Episode 29 - Taylor Nichols | Bianchi in Aspen. Built Safer Streets in West Hollywood. Still Riding.

In this episode of Run Long After 60, I sit down with Taylor Nichols — a West Hollywood, Los Angeles actor and bicycle advocate who has been fighting for safer streets for over 15 years, and who hasn't stopped riding since he bought a Bianchi off a drug dealer in Aspen, Colorado in the mid-80s.

Taylor rode bikes as a kid in Michigan, put the bike away at 16 when he got his license, and didn't get back on one until he moved to Aspen for a theater job. He rode up to the Maroon Bells at 11,000 feet, got stoned at the top, flew 17 miles downhill, and said: I'm a cyclist for life.

The advocacy came later — when his kids were old enough to bike to school but the streets of West Hollywood were too wide, too fast, and too car-dominated to feel safe. So Taylor got appointed to the West Hollywood Bicycle Task Force, spent six months going deep into urban planning and street design, and helped transform Santa Monica Boulevard into something the whole community could use. That work eventually led him to Bike Talk — a weekly radio show on KPFK 90.7 FM now airing in 16 markets — where he co-hosts conversations with the politicians, authors, and urban planners reshaping how American cities work.

This is a different kind of episode for Run Long After 60. We talk about:

• The Bianchi, the Maroon Bells, and 40 years of never stopping

• The West Hollywood Bicycle Task Force and what it actually changed

• 45,000 Americans killed in traffic violence every year — and why it's not an accident

• "Car crash" not "car accident" — and the book behind that shift

• Bike Talk: from underground Kill Radio to 16 markets on KPFK

• E-bikes: why research shows older riders get more exercise on them, not less

• How protected bike lanes make roads safer for runners and drivers too

• What it actually takes to get someone over 60 back on two wheels

Taylor closes with a line that's going to stay with me. It's not his — he credits a writer named Tom Flood — but it's the whole argument in ten words: "Bicycles offer the freedom that auto ads promise."

He's right. And after this conversation, I believe it.

Run Long After 60 is a video-first podcast focused on running after 60, ultrarunning, longevity, and staying active later in life. If you'd like to watch the full conversation, you can find the video version on the Run Long After 60 YouTube channel.

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📍 Hosted by Mark Vega