of the house,” Andrade said. “Everything was locked down. You can’t go to the gym, you can’t go to a bar, you can’t go to a club.”
That led to an explosion in membership; the group rides doubled in size and started seeing riders come from as far as San Diego and Las Vegas.
Thousand Oaks resident Jake Ribis and his family started coming to the Long Beach rides during the pandemic.
“I did a bike ride out in 2020, and ever since then [we] have probably done about 40 of them from here to Vegas, San Diego, Santa Barbara,” Ribis said before a Long Beach ride that started at the Pike Outlets Parking Garage on April 16.
Ribis rides with his wife and two young sons, who have embraced the event’s community and have even bested some of the older kids and adults with their wheelies, no-handed riding and other tricks.
Before each ride, Andrade scouts each route to make sure they’ll be appropriate for the group, whose ages range from 8 to 75 years old.
He wants the rides that he organizes to be as family-friendly as possible with a slow pace and not too many hills to climb. Most rides are about 10 to 15 miles in length and take between three and four hours to complete.
“You don’t want to do under 15 miles because it happens quick,” Andrade said. “Not everyone’s from around here. They’re gonna be like, ‘That’s it?’ You don’t want to go over 20 miles because then they’re gonna be like, “Damn, when is it gonna end?’”
Even with planning, problems do arise.
Taking over the streets with hundreds of bikes, some doing wheelies and some swooping around cars at the last second, has caused some friction with law enforcement and drivers during the rides.
Andrade recognizes that rides can be a nuisance for drivers. The riders rarely stop for red lights and can easily clog up entire streets when the group comes through.
“We kind of try to keep the ride together as a funeral procession that we’re all together,” Andrade said.
According to Andrade, many of the riders aren’t from the area and can get lost if they don’t stick together. The rides aren’t particularly fast, but due to the sheer number of riders, the group “becomes like an accordion” and can stretch out for over a mile of city streets.
Earlier this year, one incident involved a younger rider running a red light in front of a Long Beach police officer and getting cited. According to Andrade, when the officer tried to write the citation, tempers flared and something was thrown at the officers.
Since that incident, he has taken measures to deal with the “bad apples” that might be along for the rides.
“When you’re running with a big group, you know what it does to somebody that’s a little kind of hot-headed; it gives them a mob mentality,” Andrade said, adding that some riders can feel “untouchable.”
Before the rides, Andrade said he consults with riders that he thinks are likely to cause problems before they set off on the ride.
Despite some bad interactions, the group is stronger than ever, and they receive more support than hate during the rides, according to Andrade. He said many of the drivers are “in awe” and will give friendly honks.
The Harbor Area BMX group still attends rides throughout Southern California and has seen how the community is growing.
“You can just jump on that bike and just kind of like let it all out, like reboot yourself real fast,” Andrade said. “It’s kind of like a nice little reset button.”
The group does monthly ride-outs every third weekend of the month in Long Beach, Wilmington and other Los Angeles area cities. Starting locations are usually posted a week prior at @harborareabmx on Instagram.