This Veterana Lowrider Bike OG Is Mentoring the Next Generation of L.A.’s Cruising Culture

Welcome to our Lowrider Bike Week,  presented by Tecate, the official beer of L.A. TACO. Each day this week, our Senior Photographer Erwin Recinos will bring you features and photo essays celebrating the best of L.A.'s thriving lowbike scene. If you have a fly lowbike and would like to show it off to our L.A. TACO followers, send us a photo and your Instagram handle at editor@lataco.com. We'll post it up on our IG stories and give you a shout-out. 

[dropcap size=big]M[/dropcap]arge Rodriguez has been a member of ‘Bikes on the Blvd’ for over a year. She grew up in the lowrider scene, going to supershows with her father. She recalls he had an old G body, and a 1960 T-bird passed down from her great-grandpa. 

Rodriguez tells L.A. TACO that she initially got into lowbikes because of her boyfriend. As they would ride the beaches and cruise through the night, she would be on roller skates, and he kept up by riding a bike. In time, her boyfriend created a lowbike for Rodriguez, and she left the skates at home. That bicycle was her 1966 Slick Chick.

During the pandemic, Rodriguez and her boyfriend looked for things to do to get out of the house. One night during a cruise meetup, while they cruised around in their lowbikes, a group of kids riding bikes invited the couple to join. Those kids ended up being in the Bikes on the Blvd bike club, and after that night, Rodriguez and her boyfriend were a part of the bike club. There are many young members in BOB, so Rodriguez sees herself as a veterana who is there for them. “I like to look at it as being a youth mentor,“ Rodriguez says. 

Many of the BOB members are young, so they look up to older members like herself as mentors and help keep them all grounded. Rodriguez being involved in a lowrider bike club like this also inspires the next generation of women to help expand the interest in L.A.’s cruising culture. 

“Women are not stuck being spectators” is how Rodriguez describes women in L.A.’s bike scene. Women are more involved than ever and building their bikes. The wives are getting involved, and their daughters are also starting to ride bikes. 

In the following year, Rodriguez sees her club’s young members expanding their knowledge and interests to get even better at their craft of lowbikes. “It’s all about having fun, networking, and getting together.”