Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike ride was a visit to L.A. for yet another Ciclavia. This time, the theme was the 100th anniversary of the L.A. Philharmonic. The route went between the Hollywood Bowl and the Disney Concert Hall downtown.

On the way into Hollywood, we stopped off to see the Chandelier Tree. We’d all heard this past week that the city had ordered it shut down recently.

When we got to Hollywood, we turned south and joined the Ciclavia route. We took that all the way into downtown. Then we headed up to Chinatown and rode through the park around Dodger Stadium to get to the L.A. River. We had snacks at Spoke in Frogtown before heading home.

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s ride was a visit to yet another “Open Streets” event, this time in Irwindale and Baldwin Park. And as with the Vernon event a few weeks ago, there are only about two dozen people who actually live in Irwindale, so I guessed that it might not be too crowded, either. And along the way there, we went to see the F-86 in the park in West Covina. It’s made of solid concrete, but Roadside America still insists that it’s a real F-86 airplane.

We stopped for snacks at Panera in West Covina, and then we continued on to Baldwin Park to pick up the beginning of the Open Streets route. We rode that all the way to Santa Fe Dam, and then took the bike trail back up to Duarte. And then home by way of Sierra Madre.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike ride was a visit to USC and the Fisher Museum to see the art project in front of the museum commemorating the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. We did this before, but it was several years ago. Besides, it seems that people doing un-American things is more in the news again lately for some reason…

It had been long enough since we did this ride that I had to make a few adjustments to the route, but that wasn’t a bad thing. We rode the usual route into downtown, and then south to USC. Along the way, we stopped to see the old Parker Center, which was the long-time headquarters for the Los Angeles Police. It’s slated to be torn down soon, so I wanted to see the building again before it’s gone. Besides, I still remember going to the Street Scene in downtown L.A. back in the ’80s. They had stages set up all over the Civic Center area, and I always wanted to know what rocket scientist thought it was a good idea to put the hardcore punk stage on the street in front of Parker Center. And of course, everyone was shocked – shocked, I tell you – that a riot broke out.

Riding through downtown, it was a misty sort of morning, which made for some nice sunlight reflecting off the buildings. We haven’t seen that since we did “Down for the Count” in 2009.

We stopped at USC to see the garden and the art installation there, and then continued on to Larchmont Village and bagels at Noah’s. Then we rode home through Silver Lake, and up Benton Way, which we haven’t done in a while.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

We did the “La La Land” ride again today. We did this last year, so I didn’t take as many pictures this time. It was more a chance to show the locations to some new people who weren’t riding with us last year. So if you want to see the actual locations, have a look at when we did it last year.

48 miles

Route map and elevation profile