Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike club ride was a visit to the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles. There is a Ciclavia going on there today. And besides that, the start of the Ciclavia route is just a block or two from Powers Place, which has the distinction of being the shortest street in Los Angeles.

Riding downtown, we made good time, and for the first time in a long time, we made it to the L.A. River in time to see the Metrolink 8:46 train to Lancaster go by. Then we rode through downtown L.A., where we saw that the north end of the Metro Blue and Expo lines is shut down for maintenance. The Pico station had signs warning us that there were no trains running there right now.

The Ciclavia route was like the time they did the Ciclavia to the Sea in 2013. We rode the length of the route, and then headed north to get to Hancock Park and our snack stop at Noah’s Bagels. After that, we headed back by our usual route through Silver Lake, pausing briefly to check out the Happy Foot/Sad Foot sign on Sunset. Apparently, it’s going to be moving away soon.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

Today’s bike club ride was a trip to Sun Valley to see the Stonehurst Cottages. There are a collection of stone houses, all built by one man in the 1920s. It’s a testament to what can happen when you have one man with a vision, as well as a lot of time on his hands.

The ride up there was pretty straightforward. Across Eagle Rock, Glendale, and Burbank. We did one short side trip in Burbank to see the house with the backyard playhouse in the shape of a pirate galleon. Then we continued on up into the auto-wrecking-ghetto of Sun Valley, and then turned off on Sheldon St to get to the Stonehurst neighborhood. We rode around randomly on some of the streets there to see a few of the stone houses. Then we continued on through the horse neighborhood around there. Seeing and smelling horses, it felt like we were out in the country, not inside the city limits of Los Angeles. This was the same neighborhood we visited once to see a llama named Lorenzo.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

The Sunday bike club ride was rained out the last two Sundays. This is almost unheard-of here in SoCal. Usually, we can tell the weather by looking at the calendar, and if it’s after May 1st, we don’t have to worry about rain until October. But we were rained out.

So this week’s ride was a trip to Puente Hills Mall, which played the Twin Pines Mall in “Back to the Future”. It appears at the beginning and the end of the movie. It was where Doc Brown first showed Marty the DeLorean time machine. So that was our sightseeing for today.

On the way out there, we passed by the In-N-Out Burger museum in Baldwin Park. We’ve been there before for the tour.

The route was very flat almost the whole way. It turned out to be a bit longer than I’d expected, but that wasn’t a problem. And it was a nice day for riding, even if we couldn’t get our bikes to 88 mph to travel through time.

50 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.