Cycle Chic Santa Barbara

Beautiful Santa Barbara

Visiting Santa Barbara last weekend, Cycle Chic was on my mind. It’s a chic hippie town to begin with. I was surprised, however, to see how few people on bikes were wearing anything more stylist than hippie workout wear (which is pretty typical attire in beachy Santa Barbara even for those not on bikes or working out.)

There were some pretty chic bikes locked up along State St though.

Two of the fancier bikes spotted on State St

Not to mention a cute little dog in a bike basket (love it!)

Biker mutt in a makeshift crate-basket

Even saw a bike in the storefront window at Dear Diary.

: Dear Diary shop window

After biking around a bit (albeit on a borrowed bike that frankly needed a good tuneup) I could understand why people have electric bicycles. The hills along Shoreline Dr are exceptionally steep and go on forever. With my minimal tolerance for biking hills (Dallas is mostly flat), I’d had just about enough of that by the time I reached La Mesa Park. (Check out the little sign in the photo below warning cyclists that the hill’s steep! And, yes, there’s a sidewalk and a separate 2-way bike lane, with the car-lanes to the left just out of the shot. So accommodating!)

Shoreline Dr bike lane - headed to the beach

It’s such a beautiful place though, with bike lanes all over, and fairly courteous drivers I’d say (pedestrians do have the right-of-way by law – and there are so many bikers you get accustomed to looking for them.) They even have bike parking at the SBA airport (smiles!)

My question: are they bikes of employees, or day-trip passengers with minimal luggage?… Either way I loooove this hippie town.