Rideout or Rude Out? Make your bike party courteous, safer, legal, and fun

Group social rides are a favorite for many teens and adults. Why? Bike parties can be FUN 🚲🎉🥳🚲🥳 ! We’ve been to Salinas bike parties and Santa Cruz bike parties that we loved. Bike parties don’t have to = 🤕🩹❤️‍🩹injuries, 👨‍✈️✍️😭🤑citations, and 🚳shutdowns.

Recent media reports have included these from KSBW: Ricardo Tovar reporting on April 1, 2024 (“3 kids arrested in Salinas after group seen riding bikes ‘recklessly’”) and on March 26, 2024, “Salinas Police says juvenile bicyclists have been spotted riding recklessly; and Felix Cortez reporting on September 14, 2023, “Bicyclist hit and injured during ‘rideout’ in Salinas.” Felix’s story referred to some riders on South Main Street in Salinas and on Alvarado Street in Monterey. Derrick Ow reported for KION on April 1, 2024, “People in Salinas frustrated with teenagers riding their bicycles recklessly.”

We encourage those and other such riders to adopt “Group Social Rides — Instrux for Participants” (provided below), so their next group ride strengthens, not weakens, public support for more people bicycling.

Want to prevent citations or injuries, gain support of decision-makers for better bike infrastructure, and still P-A-R-T-Y? Check out the instrux below. (For best viewing, click the text link below the PDF.) Then download the PDF to print or otherwise share with riders.

Minors who may make use of this information:

We encourage reviewing the info with your parent or guardian. And naturally, get their permission before participating in any such ride. Consider inviting them, or another adult relative or friend, to join you on a ride.

For fifteen years (May 2009 – April 2024), Bicycling Monterey resources have been provided as an unpaid public service. No claim is made or liability accepted for use of this site. Questions? Feel free to phone us.

Tech notes:

• If viewing PDF in some browsers or on some devices, links in the PDF will be clickable.
• For other browsers or devices, you may need to click the arrow that pops up to the right of the link, or click the third icon at the bottom of the PDF for a version with clickable links.
• And of course, if links aren’t clickable on your browser or device, simply copy and paste the URL into your browser window to access that information. (For example for the first link in the PDF, copy an paste https://www.calbike.org/go_for_a_ride/california_bicycle_laws/#laws.)

This post was previously published 23 September 2023, and republished with the update about KSBW’s 1 April 2024 and 26 March 2024 stories.