Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This is a rant. California license 4SHZ840, if you ever put your license plate into Google, this is why I was yelling at you.

First off, let’s have a look at a bit of the California Vehicle Code:

Circular Red or Red Arrow

21453. (a) A driver facing a steady circular red signal alone shall stop at a marked limit line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then before entering the intersection, and shall remain stopped until an indication to proceed is shown, except as provided in subdivision (b).

(b) Except when a sign is in place prohibiting a turn, a driver, after stopping as required by subdivision (a), facing a steady circular red signal, may turn right, or turn left from a one-way street onto a one-way street. A driver making that turn shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk and to any vehicle that has approached or is approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard to the driver, and shall continue to yield the right-of-way to that vehicle until the driver can proceed with reasonable safety.

(c) A driver facing a steady red arrow signal shall not enter the intersection to make the movement indicated by the arrow and, unless entering the intersection to make a movement permitted by another signal, shall stop at a clearly marked limit line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or if none, then before entering the intersection, and shall remain stopped until an indication permitting movement is shown.

(d) Unless otherwise directed by a pedestrian control signal as provided in Section 21456, a pedestrian facing a steady circular red or red arrow signal shall not enter the roadway.
Amended Sec. 1, Ch. 14, Stats. 2001. Effective January 1, 2002.

So I was out riding on Saturday morning. Coming home, crossing Lake Avenue on Mendocino Street. I had the green light, and I was coming through the intersection. And suddenly, there was a silver-gray Lexus coming across the intersection, right in front of me. If I was in a car, I’d have honked the horn at her. Being that I was on my bike, and had no horn, I yelled at her. She had her window open, so she heard me and stopped, looking a bit surprised. This sort of thing happens from time to time, and it’s generally not a big deal. She made a mistake on the road. I think it was most likely an honest mistake, and that she meant no harm. It happens to everyone. Nothing bad happened, so it’s all right.

So I kept going. Then she pulls up next to me and starts yelling at me from the moving car:

“I stopped at that light before I turned! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

People make mistakes. It’s just part of being human. We all do it from time to time. In this case, the mistake she made was a pretty minor one. No harm was done, so that should have been the end of it. A truly proper and gracious response on her part would have been to say something like, “Oops. I didn’t see you. Sorry about that.” This is very rare. In fact, in nearly 40 years of riding, I can count the number of times I’ve heard this from a motorist on the fingers of one hand. And still have several fingers left to spare. But that’s all right. It’s all part of the gig when you ride a bike. Still, for her to come after me and start yelling at me about how she didn’t do anything wrong and that, by implication, this is all somehow my fault, well, this crossed the line. This is no longer an honest mistake. This is acting like an asshole.

Now, I’m of the opinion that there are two kinds of people in the world:

1. People who make mistakes, but are willing to own up to them;
2. Assholes.

So I want to convey this to her, but I can’t give the fully-detailed and nuanced response above, since I’ve got to fit it in eight words or less as she’s driving away from me. So the abbreviated version came out like this:

“Through traffic has the right of way, ASSHOLE!”

By this time, she’s passed me, but she slows down, and I can hear her yelling at me more from inside the car. I can’t make it out. But by this time, I’m feeling more than a little threatened. After all, in any physical altercation between our respective vehicles, I’m the one who stands to end up dead.

So she pulls over a little bit ahead of me and stops. I see her starting to get out of the car, still yelling at me. I just ride past, and I say something to the effect that I don’t want to talk to her any more. I also made a point of showing her that I’d taken pictures of her and her car. Then I turned down the first side street. I put on some speed down the hill, and went down lots of little streets, just to lower the chances that I’d encounter her again.

There’s no good way to wrap this up. Yes, I think I lost my cool, and that didn’t help the situation. It’s just that people who won’t admit they made a mistake is a major peeve of mine. So driver, if you ever read this, this is how you managed to take a not-especially-bad situation, and turn it into something truly horrible and disturbing. And I sincerely hope to never, ever see you again on the road.

This Sunday’s bike club ride was the route out to Glendora to see the Glendora Bougainvillea. The last time we went to see it, it wasn’t blooming that much. I’d read that winter is the time it blooms the most, so I thought we’d go see it again to see how it was doing.

It was a nice day for riding, and the ride out there was pleasant. The bougainvillea had some flowers on it. More than last time, but not as much as others we’ve seen. That may be because this particular plant is over a 100 years old.

In any case, it was a nice ride.

42 miles.

