It’s always been a mission of the San Diego County Bike Coalition to promote bicycling as a mainstream form of transportation for all people in San Diego County. And it’s always been a mission of Mixte to empower nice companies to tell their stories. That’s why, when the opportunity arose to publish a regional magazine all about the fun of bicycling in San Diego County, neither of us could pass it up.

We sat in the conference room across from Becca who works with BikeLife Cities magazine – a small company that goes to different cities across the country and partners with local bike organizations to create magazines highlighting the biketastic nature of said cities or, in our case, county.

The San Diego County Bike Coalition works diligently to promote bicycling as something you can do in your flip-flops, jeans (or in Mixte’s case, high heels) but the stigma of cyclists in spandex still keeps many people from trying life on two wheels. What better way to overcome that outdated stereotype than a magazine showing everything but that? We immediately envisioned pages filled with friends biking down the boardwalk on beach cruisers, families with bike trailers running their weekend errands and couples commuting to work together in everyday clothing.

Of course we were in.

For the next two months we collaborated with local bike shops, small businesses, neighbors, friends, business districts and other local organizations to build a fantastic collection of all things bikes throughout San Diego County.

With the help of our dear friend Charlie Sears (theawarewolfs.com) we even had a photo shoot with said friends, neighbors and local bike shops to provide high-quality images for the magazine.

The result? San Diego County’s first-ever BikeLife Magazine, just in time for National Bike Month (May!) and Bike to Work Day (Friday, May 29). The first-ever BikeLife San Diego County showcased our communities, our bike routes, our neighborhood shops, our local businesses, our county’s sights and events and all the other two-wheeled happenings your little heart could pedal along to. We joined some of our favorite people (and clients!) to pull together something that fills what we feel is a big hole in the conversation around bicycling in San Diego County; That bicycling is for every day people, and it should be easy and fun.

Read about riding a bike through Barrio Logan, learn more about the San Diego Bike Coalition, take an inside look at Mixte as a bike-friendly business and discover all the love San Diego is showing its bikes and bikers countywide. Flip through the digital version here!

And yes, you may even recognize a few of the ladies on the cover — Two Mixte’s. One San Diego County Bicycler. One Environmental Health Coalitioner. No big deal, just the faces of everyday bicycling on 10,000 copies around the county.

For additional biketastic resources for San Diego County, visit www.sdbikecoalition.org.