The Brief

When Humberto Estratalán’s daughter started transitional kindergarten last fall in the Coachella Valley city of La Quinta, he was surprised to hear she’d be in a combination class with kindergartners — with only one teacher.

He said the classroom held about 30 kids, but no dedicated aide to help the teacher manage them. His daughter would come home, deflated.

“She was struggling emotionally. We could tell she was just a little, not herself, not as happy to be at school,” Estratalán said. “She said, ‘Who do I go to when [the teacher] is busy?’”

The most upsetting moment was when he picked her up from school one day and noticed her sweatpants were inside out. He said when he asked the school about it, he was told his daughter had an accident and was sent to an office to change by herself.

“Here we have a 4-year-old in the office restroom, sitting on the floor, naked, changing herself,” he said. “That was the last straw.”

Estratalán, who is an education policy advocate for the nonprofit UNITE-LA, said he knew state rules require an adult for every 12 transitional kindergarten students. He complained to the Desert Sands Unified School District, and within two months the school reassigned teachers from other grades and hired more staff to open up a new transitional kindergarten class with a teacher and aide where he said his daughter is thriving.

The rough start of the year, however, highlights the staffing challenges some school districts face as they try to keep up with California’s rapid expansion of transitional kindergarten. The state needs a lot more teachers and aides to fill TK classrooms, but advocates say early childhood educators who have the experience and desire to step into those jobs are being deterred by the state’s credentialing system.

What is the teacher labor market for transitional kindergarten?

Starting this fall, any child who turns 4 by Sept. 1 can enroll in TK, marking the final phase of California’s four-year rollout of the new grade. There’s a lot riding on the success of universal TK: supporters hope that a year of learning through play will help give a boost to young kids who may not otherwise have access to preschool. Districts facing declining enrollment hope that a surge of new students will improve their financial outlook.

Angelica Cardenas of Hayward poses for a portrait on the Cal State University East Bay campus in Hayward. Cardenas received her master's degree in early childhood education from Cal State East Bay.

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David M. Barreda

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KQED

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, who made universal TK a focus of his education policy, is proposing to spend $3.9 billion in the 2025-26 budget to fully implement the program. Part of that money would go toward lowering the student to teacher staffing ratio from from 12-to-1 to 10-to-1. School districts that don’t comply could face a fine or risk losing funding.

Researchers estimate that California schools will need 11,900 teachers and at least 16,000 aides to keep TK expansion on track. But amid a shortage of teachers at all levels of public education, some school districts struggle to hire or retain those who have the skills to support the physical, social-emotional and cognitive development of 4-year-olds, said Naj Alikhan, a spokesman for the Association of California School Administrators.

Rural or smaller school districts have a hard time finding a qualified teacher from their local pool of candidates.

Desert Sands Unified, where Estratalán’s daughter is enrolled, has hosted job fairs and offered financial incentives to entice teachers.

“We don't have, you know, five universities like the Bay Area right around all these school districts, and it's difficult,” said Dennis Zink, senior director of certificated personnel at the district.

Why aren't teachers getting the needed credentials?

To grow the workforce, the state introduced a new credential for teachers who want to specialize in TK through third grade.

But Alikhan says he’s hearing anecdotally that not enough people are pursuing the credential, and one reason may be its stringent requirements.

“Teachers may want to do it, but it’s the investment of time and investment of money that’s preventing some from moving forward with it,” he said. 

Assistant professor Yoonjin Esther Nam-Huh teaches early literacy and language trainings at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

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Julie Leopo

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Candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree, complete coursework in child development or early childhood education, pass the state’s teacher performance assessment and undergo up to 600 hours of training in classrooms — typically without pay.

Critics say those are tough barriers for at least 17,000 early educators who already teach young kids and have a bachelor’s degree, but aren’t part of the state’s K-12 school system.

Angelica Cardenas, who has a master’s degree in early childhood education and 13 years of experience teaching 2- to 5-year-olds in Head Start and state preschool programs in the Bay Area, would still need a credential to teach TK.

“People tell me ‘I think you'd be a really good TK teacher,’ and I would love to, but right now I don't know if I have the energy to go back to school,” Cardenas said.

What if you're already a K-12 teacher?

