At one point in the pandemic, my dad asked me this really weird question.

Gas, me prestes your bicycletta? Can I borrow your bike? Beach cruisers and mountain bikes,

kitty bicycles, and those that weigh like a pound but cost a bunch, their sales have exploded.

The National Bicycle Dealers Association, yeah, that's a thing. They say that retail sales rose by more than 40% last year.

All nice and fun and papal wheelies, right?

Well, not if you're a Latino in Los Angeles County.

If you're bicycling and Latino,

the sheriff's department is more than likely to think that you're suss.

I'm Gustavariano.

You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.

It's Tuesday, November 30th, 2021.

A recent LA Times investigation found that from 2017 to July of this year, 70% of bicyclists

that L.A. County Sheriff's deputies pulled over were Latinos,

even though the group makes up only about half of L.A. County's population.

And they searched 85% of those bike riders that they stopped,

even though they often had no reason to think that they'd find something illegal.

In fact, L.A. County Sheriff's deputies ended up making arrest or writing citations just 21% of the time.

Today, we talked to the L.A. Times reporters who reported this story,

and we talked to a Latino cycling activist about his own experiences creating the East Side Bike Club.

When I think of cyclists, I think of two types.

One are the weekend warriors, the men and women in Lycra, speeding down streets like if they were in the tour of France or something.

But the others are Latinos, commuting early in the morning and late at night to work stuff

...