Photo by Rafael Cardenas via EastsiderWriter.com

The greater Los Angeles area is home to a thick stew of bicycle microcultures. You’ve got your young fixies and old-school lefties, a loud crowd of in-your-face organizers and quiet-type transportation policy wonks. But few of them lay down the gantlet like those behind the Ovarian Psychos Cycle Brigade. They come at ya hardcore but wrap that bravado around a social mission: physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through cycling. And they’re on a roll!

This “all-womyn bicycle brigade” certainly is on a roll. Fresh off a Bike Talk show [mp3] and a nice profile on Streetblog LA, and now the creators of an Etsyline, they’re striking while the iron is hot by organizing the region’s first ‘Clittoral Mass’ ride (scheduled for August 31st). It puts a pink twist on the longtime rolling Los Angeles institution. And not least it puts the challenge to our historically male bike advocacy scene here.

This loose-knit organization coalesced spontaneously to raise awareness after a local killing. They entwine an old-fashioned call for social justice with a newfangled claim to blacktop for women cyclists. Their motto? “Ovaries so big we don’t need no balls.” The vision?

…a world where women of color are change agents who create and maintain holistic health within themselves and in their respective communities for present and future generations.

This bike brigade with a social mission is even more provocative because nothing rankles the old order like a bunch of young, brown women looking to upset the apple cart. Check them out:

West Side Story meets eastside bike advocacy! Hangin’ tough with the Ovarian Psychos Cycle Brigade.

Now that’s representing!  We know we’ll hear more from the Ovarian Psychos Cycle Brigade because this stuff is catnip to the media and a much-needed corrective to our old-school liberal calls for change. And it sure makes Westside bike advocacy look really old and really dull by comparison!