By Ken Williams | Editor

BikeSD envisions a world-class bicycling city

If a determined Samantha “Sam” Ollinger has her way, San Diego will become a world-class bicycling city in the near future. She has yet to find one naysayer about her ambitious goal since she co-founded BikeSD with two friends.

“Our vision is to transform San Diego into the world’s best city for bicycling,” she said. “I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t think that this is possible.”

With a near perfect climate for alternative forms of transportation, America’s Finest City has few excuses for lagging behind other cities like Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis, where bicyclists share the road with drivers even in rainy or snowy weather.

BikeSD is a nonprofit advocacy organization that is independently operated through the support of members. Ollinger recently began serving as BikeSD’s full-time executive director to advocate for their cause.

To raise money to support their efforts, BikeSD presents fun events for bicyclists, like the Bike Month Bash at The Lafayette Hotel, coming May 30. The 15-mile ride will showcase El Cajon Boulevard — once the jewel highway leading into the big city — by traveling through North Park, City Heights and the College Area, before returning.

The Bike Month Bash at The Lafayette Hotel will be limited to the first 250 people who register, because the big perk at the ride’s end is a DJ party and a swim in the famous Johnny Weissmuller pool (capacity 250) at the historic hotel that recently underwent a major renovation. In the 1920s, the European-born Weissmuller won five Olympic gold medals for swimming and a bronze medal for water polo for the Americans, then he became even more famous playing Tarzan in the movies. Like some other celebrities of his day, Weissmuller would hang out at the Lafayette as a quick getaway from the bright lights of Hollywood.

This “historical tour” should appeal to all types of riders, including inexperienced bikers, since it is crosses mostly flat terrain. Ollinger said there is only one slight hill to climb during the route, which will veer off El Cajon Boulevard onto Utah Street and south to Upas Street, then return north on 30th Street back to “The Boulevard.”

Participants will be joined by “ride monitors who will point out the potential of El Cajon Boulevard,” Ollinger said, pointing out opportunities for transit, bicycling, walking, redevelopment and promoting the unique cultural communities living and working along the major east-west highway that was part of U.S. 80 from 1926 to 1964, before the creation of Interstate 8.

Ollinger may seem like an unlikely candidate to lead the growing bicycling movement in San Diego. She’s not even native to America’s Finest City, having been raised in Pennsylvania after her parents immigrated from India. After graduating from Temple University in Philadelphia with an accounting degree, Ollinger decided to move to the West Coast “because my husband wanted to live by the beach.” They figured they would search for their “perfect” city by traveling up the Pacific coast.

“Our plan was to start in San Diego and go up the West Coast,” Ollinger said. “Six years later, we are still in San Diego. It’s grown on me!”

But Ollinger wasn’t happy with one aspect about San Diego. We have a climate that was ideal for bicycling, but the city wasn’t embracing that culture in car-crazy California.

“I was very surprised when I moved to San Diego that everyone was not all on a bicycle all the time — I didn’t know much about San Diego prior to moving here,” she said.

“On the East Coast, I didn’t ride in the winter or on hot summer days so I was looking forward to spending more time outdoors here. My curiosity to understand why most San Diegans didn’t ride is what led me to being an advocate, and luckily our 1,200-plus donors and members and my seven-person board do believe that San Diego can be the best city for bicycling too,” Ollinger said.

“I’m motivated by a simple idea; what happens if we try to advance an idea — how far can we go?” she said.

—Ken Williams is editor of Uptown News and Mission Valley News and can be reached at ken@sdcnn.com or at 619-961-1952.