The state’s credentialing program would also require her to jump through more hoops than a K-12 teacher at a private or public school with no experience teaching 4-year-olds.

For example, a preschool teacher with a bachelor’s degree and five years of work experience would still have to undergo classroom training to earn the credential. Those 600 hours amount to at least $10,000 in lost wages, according to researchers at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley and at the California Budget and Policy Center.

By comparison, private school teachers, who are not required to hold a state-issued credential, can shift to TK without additional training or any experience teaching 4-year-olds. State law only requires them and K-12 public school teachers to complete six to eight classes of early childhood education or development.

Lea Austin, executive director of the CSCCE, argues that the separate pathways are inequitable for early educators, the majority of whom are women of color. A preschool teacher earns on average $17.66 per hour, which is less than half the salary of an elementary school teacher, according to an analysis of the most recent labor data for California workers.

“You can't use your existing experience and education as evidence that you are a qualified teacher in the same way that anybody teaching kindergarten or older has the opportunity to do that,” Austin said.

Students in the early education credential program make mini-lesson plans during their lecture at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

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Julie Leopo

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LAist

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Austin and other advocates have called on the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing to offer early educators the same pathway to teaching TK as private school teachers. She said if the state doesn’t improve access, it risks losing a valuable workforce.

“It just feels sad and wrong to be losing such experienced educators when there's a clear need for them and when there should be opportunities for them,” Austin said.

Mary Vixie Sandy, director of the commission, said that policy for private school teachers existed long before the PK-3 credential came along. She urged patience as teacher preparation programs train the first cohorts of PK-3 credential candidates to figure out what worked, what didn’t and consider changes in the future.

“We're not trying to keep a workforce out, not at all. We most certainly want the workforce in,” she said.

What can teacher education programs do?

The CTC allows teacher training programs to waive up to 400 hours of training depending on a person’s preschool classroom experience, but requires 200 hours to prepare candidates to teach all the way up to third grade.

“The knowledge of someone whose complete experience has been with 3- and 4-year-olds may not be sufficient to be assigned to a third-grade classroom,” she said. “And if they have a credential that authorizes them to serve in those places, we have a fundamental obligation to the public to make sure the people we credential are prepared to do so.”

Cardenas, 38, considers herself a lifelong learner and said she would be willing to undergo more professional training, but she can’t afford to take time off work to pursue a credential, at least not without a scholarship or grant.

It takes one to two years to complete a teacher preparation program, and the CTC is giving these programs some leeway to waive prior coursework in child development or early childhood education.

The state has awarded millions of dollars in grants to support aspiring TK teachers willing to work in classrooms as they earn their credential. California State University, Dominguez Hills is offering up to $15,000 grants to students pursuing the credential as part of an effort to increase the early childhood education workforce. It’s also trying to make returning to school easier for preschool teachers who have an associate’s degree by giving them three years to complete their bachelor’s degree and PK-3 credential if they attend full-time.

San Jose State University offered to cover the full cost of tuition for up to 28 early educators who enrolled in its PK-3 credentialing program by April 1st, according to Maria Fusaro, a child and adolescent development professor at the university.

Fusaro said going through the program takes “a big commitment,” but it’s up to early educators to decide whether the effort is worth the reward of working in a K-12 setting.

A single mom of two boys, Cardenas said she’s attracted to the good salary, benefits and summer breaks that come with teaching in public schools. She also said she was excited by the prospect of teaching TK when the state began expanding the grade.

She knows she has what it takes to teach 4-year-olds — the patience to see them through the potty training and other foundational skills so they’re ready for the next stage of learning.

“It saddens me that after all the years of education that I have, all the years of experience, I wouldn't be able to teach TK even though that's my jam,” she said.

Los Angeles officials are considering a pair of Airbnb-backed proposals that would temporarily loosen city regulations on short-term rentals and allow the company to pre-pay a portion of the lodging taxes it collects from tourists.

If approved by the City Council, the first proposal would allow Airbnb hosts to rent second homes and investment properties on the platform through 2028 — something the home-sharing giant has long sought, but the city of L.A. has prohibited since 2018.

The second proposal would involve Airbnb paying some portion of the transient occupancy tax it collects from tourists to the city of Los Angeles ahead of time to assist with the city’s budget troubles. That could generate tens of millions of dollars more for the city per year, according to the company.

