LA Bike Week: The Blessing of the Bicycles

Good Samaritan Hospital's bikely benediction is part of LA's Bike Week.

Southern California is home to a few large-scale giving-of-blessing events, including the annual Blessing of the Animals at Olvera Street -- that's always the Saturday before Easter -- and a few winery-based Blessing of the Vines.

But for over a decade Good Samaritan Hospital has been rounding up helmeted spoke aficionados for the annual Blessing of the Bicycles. "Get Breakfast! Get Blessed! Get a Free Bike Check!" trumpets the site, and if those are just the things you're looking for, pedal for the Witmer Avenue hospital on Tuesday, May 13.

The wheel-themed benediction is one part of the larger LA Bike Week, which kicks off on Monday, May 12 at Union Station (though a few pre-weekend events, like a club ride and a fix-it-up lesson, dot the schedule). 

A guided ride around LA's flowering network of bike lanes is planned for Wednesday, May 14 and, yes sirree, "guided" means someone knowledgeable who knows the ever-burgeoning network of the lanes (you can also guide your own ride, if you get in touch with the Bike Week people first).

The big bash glides into the week at its close, on Friday, May 16. It's a Union Station partay, in the forever fancy-pants Fred Harvey room, and there shall be a fashion show, bike valet, food trucks, and all sorts of boothery related to your passion.

LA Bike Week also happens to coincide with National Bike to Work Week. That can't just be a coincidence, right?

And it truly is a testament to the growing power of pedal power 'round the region that Bike Week is a robust and full-flavored affair. No coffee-and-donuts affair over a single morning; from the blessing to repair workshops to the Union Station celebration, everyday, everyone's-doin'-it, biking in the city continues to make a (kick)stand.

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