Street-level bike advocacy with policy teeth.
Bike Talk follows the politics and everyday practice of getting around by bike, with a strong Los Angeles base and regular attention to other places. Its conversations move from bike buses, e-bikes, and marathon rides to policing, street design, transit decisions, and the cost of car dependence.
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Bike Talk is a cycling show with its tires on real streets. It is not just about bikes as objects. Recent episodes treat the bicycle as transportation, political symbol, community tool, and everyday answer to expensive, frustrating car dependence. The show is rooted in Los Angeles and carried as a radio show and podcast, but its attention travels widely. One stretch follows a planned ride from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Mackinac Bridge, with nerves, logistics, bike mechanic classes, and family wrapped into the story. Another looks at the Los Angeles marathon crash ride, where early-morning riders take over empty marathon streets and remember how the event shifted from sponsored ride to illegal tradition to a more settled local ritual. The conversations are loose, quick, and opinionated. A bike shop visit can lead to e-bikes, autonomous vehicles, empty miles, curb management, and whether new technology actually helps anyone move better. A familiar street near home can lead to stop signs, drivers yelling, removed bike infrastructure, and the feeling that cars are the real obstruction. The show regularly connects biking with transit. Bus lanes, bike lanes, paratransit, subway riders, and street plans sit inside the same fight over public space. It also spends time on enforcement. Episodes on New York and New Jersey ask what happens when minor bike behavior is criminalized, how delivery workers are affected, and where safety regulation becomes unfair policing. The moral line is clear. Bike Talk favors safer streets, useful infrastructure, lower barriers to riding, and public agencies that can explain projects without trapping them in endless meetings. Still, it is more conversation than manifesto. The speakers and guests interrupt, laugh, question each other, and circle back when a point needs more daylight. That human rhythm matters. Policy talk feels grounded because it keeps returning to rides, errands, gas prices, bike baskets, crash rides, bike buses, and people trying to get somewhere alive and affordably. Bike Talk is best for listeners who already suspect transportation is political and want the weekly evidence delivered with warmth, impatience, and street-level detail.
Made for: Best for urban cyclists, safe-streets advocates, transit riders, and car-light listeners who care about how streets actually work. It also suits people curious about e-bikes, bike commuting, and local transportation politics.
What sets it apart: Bike Talk stands out by turning ordinary rides and local conflicts into broader arguments about safety, enforcement, access, and public priorities. It keeps the intimacy of a radio show and podcast while tracking policy fights across multiple places.
We are a bike advocacy and culture podcast based in Los Angeles, Ca.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Bike Talk connects cycling policy to the daily experience of safety, mobility, policing, and political power.
Bike Talk turns the bicycle into a way of reading streets, city government, and the rules governing everyday movement. Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard pair conversational openings with interviews about road safety, transit decisions, e-bike regulation, autonomous vehicles, and…
Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard turn bike-lane fights into the civic meeting you'll actually attend.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Bike Talk links a cross-country ride, Glendale outreach, and City Bike fees into one clear civic argument.
The episode opens by following Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard as they map a May 15 ride from the Golden Gate Bridge toward the Mackinac Bridge, with Oregon, the Wind River Mountains, Montana, and North Dakota along the way.
A brisk look at bike enforcement, civil summonses, and the politics of making streets safer.
The episode shifts from a cross-country ride plan into a discussion of how cities handle cyclists when small violations become a policing issue.
A stop at an Ojai bike shop turns into a grounded conversation about AVs, street policy, and who cities protect.
Bike Talk works best when it lets a simple bike-shop stop open into the larger systems that shape how people move. Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard start with Nichols's visit to Mob Bike Shop in Ojai, where a casual conversation about a long ride turns into a way of reading the…
A clear look at how bike streets, e-bike rules, and car-first design can turn policy into daily risk.
Biketalk opens on Willoughby Avenue, where stop signs let a cyclist slip past queued cars while some drivers still frame the rider as the obstacle.
Bike Talk connects a Brooklyn bike lane, transit policy, and cyclist advocacy to the politics of safer streets.
Bike Talk frames street safety as part of civic life: who gets to move without fear, which projects withstand political pressure, and how cyclists and transit riders argue for change.
Cycling obsession, roasted at group-ride pace.
Bike Talk pairs New York City's Bicycle Film Festival with cycling-safety debates and Bob Tuttle's 900-mile e-trike ride from Petaluma to San Diego.
It opens with a trip.
Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard open on a bike trip.
This episode discusses the benefits of biking as an alternative to driving amid high gas prices, featuring tips on choosing a bike and a segment from the National Bike Summit.
The hosts introduce an interview with Brent Muth from Mob Shop in Ojai, California, discussing the bike shop's origins and local cycling culture.
The hosts discuss a coincidental connection with a bike mechanic teacher from a previous interview, then transition to a New York Times article about rising car costs and transportation affordability.
This episode discusses the history and evolution of an early morning bike ride on the Los Angeles marathon route, from its sponsored origins to an illegal event and current community activity.
Bike Talk opens with Los Angeles Critical Mass dedicating a memorial ride to Reagan Cole Graham and her daughter Ophelia, after Damian Kevitt says the group created two ghost bikes and drew about 1,800 cyclists.
Bike Talk's '26/08 Bikes Versus Superspeeders' opens with Taylor Nichols and Nick Richard on KPFK, Valley Free Radio, WNUC, and biketalk.org, then pivots to Justin Mogg of Sustainability Now, who rode across the U.S.
This episode of Biketalk discusses topics like bikepacking, autonomous vehicles versus cyclists, political issues around e-bike battery standards, and bike legislation in California, while sharing a positive listener email about biking experiences.
The hosts discuss teaching children to ride bikes, sharing personal stories and techniques like the towel method and training wheels versus balance bikes.
This episode discusses Bike to Work Week events, a legal victory protecting Toronto bike lanes from removal by Doug Ford's administration, and broader cycling topics in North America.
This episode of Biketalk features interviews about QUIMBYs in urban planning and authors of bike-related graphic novels, celebrating Bike Month.