Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This Sunday’s bike ride is the yearly “Down for the Count” ride for Halloween. This is a ride to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave. This year is the 15th time we’ve done this ride for Halloween. Last year, we found out that our favorite cafe in the Helms Bakery complex had closed, so this time we were going to try an new bakery in Culver City.

The route out has evolved over the years, and the current route going out on the Metro Expo Line bike lands is pretty good. For some reason, the Ballona Creek bike path was closed, but that wasn’t really a problem. We made it out to Culver City easily, and then into Holy Cross to see Bela Lugosi. His grave is always decorated for Halloween, but this time was the most decoration we’ve ever seen.

Leaving Holy Cross, we rode into Culver City and stopped at Grand Casino Bakery. We got drinks and empanadas, which turned out to be just the thing. Then we rode home by way of downtown L.A.

55 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Todays’s bike ride was a visit to the American Military Museum in Rosemead. We’ve been by there many times, but never went in before. The group met up at Lacey Park in San Marino. In keeping with the military theme, the first two sights along the route were General George Patton’s childhood home, and the statue and memorial to him at the small cemetery in San Gabriel. Then we rode on south and made a big loop before coming back up through Whittier Narrows to get to the museum. It’s quite a collection of stuff they have there. We wandered around in there for a while before continuing on home. At the end, I didn’t go back to San Marino, but I took a more direct route home.

About 42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today was the first CicLAvia in a very long time, so today’s bike ride was a trip into the city to ride it. The route went from Boyle Heights out to MacArthur Park, so we padded it out a bit on the ride over. We took the route through Rosemead and East L.A. to get to the start. Then we followed the route through downtown out to Westlake before turning around and following it back up to the end in Chinatown. Then we turned off and went for drinks at Chimney Coffee outside of downtown. From there, we ride home by way of Highland Park, passing by the two giant dragonflies on Ave 52.

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.