"Airbnb is a committed partner to Los Angeles and its long-term prosperity with not just words, but with action,” said Justin Wesson, Airbnb’s senior public policy manager in California. “That’s why we have offered to provide tax revenue we already collect on behalf of hosts up front to help fund essential city programs millions of Angelenos rely on."

Both plans appeared in Mayor Karen Bass’ budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which starts in July, and were first reported by L.A. Material. Both were initially suggested by Airbnb, according to the company.

Bass’ budget proposal instructs the city’s Planning Department to develop a limited vacation rental program that would sunset by Dec. 31, 2028.

It also instructs city staff to report back with recommendations “to allow the pre-payment of transient occupancy tax in advance of the 2028 Olympics from any payer that wishes to assist the City in accelerating critical infrastructure projects.”

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who opposes expanding short-term rentals, told LAist she has concerns about the prepayment plan.

"I don’t know anyone in the country running to prepay their taxes, especially any corporations, and it begs the question as to why,” Rodriguez said.

Pre-paying TOT

Airbnb has discussed this pre-payment concept with city officials, but has not settled on specific terms, a company spokesperson confirmed to LAist.

The company told LAist it would work with city officials to come up with the amounts and timelines for any potential prepayment after the City Council approves the mayor’s budget.

Bass’ office did not respond Thursday to questions about the proposal.

In the current budget year, the city will collect about $297 million in transient occupancy taxes, including $34.5 million from short-term rentals and $262.9 million from hotels, according to the L.A. city controller’s revenue forecast.

The Hotel Association of Los Angeles told LAist that hotels, the main driver of bed-tax revenues, have not been part of any conversations about possible pre-payment.

“City leaders have not engaged hotels on the concept of pre-paying transient occupancy taxes in advance of the 2028 Olympics,” Jackie Filla, the association’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We learned of this issue for the first time while reviewing the proposed budget.”

The Mayor’s Office first briefed members of L.A. City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee shortly before the Monday release of Bass’ proposed budget, according to one member’s office.

According to the mayor’s budget proposal, the prepaid tax revenue would be used for curb and sidewalk repairs, park maintenance, street cleanliness and tree trimming.

Airbnb entered into an agreement with the city of L.A. in August 2016 allowing the company to collect and pay the transient occupancy tax on behalf of Airbnb hosts. The company said it has collected and paid more than $370 million in lodging tax to the city of Los Angeles between 2016 and the end of last year, for an average of about $39 million annually.

Before L.A.’s 2018 law restricting Airbnbs, there were nearly 29,000 estimated active short-term rental listings in the city of L.A., according to the city’s Planning Department. L.A.’s transient occupancy tax revenue totaled nearly $319 million in the 2018 budget year, according to the city administrative officer. That total includes tax remitted by hotels and it’s unclear how much was generated from short-term rentals specifically.

Last budget year, there were fewer than 5,000 homes officially listed on short-term rental platforms, according to the city. L.A. collected $305.8 million in transient occupancy tax. About $272 million of that came from hotels. The other roughly $33 million came from short-term rentals, according to the city controller.

Bass’ budget proposal projects $313.5 million in transient occupancy tax in 2026-2027.

More Airbnbs? 

Airbnb has long sought to change L.A.’s short-term rental rules to allow more homes on the platform.

Last year, Airbnb launched a public campaign for its "Vacation Rental Revenue Plan.” The company argues that increasing L.A.’s short-term rentals will generate more tax revenue from tourists and expand housing options during the Olympics.

L.A.’s current short-term rental regulations allow homeowners to list only their primary residences on platforms like Airbnb. It also prohibits housing units protected by the city’s rent stabilization ordinance from being listed.

But existing Airbnb laws are rarely enforced. There were 7,500 properties illegally operating as short-term rentals in Los Angeles, according to the city’s Housing Department’s 2024 estimates. Since 2021, L.A. has issued an average of 125 home-sharing citations per year across all enforcement departments, according to city planning records.

Airbnb estimates that lifting restrictions on second homes could generate more than $100 million annually for the city in additional revenue from transient occupancy tax and other tourist spending. The company did not provide a further breakdown of those projections or indicate the exact number of new listings it expects would follow.

