Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Yesterday, I was at the Aon building stair climb. While we were there, there was a crew setting up for shooting a scene for Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” on Wilshire Blvd. They had lots of fake rocks and fake broken chunks of pavement, as well as a couple of fire cars, like the ones we saw in Griffith Park once that turned out to be for an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”. The setup crew said they were going to be working all day to set the scene, and the actual filming would be done of Sunday morning, so that was our sightseeing destination for today.

We got an early start today, so we made it downtown in time to see the 8:46 Metrolink train to Lancaster go by. If we see that train, that means we made good time getting downtown.

When we got down to Wilshire, it was pretty obvious that this shoot was a Big Deal. There were a lot more prop cars, and hordes of extras in business suits with dirt smeared on their faces milling about. We even saw Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson there. Apparently, her super power is the ability to create earthquakes, which Jen and I thought was pretty funny, since that meant her character had the power to make us have to go into work.

After gawking at the shoot for a few minutes, we continued on our way. We made a loop out and back through Hancock Park. Then up Benton Way through Silver Lake and then to the L.A. River bike path. We stopped for snacks at Spoke. Then we headed home by way of the Arroyo Seco bike path.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a trip to Chinatown in Los Angeles to see the bronze statue of Bruce Lee there.

We rode out across Eagle Rock and Glendale, and then down the L.A. River bike path. Then through Elysian Park to get to Chango Coffee in Echo Park. I’d remembered this time to check the Dodgers schedule to be sure there was not a game today, since that park gets pretty crowded on game days. We had snacks at Chango before taking Bonnie Brae St down to 7th St. This was novel, since we ride Bonnie Brae fairly often, but this was the first time we ever did it in this direction. It looked like a whole new street. We noticed The Bonnie Brae House for the first time today. We were wondering what was special about it.

Just before we got to 7th St, we passed 666 Bonnie Brae. The police and fire department were there in force today, for reasons that were not entirely clear. Then we turned on 7th and rode back in to downtown L.A. Then up Figueroa St to Chinatown. There, we went to see the Peephole Cinema, and then across Hill St to the Bruce Lee statue.

The route home was back up Huntington Drive, which is another route we do frequently, but not in that direction.

40 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This week I was a bit short on inspiration of things to go see, so we took a trip to Hollywood to see just a small random selection of items that we hadn’t gone to see before. Also, I’d been sick the previous week, so I wanted to do something a little on the easy side. And according to my logs, we hadn’t ridden out that direction in a while. The two bits of sightseeing on the route were RuPaul’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the mural of silent movie stars underneath the Hollywood Freeway on Argyle Ave.

We rode through downtown Los Angeles, and then up through Hancock Park to get to Hollywood. When we got there, we found RuPaul’s star on Hollywood Boulevard. It was right in front of a storefront that was completely dedicated to advertising RuPaul’s Drag Con. Seemed appropriate. Then we headed across Hollywood on Selma Ave. We had to carefully pick our way through the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. Then we found the mural under the freeway, It’s right across from Castle Argyle. Both of those made brief appearances in “La La Land“.

We stopped for snacks at Spoke. And then headed up Figueroa St to go home. In South Pasadena, I bailed out and took Metro back, just because I was still getting over being sick last week.

38 miles, including the ride home from the Metro station.

Route map and elevation profile

This past week, I saw an article on KCET about unusual and interesting parks in the L.A. area. In particular, I saw the pictures of the sea monsters at Whittier Narrows. These look a lot like the ones at Vincent Lugo Park in San Gabriel, which we’ve been to see before. So I thought it might be interesting to go and visit both sets of sea monsters on our Sunday ride this week.

We started off heading down to San Gabriel by way of Alhambra. The sea-monster playground is all the way at the back of Vincent Lugo Park there. We climbed a bit on the sculptures and took some photos there. Then we headed east to get to Whittier Narrows. We’ve been by there hundreds of times, but never actually gone into the park. I’d looked at the aerial views in Google maps to see where a couple of the sea monsters were, so we started by heading for the first one. When we got there, there was a map showing the locations of the others. We ended up riding all the way around Legg Lake to see all of them. It was actually a very nice park.

Our snack stop was at Merengue in Monrovia. We took the San Gabriel River bike trail all the way from Whittier Narrows up to Duarte, and then streets to Monrovia. We had some snacks and drinks there, and then headed home.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This past week, I saw an article in the L.A. Times about how they believe that, after 80 years missing, Amelia Earhart has been found. So we had a theme for this week’s ride.

