Despite potholes and tired stereotypes, bicycle riders across the city are building real connections on two wheels. On Saturday, they all come together for the annual Bicycle Second Line.
People who ride bicycles in New Orleans ride in vulnerable physical spaces, in narrow bike lanes and at the edges of busy streets, teeming with potholes.
To those watching, bicycle riders often fall into easy stereotypes and stigmas. There’s the hipster gentrifier, the commuter, the tourist on a Blue Bike, the geared-up road racer, the trick-bike kids riding on their back wheels, the tour guide leading 12 matching bikes.
Others, observing from behind a steering wheel, will always see bikes as an unwanted obstruction to their dominance of the roadway.
The reality is more nuanced, rooted in diversity and community.
“I often say, the bicycle is the vehicle, but community is the destination,” said Zina Harris Dorsey, who began the group Sistahs on Wheels as a social-exercise outlet during the pandemic. These days, Sistahs on Wheels/Brothahs on Wheels leave from the Tricentennial Parking Lot in City Park on the first Friday of every month.
“It’s never just about the ride,” Harris Dorsey said. “It’s about the people, the connections, the experiences, and the impact we make along the way.”
After years of working in mobility spaces that include bicycle infrastructure, advocacy, policy and culture, I’ve noticed that ridership is up in New Orleans and across the nation. But honestly, New Orleans’ typical individual cyclists haven’t changed much for decades.
There are the French Quarter-Marigny artist bicyclists who live in neighborhoods where parking is tight and stores are a short ride away. Then there are Carnival and Jazz Fest riders, who pass stopped traffic on their ways home. Then there are native-born New Orleanian men who ride no-frills cruiser bikes — and now growing numbers of e-bikes — because bicycling is more reliable than our transit system.
Because 1 in 5 New Orleans households don’t have access to a car, people must weigh options and bicycles often win over buses (waits) and Uber/Lyft (expensive).
But one aspect of bicycle-riding has changed over the past decade. Instead of being mostly individual cyclists getting from one place to the next, the bike scene now is dominated by social rides, for leisure, exercise, and competition.
Social rides, blinking and rolling in groups across town
One of the The OG of ride-outs is likely NOLA Social Ride, which was started in 2010 by a group of people who met on the Cabrini bridge over Bayou St. John.
Get Up N Ride, one of the biggest weekly rides, started in 2015, and continues every Tuesday, leaving from Bayou Road near Broad St. The ride is majority-Black is known for its bikes adorned in colorful, blinking lights. It’s led by Blake Owens, a hip-hop artist and manager of the Youth Empowerment Project’s bike shop,
Critical Mass NOLA, a similar-sized ride, leaves monthly from the French Market on the last Friday of the month. It follows the model of the national Critical Mass movement that started monthly rides in the early 1990s to dominate city roadways. Critical Mass riders are more likely to be activists and advocates. It’s led by Eric Gabourel, who runs the Flambeaux Bicycle Tours & Bike Rentals shop in the French Quarter.
“I often say, the bicycle is the vehicle,
— Zina Harris Dorsey,
but community is the destination.”
founder of Sistahs on Wheels
Perhaps the highest-profile group at the moment is the weekly 1Up Bike Life ride-out, followed by a group of pre-teen, teen, and young adult trick riders who leave City Park every Thursday.
1Up was formed in 2020 by Tommy Richard, who sums it up in one word: “Resilience.”
In a Bike Walk NOLA interview, Richard described how 1Up attracts its loyal following of pre-teen, teen and young adult cyclists — and its 6,000 followers on Instagram:
“It’s about a crew of kids who found purpose through pedals, just getting after it every day and finding purpose and trying to better themselves and their bike, and building a bond and a relationship with their brothers,” Richard said, noting that the group has merged kids from the 9th Ward to the 7th Ward to Kenner, Metairie, River Ridge, West Bank, and the Northshore.
1Up was recently featured in More Than Bike Life,” a documentary by Tyler Galpin, which premiered on the opening night of the New Orleans Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Louisiana documentaries.
Recently, during a regular Thursday rideout, rising local hiphop artist La Reezy handed out 150 pairs of free Puma tennis shoes to 1Up riders.
Leader Sarah Katko formed the Crescent City Riders to be a law-abiding, friendly social-ride option on Thursdays, starting in a different neighborhood each week. The group typically starts at a bar and makes one or two stops at other watering holes before returning to the starting point.
“Riders who otherwise may not ride at night due to safety concerns get to make new friends and experience the city through a different lens,” said said Katko, a local Realtor. “We try to shape a more positive image of cyclists in New Orleans as we ring our bells, wave at strangers, and obey traffic rules,” she said.
There’s also The Heat Index (Wednesdays, launching from the New Orleans Museum of Art), a group of about 15-20 riders who are women, trans, or non-binary; Paddles and Pedals (Thursdays starting at the Lakefront) and circular NOLA BIke Polo, which plays the sport on wheels (Sundays at Oliver Bush Playground, 2500 Fats Domino Ave., in the Lower 9).
Policy makes the wheels go round
This increase in bicycling activity, whether for community, exercise or need, has inspired efforts by the City to build out a safer, more accessible bikeway network.
This came most notably through the Moving New Orleans Bikes initiative during the Cantrell Administration and continues through the Moreno Administration with the Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan – a local version of the federal initiative to reduce bicycle-related crashes, injuries and fatalities.
The safety plan was developed in response to data on deaths and injuries over a five-year span (2019-2023) that showed an average of 60 traffic deaths and 373 severe injuries each year in New Orleans, with a high concentration of severe crashes happening on just 130 miles (7%) of the city’s roadways.
The city also is considering legislation to better regulate the use of the increasingly popular e-bikes and their faster cousin, e-motos, as it continues to implement an e-bike rebate program as part of an EPA grant.
But it also comes after a rash of related crashes and fatalities earlier in 2026. Bike Easy provides e-bike riding and maintenance workshops in coordination with the City. (I wrote about e-bikes in a recent letter to the editor in the The Times-Picayune l New Orleans Advocate.)
One big ride
Each year, nearly everyone who pedals seems to converge at Bike Easy’s annual Bicycle Second Line, held this year on Saturday, Nov. 14, starting from the area around The Broadside, 600 N. Broad St. in Mid-City. Registration starts at 10 a.m. and ride runs from about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Cyclists from the city’s different rides join together into a community that loves to just roll with it.
Because every second line needs music, Treme Brass Band will lead the procession, performing on a trailer riding throughout Mid-City, Bayou St. John, the 7th Ward, Faubourg Marigny, French Quarter, CBD and then back to The Broadside for an after-party that includes a silent auction and music from returning headliner Sweet Crude.
Last year’s ride drew a record 528 riders, up from the 345 in 2024.
David Lee Simmons is a communications professional in New Orleans. He serves as Vice President of the Board for Bike Easy and runs the Bike Walk NOLA account on Instagram. To find a social ride near you, check the calendar of Nola Social Ride.