There are currently about 5,500 units already operating on home-sharing platforms under the existing rules and thousands more operating illegally, according to city officials.

On April 2, the city of L.A.’s Planning Department recommended in a report that the city reject the Airbnb proposal to allow second homes, finding it was unlikely to generate much revenue and likely to remove long-term housing from the market.

On April 15, the department released another report, reversing its earlier position. It clarified that the previous report had only only analyzed a permanent program but that a temporary program tied to the Olympics was worth considering.

Officials react

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, part of the Budget and Finance Committee, said Airbnb has been talking to members about vacation rentals for years. He said he opposes the company’s desired changes and wants to see more enforcement of illegal Airbnbs.

“I didn't support vacation rentals when it was before us years ago because I feared it would take long-term housing units off the market,” Blumenfield said. “I'm still concerned about it. I still haven't seen a proposal that I would support.”

Councilmember Tim McOsker, also on the budget committee, did not say whether he would support the Airbnb-backed proposals.

A spokesperson from his office said in a statement that Osker “will evaluate the entirety of the proposal, including the pre-payment mechanism, within the budget hearings process before taking a position.”

Airbnb’s political opponents tied to the hotel industry, including hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE Local 11, have consistently fought against efforts to expand Airbnbs. Now they’re also crying foul on the company’s pre-payment plan.

“ This is just a ruse to to build a larger short-term market, which means less housing for Angelenos in our city,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.

Noah Suarez-Sikes is an organizer with Better Neighbors L.A., a group advocating for stronger limits on short-term rentals. He said even if the change is temporary, renters will be permanently displaced.

“ I would hope that council would see that this is a Trojan horse and take it out before it starts harming working class people,” he said.

Airbnb is the third biggest spender in Los Angeles city elections so far this year, after the LAPD police officers union and hotel workers union UNITE HERE Local 11.

A committee funded entirely by Airbnb spent nearly $300,000 in support of Jose Ugarte, a former aide to Councilmember Curren Price who is now one of six candidates running to replace him in District 9.

The committee paid $298,832.00 to a company called Street Level Strategy LLC for “canvassing, consulting, doorhangers, data, and office supplies,” according to records filed with the city.

"Across the country and at all levels of government, we back causes and candidates that champion home sharing and tourism and Los Angeles is a top focus for us," Justin Wesson of Airbnb told LAist.

Meanwhile, a committee sponsored by UNITE HERE Local 11 has raised $515,000 and spent more than $440,000 in independent expenditures opposing Councilmember Traci Park and supporting her challenger, civil rights attorney Faizah Malik, in District 11.

“ We want to support candidates who want to raise wages so that people can live in Los Angeles and lower rents so that people can afford to live in Los Angeles,” said UNITE HERE 11 co-president Kurt Peterson.

The City Council will begin budget hearings Friday. The panelis expected to hold its first vote on the budget May 21.

Meta will lay off 10% of its staff in May, according to an internal memo which was published by Bloomberg. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the report's accuracy to NPR.

The layoffs will take place on May 20 and affect some 8,000 workers. Meta will also not hire for 6,000 open roles that it had intended to fill.

In the memo, Meta's chief people officer Janelle Gale wrote, "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making. This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here."

Calling it "unwelcome news" that "puts everyone in an uneasy state," Gale wrote, confirming the layoffs to employees now "is the best path forward, given the circumstances."

Meta and other big players in artificial intelligence have been spending vast amounts of money to build data centers and try to win the AI race — one in which Meta lags behind competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

In January, Meta forecast record capital expenditures this year of up to $135 billion — almost double what it spent last year.

The pivot to AI comes at a time when Meta seems to be backing away from its previous focus on its virtual reality Metaverse products. The Metaverse was once key to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the company's future — so fundamental that in 2021, he changed the name of the company from Facebook to Meta.

In a separate round of layoffs this month, the company announced that it was laying off some 700 people as part of its efforts in "right-sizing" its investment in Reality Labs, the division that runs the company's Metaverse products.

Meta is also facing a string of costly legal challenges. The company lost two pivotal court cases earlier this year: a New Mexico jury found that Meta failed to protect young users from child sexual exploitation. Penalties in that case could reach $375 million.

