You begin noticing them before you reach the beach: The opalescent baby blue cruiser with pink rims and white walls in front of the yoga studio on Main Street, its flip-flop-wearing owner removing her mat from its wicker basket. The matte black and solid chrome cruisers, draped with young men in mesh-back caps clustered outside the local dive on Washington Boulevard. At Windward Avenue an art grrl in thrift-store couture pedals past, a Paul Frank monkey mugging from her bike’s shiny red frame. These days is seems beach cruisers catch your eye everywhere you go in Venice, even at the beach.
Half pickup truck, half pig, the glowing blue roadhog turns left onto the bustling esplanade, its bemused expression as hard to decipher as its owner’s intentions. Kandy-kolored glowstick bicycles veer to avoid it, as do a half-dozen pedal-powered muffins and cupcakes. A convertible Cadillac spacecraft idles at the side of the bustling ring road, its passengers haranguing passersby from atop its beer-keg booster rockets.