It’s the last Sunday of the month, so it’s time for our ‘longer’ ride. This time, we rode out to Encino to see Los Encinos State Historic Park. This is the one that I discovered some years ago when I was building a web site with a list of all hot springs in California. Looking at the list, I noticed that one of them had a latitude and longitude that put it inside the city of Los Angeles. So I looked it up, and we rode there one time.

The route there was as direct as I could make it, since the park is quite a bit farther away that we usually ride. Not much remarkable happened on the way there, aside from when I got a flat. When I was fixing it, I noticed the cords peeking through the tire tread, so I figured it was time to finally get a new tire.

It turned into a very nice day, and it was quite warm and sunny by the time we got there. We had a look around the park and read the historical markers before heading back. We took the bike path along the Metro Orange Line for the trip back across the Valley. Our snack stop was at Panera in North Hollywood.

When I got home, I had 59 1/2 miles, so I rode around the block once, just to make it a nice round number.

60 miles.

Since it rained on Saturday, and the forecast called for rain on Monday, I thought it was prudent to plan for the possibility of rain on Sunday. So the Sunday bike ride was the route that goes 42 miles through Los Angeles, but never is more than two miles from the nearest Metro Rail station. That way, we have a bailout option if the weather decides to go bad on us.

We rode downtown by way of Huntington Drive and Mission Road, and we passed by the little street that I’d seen a few weeks ago when I was out riding with Carla. We’d noticed that there was a little street called “Supreme Court”, and we thought that was funny. But at the time, we failed to noticed that the next street was “Superior Court”. I suspect that this was not a coincidence.

We rode through downtown Los Angeles, so we stopped off at LAPD headquarters to have a look at the “Three Weeks in January” art installation that we’d seen last week. As we expected, there were more reported rapes plotted on the map.

Continuing through downtown, we saw the crazy guy on the bike we’d seen last week. He was riding down Spring St yelling.

When we got to one of the turns on the route, we came around the corner and found a very large fallen-over tree blocking our way. But that was all right. It meant that the traffic on that street was going to be less than usual, so that’s not a bad thing.

Our stop was at Noah’s Bagels in Larchmont Village. There was a very cute tiny dog on the table next to us.

We rode back through Silver Lake, and then up Figueroa St through Highland Park. It never did rain, but we stayed on the route so that we were never far from a Metro Rail station. All told, it was a good ride.

42 miles.

On Friday, the L.A. Times had an article about “Three Weeks in January“, which is an art installation on the wall outside LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. It’s the brainchild of Suzanne Lacy, who originally created it in 1977 to raise awareness of rape in Los Angeles. The installation features a map of the city, with reported rape cases plotted, as well as a continuous storytelling soundtrack with people telling their rape stories. It’s all rather disturbing and haunting, which I guess is the point. So of course, when I saw this, I thought it would make for an interesting riding destination for Sunday morning.

It was kind of cold and cloudy, with the forecast saying there was a slight chance of rain. But the route we were taking is one that is never more than about 2 miles from the nearest Metro Rail station, so we had a bailout plan, if it became necessary.

We took the direct way downtown, down Huntington Drive and Main St. We stopped off to look at the art project for a bit before continuing on through downtown. Looking back, we got a good view of all the skyscrapers, and Jeff and I both took a moment to remember all the pain of climbing the stairs in all those buildings. Then we turned on Adams to head west for a bit. It started to rain a bit then, but it was very light, and it only went on for about 10 minutes. So we just kept on going.

I found a little back way from West Adams up to Larchmont. It was a little roundabout, but the streets were quiet, and we had lights to cross all of the major streets, so it worked well. Our snack stop was at Noah’s Bagels in Larchmont.

The route home went up Benton Way in Silver Lake, which is a nice, steep little hill. Always fun. Then we rode across the L.A. River and up Eagle Rock Blvd. That was when Silvio started having trouble with his chain skipping. We stopped to try to adjust it a bit, but in the end, it turned out that one of the pins was coming loose, and the chain was about to break. So he had to ride very carefully the rest of the way. He managed to make it up the Colorado hill, and after that, he turned off to go visit a bike shop.

It was a pleasant ride.

41 miles.

Today’s bike club ride was an architecture tour of sorts. The L.A. Times had an article last week about Wallace Neff and his ‘bubble houses’. This was an idea for a way to build circular dome buildings quickly and cheaply. The article said that a lot of bubble houses were built in the 1940s and ’50s, but that only one still exists today, and that one is on Los Robles Ave in Pasadena. This got me thinking about a theme for the ride, and I thought of another sort of round house: the geodesic dome. This was another big idea that just never really caught on. And I also knew where there is a dome home, just below the Hollywood sign in Hollywoodland. So, armed with a theme, I made up a route.