Meanwhile, a jury in Los Angeles found the company — along with Google — liable for the mental health problems experienced by a woman who used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million.

In the Los Angeles case, the woman's lawyers argued that Meta's products were designed to be addictive to kids.

Meta has said it will appeal both lawsuits.

The company faces similar lawsuits, including one brought by several school districts against Meta and several other social media companies, which will be heard in Oakland, California this year.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The first thing you notice when you unwrap the fried chicken sandwich from Hokkaido Fried Chicken is the craggy crust, almost geological in its texture — the kind of fry that makes you want to reconsider every other fried chicken sandwich you've ever eaten.

The craggy, crunchy Hokkaido fried chicken

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Courtesy Hokkaido Fried Chicken

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The chicken itself — shattering on the outside, improbably juicy within — holds its own against everything surrounding it. With the miso vinaigrette slaw, the pickled cucumbers, the chili truffle shoyu sauce, it’s a revelation — and for me, the best fried chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten in L.A., hands down.

Hokkaido by way of Arcata

Hokkaido Fried Chicken, which is online-only, has been running since January out of an unassuming ghost kitchen on the edge of Koreatown. It’s the brainchild of Ronuk Patel, an Indian American who grew up outside Chicago, fell in love with snowboarding, and relocated to Arcata, a Northern California town about three hours from the Oregon border.

Ronuk Patel, chef and owner of Hokkaido Fried Chicken and Hokkaido Soup Curry, at his ghost kitchen on Olympic Blvd on the outskirts of Koreatown.

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Courtesy Hokkaido Fried Chicken

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There, he built a career as a cannabis farmer — and began making regular snowboarding pilgrimages to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, chasing powder and, eventually, some of the most interesting food he'd ever eaten. It was on that first trip to Sapporo, over a decade ago, that he met Gory, a Japanese chef who would become a close friend and, eventually, his collaborator.

In 2024, Patel sponsored Gory's visa and brought him to Arcata to help launch Susukino Ramen Bar — named after the Sapporo neighborhood where they first met. It was there, with Gory's family zangi recipe on the menu as an appetizer, that the seed of Hokkaido Fried Chicken was planted.

What is zangi?

Most Angelenos with a passing familiarity with Japanese cuisine know karaage — the lightly battered, juicy fried chicken that has become a fixture on Japanese menus across the city. Zangi is Hokkaido's answer to that tradition, and it plays in a different register entirely. Where karaage tends toward a lighter touch — a brief marinade, a delicate crust — zangi goes deeper. The marinade is heavier on soy and sake, more aggressive with garlic and ginger and almost always incorporates a fruit component that varies by chef.

Patel and Gory pushed it further still, applying a dry batter separately after marinating — rather than mixing everything together in the traditional wet batter method — for a crust that fries up dramatically craggier and crunchier. The result is chicken that is deeply seasoned all the way through and improbably juicy — both of which hit you immediately on first bite.

The HFC sandwich up close — the craggy, dry-battered crust is the first thing you notice, a direct result of Patel and chef Gory's decision to depart from zangi's traditional wet batter.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Inside the sandwich

Bite into the sandwich ($10.99), and you immediately understand why it took four or five months to get here. Every detail is thought through. The miso slaw cuts the richness of the chicken without competing with it. The cucumbers, pickled in a brine riffed from Patel's own recipe, add brightness and snap. The chili truffle shoyu sauce, born from mixing his ramen shop's house chili with a white shoyu-truffle product he'd been experimenting with, ties it together with a depth that sneaks up on you.

Just getting started

Fried chicken sandwiches aren't all that's on the menu at HFC. Nuggets and tenders round out the chicken offerings, along with the fries, which are definitely worth ordering — particularly the loaded pork belly fries ($10), topped with chashu pork belly, spicy truffle aioli and green onions over crispy shoestring fries, and the furikake fries ($5), whose umami-rich seasoning makes them a natural companion to the chicken.

Patel has also launched a second concept out of the same ghost kitchen: Hokkaido Soup Curry, a Japanese dish that combines aromatic curry spices with a lighter, broth-based preparation rooted in the same Hokkaido culinary tradition that inspired HFC — and one that hints at the Japanese-Indian fusion menu Patel says he's only just beginning to develop.