The first stop was at Valhalla Cemetery in North Hollywood. This is the home of the Portal of the Folded Wings, which is a shrine to aviation. We’ve been to visit it before, although not for almost two years. I knew that there is a cenotaph for Amelia Earhart there, so that was our first sightseeing stop.

After the Portal, we headed back into North Hollywood to the park at Magnolia and Tujunga. That is the location of the Amelia Earhart library, as well as a statue of her on the corner.

Our third sightseeing stop was Amelia Earhart’s former house in Toluca Lake. From what I’d read, the house looks just about the same as it did in 1937. After that, we went to our snack stop. Because it was right there on Riverside Dr, we decided to try out Sweet Salt. This is a small cafe opened by a former “Top Chef” contestant, and it was quite good. So I think it will be added to our list of regular places to visit.

49 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

It rained all day Saturday, and there were still supposed to be scattered showers on Sunday, so the bike club ride for today was the Metro Rail Tour East. This is a ride to Glendora and back, and the route is designed to always be within two miles of the nearest Metro Rail station. That way, we have a quick bailout option available if it starts raining. We’ve done this ride many times before, so there wasn’t anything to take pictures of.

37 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Last week, I saw an article on Atlas Obscura about Biddy Mason. who was born a slave in Mississippi in the early 1800s, and won her freedom after being brought to California. It was really a remarkable story, and it said there is a small park in downtown L.A. that tells her story. From the address, I knew we’d been by there a hundred times, but we’d never noticed it. So that was our destination for today.

The ride was basically to downtown L.A., then home via Echo Park and the Arroyo Seco. We rode down Huntington Drive, and then Mission Rd. There is one stretch along Mission where there are always several cars with Denver boots on them.

When we got downtown, we went looking for the park. It turned out to be in the alley behind the buildings there, which explains why we’d never noticed it before. The panels on the wall told her story. She really did have a remarkable life.

After looking at the park, we noticed that the alley we were in was right behind the Bradbury Building, which is an ornate old building that was J.F. Sebastian’s home in “Blade Runner”, as well as appearing in lots of other movies over the years. We had a look into the lobby there before continuing on our ride.

From downtown, we rode out 7th St to Westlake, and then up into Echo Park and our snack stop at Chango Coffee. As always, there were lots of Echo Park people with their absurdly-well-behaved dogs. I got a sort of artisanal version of an Egg McMuffin there.

On the way home, we took one more short side trip. I’d heard recently that the city of Pasadena had put a plaque in front of the apartment building where President Obama lived when he was a student at Occidental College. So we had to go see it.

39 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike ride was a visit to the Puente Hills Mall, which was the location used in “Back to the Future”, where Doc Brown first shows Marty the DeLorean time machine. It was kind of chilly this morning, but promised to warm up some and be nice later.

The route was planned to try and be as direct as possible, while avoiding a few major streets that I knew would be bad for riding. Still, the route was a bit longer than our usual rides. Fortunately, it didn’t have any major hills.

When we got to the mall, I found the spot that matched up with the screenshot from the movie. Then I rode down to the spot in the parking lot where Doc’s truck was parked. Fortunately, the parking lot was pretty empty, so I took a run across it, just to see if I could get up to 88mph. Sadly, not today. Then we all rode over to the corner of the parking lot, where there was a Panera Bread for drinks and snacks.

The route back was slightly different from the route going out. The underpass they are building to run Puente Rd under the railroad tracks still isn’t finished, so we had to take a bit of a detour. I guess I’ll have to figure out a different way to get through there.

49 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s ride was the Whittier Greenway Trail ride. We’ve done this before, once to see the googie bowling alley sign, another time just to ride the whole length of the trail, yet another time to see the antique streetlights with the swastikas on them, and even one time to visit the site of a 1975 airplane crash.

Along the way, we also took a short side trip to the mall in Montebello. This mall overlooks the Pomona Freeway, and I had remembered that the scene from “Back to the Future” where Doc Brown first shows Marty the DeLorean time machine was filmed at a mall next to that freeway. But after riding around the parking lot once, it didn’t look quite right, and when I looked it up, it was filmed at the other mall next to that freeway. So I know where we’re going next week. Still, it was a nice day, and good for riding.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a trip out to Park La Brea and the little cafe inside. We went there once last summer, and it was a nice setting. The route went through Highland Park and Silverlake on the way out, and then back home by way of downtown L.A. All ground we’ve covered before. There wasn’t really any sightseeing along this route. But it was a nice day, so it was just pleasant to be out riding.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile