Every month, Johan Wangbichler, a gregarious German transplant, leads a pack of fellow bicyclists on a ride beyond our southern border through the streets of Tijuana.<\/p>\n
Although he\u2019s called Bankers Hill home for the last 15 years, bicycling \u2014 no <\/em>cycling, a sport Wangbichler doesn\u2019t partake in \u2014 has taken him all throughout the region.<\/p>\n In addition to the trips down south, the fast-talking architectural designer organizes several other regular rides around the city, including the Tuesday Dinner Ride \u2014 you can guess what that one entails \u2014 and the Urban Bike and Social Club, a recreational-turned-civic-minded group that meets monthly for day trips and various volunteer activities, like bike lane cleanups.<\/p>\n Plus, once a year, he runs the San Diego Tweed Ride, in which a horde of tweed-wearing bicyclists pedals around the city (in case it\u2019s not obvious yet, Wangbichler is a sociable guy).<\/p>\n This blend of community organizing and social planning, in addition to his service with several bicycle advocacy nonprofits, recently earned him the title of \u201cVolunteer of the Year\u201d from the San Diego County Bike Coalition.<\/p>\n Although many of Wangbichler\u2019s unpaid efforts appear social on the surface, he has a tenaciously progressive civic mind driving him. The Tweed Ride, the trips to Mexico \u2014 they\u2019re all a subtle way to normalize bicycling and work toward a less car-dependent society.<\/p>\n Wangbichler has an interesting relationship with the automobile, and while upon hearing him opine some might label him \u201canti-car,\u201d the truth is a bit more muddled, as is often the case.<\/p>\n Wangbichler owns five cars, along with a few motorcycles and a collection of vintage bikes. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, where his father worked in the auto industry \u2014 he biked to work everyday \u2014 before the family relocated to Munich, Germany, where Wangbichler lived until moving back across the pond when he was 15.<\/p>\n In his Bavarian upbringing, Wangbichler tells of a radically different car culture than the one we\u2019ve grown accustomed to in the U.S. \u2014 the idea of \u201cdriving to dinner\u201d still strikes him as odd. Out of all his gripes, one seemingly innocuous feature found in even the most modest American automobile is to him the epitome of our car-heavy lifestyle: the cup holder.<\/p>\n \u201cThe same cars available in Germany are available in America, but they have to add cup holders to them, because [Americans] are spending so much time in their cars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Arriving in America on the cusp of his 16th birthday \u2014 when every teenager eagerly awaits their first car as a right of passage \u2014 he began questioning the roots of this car-happy culture at a young age. In his social study, he saw a car portrayed as a symbol of independence, as a key to taking someone wherever they want to go. But in his mind, the resulting traffic overload born out of everyone and their mother owning a car has led to something of a gasoline-powered prison.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople sit in traffic to go to the jobs to pay for the house they\u2019re never at,\u201d said Wangbichler, with shades of Chuck Palahniuk\u2019s \u201cFight Club.\u201d<\/p>\n But times are changing, he proclaimed, and people are beginning to realize that transportation is possible with or without the beloved four-wheeled contraption.<\/p>\n (I would like to insert a brief interjection and just say that this whole conversation is making me feel fantastic about my decision to give up my car for a year.)<\/p>\n This changing tide, he said, has led him to promote bicycling as a mode of transportation, rather than purely a sport, as it\u2019s often perceived. He said bikers don\u2019t always look like spandex-wearing speed demons. They don\u2019t look like anything, in fact. They\u2019re just people, and saying otherwise can cause an unhealthy, dehumanizing effect, leading to something of an \u201cus vs. them\u201d relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear, \u2018a person ran into a bicycle.\u2019 No, they ran into a person<\/em>,\u201d Wangbichler said. \u201cA bike doesn\u2019t define who I am, just like a car doesn\u2019t define who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n This led to the clever invention of the Tweed Ride, which he brought to San Diego seven years ago after a trip to London. On the surface, it appears to be a bunch of jolly hipsters taking a casual ride about town, but the Tweed Ride is really about normalizing the public\u2019s perception of what a cyclist looks like.<\/p>\n \u201cI go to city council meetings and people call me \u2018the bicyclist,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I say okay, you can call me the bicyclist, but don\u2019t expect me to call you the motorist<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cEverywhere you go, there are people who ride bicycles, you just might not know it,\u201d Wangbichler continued.<\/p>\n Wangbichler now serves on the San Diego County Bike Coalition board, and he was a founding member of BikeSD. While the Tweed Rides and his bike club have made him a well-known face, he said the less glamorous volunteer tasks, like sweeping up neglected bike lanes, are making San Diego an increasingly bike-friendly city.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city has limited funds, and I think if more people got involved with anything that affects their lives, there\u2019s no reason for our city to be as broke as it is,\u201d Wangbichler said.<\/p>\n I wish I could include all of Wangbichler\u2019s opinions on bike culture in San Diego, but you don\u2019t have the time to read them all, nor I the ink. To hear about how he thinks we should close off a chunk of downtown Hillcrest to auto traffic, or how the airport would be better located elsewhere, or how John Spreckels got public transit right 90 years ago, or to simply ride around with him and his cohorts, find \u201cTuesday Night Social Ride<\/a>,\u201d \u201cUrban Bike and Social Club<\/a>\u201d or \u201cSan Diego Tweed<\/a>\u201d on Facebook.<\/p>\n![\"401592_498661966820653_765037454_nweb\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/401592_498661966820653_765037454_nweb-179x300.jpg\")
(Photo by Jinna Thomas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n