For Patel, none of it feels calculated — and that, perhaps, is the point.

"It just happened really organically, naturally, just like us being in the kitchen, having a good time."

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

When I first started, I went alone. I couldn’t convince any of my friends to commit to riding 20 miles on a bicycle on a Friday night through a city known for its car culture. It didn’t help that I told them the bike ride would start in Koreatown, among the most densely populated neighborhoods in the whole country. 

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. 

What I discovered is that Los Angeles Critical Mass (LACM) is the largest community bicycle ride in the United States, drawing almost 4,000 riders each month, according to the group’s own records. 

The modern Critical Mass movement began in San Francisco in 1992 as a grassroots effort to reclaim the streets has since grown into a global movement, with Los Angeles now hosting one of its largest rides.

LACM Vice President JoJo Valdez, told The LA Local that the event is ”a living example of what safer, more human-centered streets could look like” in the City of Angels. 

Critical Mass Los Angeles riders roll through Koreatown, January 2026.

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The ride takes place on the last Friday of every month on the corner of Western and Wilshire across from The Wiltern. Routes change monthly, turning each ride into a moving tour of the city. Some rides head west toward Marina del Rey, others east toward Mariachi Plaza, passing through neighborhoods that rarely feel connected outside of car travel.

As the ride moves through different neighborhoods, it often brings energy — and customers — to local businesses along the route as riders stop for food, drinks and supplies throughout the evening.

Valdez said, “Cyclists, skaters and riders moving together make the demand for alternative transportation impossible to ignore.”

A cyclist takes off on a monthly Critical Mass ride in Koreatown on Nov 8th, 2025.

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Steve Saldivar

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L.A. is the last place you’d expect a mass cycling movement to take hold. That’s probably why it did. In a city defined by gridlock, LACM offers something rare — movement through neighborhoods at a human pace.

I’ve experienced it firsthand. 

For me, LACM became an alternative to the typical night out. Instead of bars or clubs, it became a way to decompress, stay active and explore the city differently.

Over time, I built connections that turned into a consistent group of six friends I now ride with each month. I’ve even brought my girlfriend along, and it’s become one of our favorite end-of-month traditions.

Critical Mass Los Angeles riders roll through Los Angeles.

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Courtesy of LACM

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How a ride typically goes

The LA chapter of Critical Mass is led by LACM President Lisa Lundie and Valdez, who both began as volunteers before stepping into leadership roles for the Los Angeles chapter. According to the organization, their focus includes accessibility, community and mental wellness accessibility, community and mental wellness — and those values show up throughout the ride itself.

Valdez said that what people see — the crowds and energy — is only part of the story. There is real coordination and planning to keep the ride safe and organized as it moves through the city.

“We look out for each other. We ride together. If you’re alone, you won’t stay that way for long,” he said.

Critical Mass Los Angeles riders roll through Hollywood Boulevard, December of 2024.

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Courtesy of LACM

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Ride marshals help guide traffic, support newer riders and keep the group together, while a lead vehicle sets the pace and support riders follow behind to ensure no one is left behind. The result is a ride that may feel overwhelming at first, given the number of people, but quickly settles into a relaxed rhythm.

With everyone following the lead car and built-in stops to regroup, it becomes approachable for first-timers and more communal than a typical solo ride through Los Angeles.

As the ride unfolds, speakers carried by riders create a shifting soundtrack — hip-hop, EDM, reggae and Latin music blending with each neighborhood the group passes through, turning the streets into a moving reflection of L.A.’s culture.

Critical Mass Los Angeles riders roll through Koreatown.

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Louie Martinez

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Some rides carry deeper meaning, including moments of silence for cyclists lost to traffic accidents and ongoing calls for safer streets.

This month’s ride, taking place on April 24 at 7:00 p.m., will celebrate West Coast hip-hop legend DJ Battlecat, who will perform from the lead vehicle, transforming the ride into a rolling party on wheels.

The distance might sound intimidating, but the pace is manageable, with plenty of breaks and lots of potential new friends.  Whether you come with a group or show up solo, Critical Mass offers a new way to experience Los Angeles one ride at a time.

Cyclists gather for the monthly Critical Mass rides in Koreatown on Nov 8th, 2025.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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