Stan’s Obligatory Blog

It’s a holiday, and I had a little free time this morning, so I did a short ride up to Chantry Flat. I haven’t been up there for some time, and it was a nice day.

It was a pleasant ride, or at least as pleasant as 3.5 miles up a sort-of-steep hill can be. And the view was nice, even if it was a bit hazy today.

21 miles.

Today’s bike club ride was a sort of random tour of L.A. It was also the day of the third CicLAvia, but we decided not to go to that, since the last time, it was crowded enough that it didn’t feel safe riding in that group. Too many people seem so have the attitude that if there are no cars around, they don’t have to pay attention to anything or follow any sort of rules of the road. So that was out.

A few weeks ago, I read in the L.A. Times about a place in Echo Park that has a room full of vintage pinball machines and hosts a pinball league. So that was one stop on the tour, mostly just to see where it is. On the way, we went past a car club meeting in Echo Park. The Nash Metropolitan hot-rod was pretty funny.

When we crossed Alvarado St, we found ourselves facing a hill that looked like a wall. But it looked flat on the map…

Continuing on through Silver Lake, we went into the east end of Hollywood, where we had a brief sightseeing stop at the Vista Theater. This is the place that as a small Walk of Fame composed of the hand and foot prints of some of the lesser-known stars of cinema.

On the way back, we stopped off at Antigua Cultural Coffee for snacks and drinks.

It was a nice ride.

40 miles.

It’s the Google Maps Street View bicycle. Well, tricycle, but you get the idea. I saw this guy riding around through the Caltech campus today. He said the idea is so that Street View can work along bicycle and walking routes.

This week found me with no special ideas for where we should go on the Sunday bike ride. There are some interesting destinations coming up, but there was nothing appropriately interesting for today. So we did the ‘Relatively Flat Ride’. That’s my attempt to come up with a route with as few hills as possible.

It was a nice day for riding, but since we didn’t really go anywhere, I only took a couple of pictures. But it was a pleasant ride.

43 miles.

This morning I went for a little ride. My usual route makes a big loop, and I pass by the Rose Bowl on the way home. It’s not unusual to see some sort of event going on there, but today’s was a bit different. The road had countless thousands of muddy footprints on it, and I saw people running, covered in mud.

When I got home, I looked it up. (Can anyone even remember how life was even possible before we had the Internet?) It was the Gladiator Rock’n-Run. I rode along part of the course just to see what they were doing, and it actually looks kind of fun. And I hate running.

And then, to top it off, I finally got to see the Altadena Wallabies on my way home. There were two of them out in the front yard today. So overall, it was an amusing morning.

30 miles