More than 200 cyclists participated in the first Riff Raff Bike Ride through San Marino. (Neon Tommy/Cassie Paton)

Now more than ever, Los Angeles boasts a number of cycling groups, clubs and organizations that help spread awareness, create and foster communities, and promote safe fun for anyone looking to get on a bike.

Here, we take a look at three groups with various causes as well as key members of each. All three have group rides coming up in Los Angeles, so check them out.

Carlos Morales bikes seven miles to and from work seven days a week. (Neon Tommy/Cassie Paton)

More than 200 cyclists showed up at the El Sereno parklet ready to roll in the Riff Raff Bike Ride, but not one person there looked like what anyone might call “riff raff.”

Carlos Morales, co-founder of the Eastside Bike Club and owner of Stan’s Bike Shop in Monrovia, was sick of hearing the phrase thrown around by some members of the higher-income city of San Marino to describe the people he calls family, friends and neighbors in El Sereno. So Morales took action and organized the first official Riff Raff Bike Ride in which mothers, fathers, children, avid cyclists and bike enthusiasts weaved through the residential streets of San Marino to throw the term back in the faces of the people who used it.

“I got phone calls from community members asking, ‘Who are these riff raff people?’” Morales said. “So I introduced myself as Captain Riff Raff and said I commute through there every day. Do I look like I’m going to cause any harm?”

That bike ride was a hit—all things considered, 200-plus folks waking up early the morning after the Fourth of July is no small feat—and Morales has plans for a second riff raff ride in Beverly Hills later this month. 

“I do things that aren’t orthodox but often times it gets results and starts a dialogue to start creating solutions,” Morales said. 

By bringing people of all races, ages and backgrounds together for a cause, he hopes to not only change language and dialogues surrounding the cycling community but also campaign for more bike lanes throughout Los Angeles, particularly on the East Side.

“I see kids riding to school on Huntington Drive [in San Marino], so why wouldn’t they want to protect their kids with bike lanes?”

SEE ALSO: In Highland Park, Bike Oven Cooks Up Community 

Morales wasn’t always so active. Weighing around 400 pounds in 2008, his doctor told him he’d done everything he could for Morales over the course of 15 unsuccessful years of getting the weight down. 

“My doctor said, ‘There’s going to be a lot of people at your funeral,’” Morales recalled, beginning to tear up. “That’s what woke me up to create a change.”

What would become the Eastside Bike Club first began as a small support group of friends for Morales after he had gastric bypass surgery. Now, the club boasts more than 400 members, and Morales bikes seven miles from his home in El Sereno to his shop in Monrovia seven days a week.

Showing people that cyclists from lower-income communities aren't "sketchy" is Morales' personal mission.

"We want to put a face and a story behind that bike," he said.

Eastside Bike Club hosts weekly Tuesday night rides and other regular special rides, like the upcoming TBA Riff Raff Bike Ride in Beverly Hills. The group's next event is the Dodgertown Bike Ride Saturday, Aug. 16. More info here. 

Vanessa Gray came on board as C.I.C.L.E.’s executive director in late June. (Neon Tommy/Cassie Paton)

As a lifeguard back in college, Vanessa Gray taught swim classes to older adults who had never learned how to swim and who were often afraid of the water. She’d start with the bare basics, like having them put their faces in the water.

“Just that simple act sometimes was a big accomplishment,” Gray said. “And at the end of the series they’d actually be swimming, and it was amazing to see that transformation.”

Gray wants to see similar transformations with older adults on bikes.

As the new executive director of Cyclists Inciting Change thru Live Exchange (or C.I.C.L.E.), increasing bike mobility for the elderly is on Gray’s short-list of goals. Already, C.I.C.L.E. offers regular Learn to Ride workshops for adults to help those new to cycling become familiarized with the bike. But more outreach could be done to attract an older crowd, which Gray says can be a bit wary of the two-wheeled mode of transportation.

“When I go to events or meetings in the community where we’re talking about bike lanes, the most vociferous group are usually the elderly,” Gray said. “But I think many of those people just haven’t been exposed to cycling.”

She hopes classes geared toward older adults can help increase not only acceptance and understanding of cycling, but mobility as well.

“There’s a point some people reach where they can’t drive anymore, but anyone can ride a bike, even people without arms or legs,” Gray said. “Just because you’ve lost your mobility in a car doesn’t mean you can’t get on a bike.”

Not to mention the significance of the health benefits that come with it.

SEE ALSO: Taking Cycling And Public Transit Mainstream With Maria Sipin 

Gray gets plenty of exercise herself—she walks and bikes everywhere from her home in Silver Lake, and though she does own a car, she rarely drives it.

“It gets so little use I actually got a ticket right in front of my apartment,” Gray said with a laugh.

As for getting people more comfortable with cycling, Gray says group rides around the city are the way to go.

“Riding with a crowd give a chance for people who are nervous about traffic to be in a group,” Gray said. “Drivers are a lot more courteous. It’s a whole different dynamic.”

C.I.C.L.E. is part of two events this weekend, including Downtown L.A.’s Film History Ride on Saturday Jul. 19 and the inaugural L.A. Explorers Club Dawn of Downtown Ride Sunday Jul. 20. 

Ovarian Psycos’ monthly Luna Rides are named for how a woman’s cycle directly correlates with the moon. (Photo by Michael Raines)

The force behind the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade uses some fairly unorthodox descriptors for its position titles. Instead of chair or co-chair, leaders are referred to as left and right ovaries. Instead of an archivist, there’s a herstorian. And instead of peacekeeper, it’s “clit rubber.”

Most of the women behind Ovarian Psycos came from broken homes and troubled families. There is solidarity among them bound by similar histories, encounters with sexism and racism among other things and, of course, a passion for cycling. What they might’ve lacked in family ties before, they’ve restored in one another.

“We created a sisterhood within each other,” Maryann Aguirre, a core member said. 

Aguirre was just 17 when she had her daughter, who’s now six. Soon after splitting with her daughter’s father, Aguirre found Ovarian Psycos through a friend of a friend. She became hooked on cycling when she rode in one of the earliest CicLAvia rides and was welcomed by a friendly cycling community. She’d ridden on a borrowed bike then.

When she met the women of Ovarian Psycos, “it felt like I was hanging out with the girls,” Aguirre said.

Though the number is growing, Ovarian Psycos is one of just relatively few women’s bike clubs in Los Angeles, and while it’s open to all women (they prefer “womyn”), womyn-identified, queer, trans and gender-nonconforming people, the core collective is made up exclusively of women of color.

“It’s really awesome that we get to provide this safe space because there aren’t a lot of [bike organizations] that specifically cater toward these groups,” Aguirre said.

Aguirre says there’s strength in numbers, too, when members of the group—or the “brigade”—ride together. In addition to monthly women’s-only “Luna Rides,” Ovarian Psycos is the driving force behind the third annual Clitoral Mass, a movement that originally started on the East Coast in the ‘90s as a play on the mainstream Critical Mass. This year’s ride will be a roughly 35-mile loop starting and ending in Grand Park with pit stops along the way. Last year, there was even a condom mobile handing out free condoms.

SEE ALSO: Hundreds Bare All For World Naked Bike Ride, Los Angeles 

“We’re very fortunate to be located where we are,” Aguirre said. “Now there are so many groups and organizations that are around that weren’t before.” 

She adds: “In the community we’ve built, there’s always stuff going on. You feel like you’re investing in something good.”

Ovarian Psycos’ Clitoral Mass is Aug. 16 in Grand Park. More info here. 

Reach Staff Reporter Cassie Paton here. Follow her on Twitter here.