Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Last week, I’d heard that they’d dressed up a 7-11 store in Burbank as a “Kwik-E-Mart” as a promotion for “The Simpsons Movie” that’s coming out soon. So of course I knew we had to ride there to see it. So today’s bike ride was a variation on the classic Toluca Lake route, with a slight detour to the Kwik-E-Mart.

We headed out from Victory Park and took the usual route across Eagle Rock and Glendale. The only unusual thing we saw was the big mound of suds spilling over the fountain in front of a hotel in Glendale. That was pretty funny.

We rode through the equestrian neighborhood near Griffith Park, and then turned north on Marposa to get to Verdugo in Burbank. Then we turned left and saw the Kwik-E-Mart. I wore my yellow jersey today so I’d fit in with the color scheme there. I got a bunch of pictures, but for some reason, nobody wanted to get a pink donut. Still, it was a fun little sightseeing stop.

Leaving the Kwik-E-Mart, we headed down Olive Ave to Riverside and then rode over the Priscilla’s. I got my usual large orange juice and bagel. We couldn’t get a table this time, since the San Fernando Valley Bicycle Club was there, and their group was so large that they took up all the outside table space. So we sat in the grass across the street.

After the snack stop, we rode back into Griffith Park. The plan was to ride up and over Mt. Hollywood and see some of the damage from the recent fire. But when we got to the turnoff, there was a ‘Bicycles Prohibited’ sign up on a little sawhorse on the road. We debated whether we could pretend that we didn’t see it, but in the end we decided that there just wasn’t any plausible deniability there. So we rode took the other route through the park to come out by the fountain on Los Feliz. An electric sign warned us that the road was closed, but there were no barricades, and traffic was going through. So we went through, too. And along the way I finally got to see some of the burned area up close.

Coming out of the park, we took Riverside down to Fletcher and then headed back up into Glassell Park. When we turned on El Paso, Gaurav got a flat. The rest of the group was a bit ahead of us, and they didn’t hear the tire going flat. So that was the last we saw of them for today.

After the flat fix, we headed up Figueroa to Ave 60. That was where the pickup truck loaded with appliances passed us. I liked the little poodle with his head out the window. Not the sort of dog I usually associate with big pickup trucks.

Then we turned left on Monterey Road for the trip home across South Pasadena. I picked up a couple of abandoned couches. The first was in the middle of a huge pile of trash on the curb. The second was all by itself, with a little, slightly forlorn-looking sign on it that said, “FREE STUFF”.

When we got back to the park, I had 41 miles, and it was still early. So Gaurav and I rode out to Arcadia and back. On the way back through Sierra Madre, I got a flat. Gaurav took the obligatory picture.

Overall, it was a very pleasant ride, even with two flats. And check this out:

Gaurav has one of those fancy bike computers that keeps track of where we went. So here’s the route.

50 miles.
cycling