We rode out across Eagle Rock and then over the L.A. river into Silver Lake and Hollywood. Then we turned up Beachwood Canyon and the fun started. The road up the ridge on the side of the canyon is very steep and winding. I tell everyone that I guarantee they’ll be seeing stars by the time they get to the top.

After a brief rest and regroup, we rode along the ridge to the geodesic dome home. We looked at it a bit before continuing on to the Hollywood sign. Since we worked so hard to get up there, we figured we should go see it while we’re there. Then it was down the other side to Lake Hollywood, and the other steep hill to get over into Burbank.

We stopped for snacks at Priscilla’s, and then headed back down the L.A. river bike path. The route back took us through Highland Park and South Pasadena until we got to the bubble house on Los Robles Ave. It’s an odd-looking thing, but it’s a little bit of history, so it was interesting to see.

It was a nice day, and all together a nice ride.

47 miles.

January 1st fell on a Sunday this year. This meant that I could go riding on New Year’s Day, which I always consider to be good luck. And it also meant that there was no Rose Parade in our way. So the ride for today was the classic Turnbull Canyon route through Whittier.

The sun is low in the sky this time of year, so I like getting the long shadows photo when we’re riding down the Rio Hondo bike path. We had a couple of new riders along today, so we stopped off for the photo opportunity at Dork Street in Pico Rivera. Then we headed up Beverly Blvd into Whittier. By now it was quite warm, and it got even warmer as we rode up the long hill to the top of Turnbull Canyon. The view was quite nice today.

After we all got to the top and took a few minutes to enjoy the view, we headed down the other side. The route back was through La Puente, leading to our snack stop at Merengue in Monrovia. Sadly, they were closed for the holiday. So instead, we went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf up the street. That was where I saw the two girls sitting at a table together, both talking on their phones. I guess it’s how we live now.

Coming back into Pasadena, we saw people setting up camp along the Rose Parade route, ready for the parade tomorrow morning.

It was a nice ride.

47 miles.

It’s Christmas Day, and it’s also Sunday, so that means it’s time to go for a bike ride. And I came up with a theme-ride for today. We rode to Forest Lawn in Glendale to visit Jimmy Stewart, who is perhaps best known for playing George Bailey in the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life“. And from there, we rode to La Cañada to see the house that was used in the film to portray the Martini family house in Bailey Park. This was part of showing George all the good he’d done in the world, since the Martini’s were able to buy this nice house with help from the Bailey Building and Loan.

It was a bit chilly when we started out, but it promised to get warm soon. We rode out across Eagle Rock and then south through Glendale to Forest Lawn. I asked for directions at the gate, and then we headed in. Jimmy Stewart is buried near the Wee Kirk ‘O the Heather church, which is up on a pretty steep hill. But we made it up there, and we got to pay our respects. And we also talked a bit about how it was kind of funny that the movie itself was originally considered a commercial failure, but after it fell out of copyright in the 1970s and was shown a lot on television, it came to be regarded as a classic.

Leaving Forest Lawn, we headed up to Paradise Bakery. After a stop there, we rode up the long hill to Montrose, and then up the somewhat steeper Hospital Hill into La Cañada. There, we saw the La Cañada Rose Parade float parked under the 210 freeway, and then we saw the Martini home. And after that, we headed home by way of Altadena.

It was a wonderful ride.

37 miles.

One blog that I’ve recently taken to reading regularly is perilsofdivorcedpauline.com. Last week I was reading a post where she talked about the historic neighborhood she lives in. From what she said, I gathered that it was in Los Angeles, and somewhere in the West Adams area. I wrote to her to ask about it, and she pointed me to information about Lafayette Square. It’s a little pocket of old mansions right smack in the middle of mid-city L.A., not far from downtown. And of course, I immediately started thinking about riding there to see it.

I made up a route to test out, and Carla agreed to join me for the ride. We headed downtown by way of Huntington Drive. Along the way, I was amused to see that there’s a street called Supreme Court. And I’m sure there’s no significance to the fact that it had a sign that said “NOT A THROUGH STREET”.

We rode through downtown, partly along the new green-painted bike lane down Spring St. I’m not sure what I think of this, but it was an interesting sight.

Riding out on Adams, we turned north just west of Crenshaw and found our way into Lafayette Square by the back way. Most of the streets in and out of the neighborhood are gated or otherwise closed to cars, but we were able to get through on our bikes. And once we got inside, we were bowled over. The houses are grand. Most are well-kept, and the whole neighborhood just looks and feels like something that one would not expect to find in Los Angeles, especially in this area west of downtown. It was nice. We rode around a bit and looked at the houses. Then we headed out the way we came in and headed for home.

We passed the former House of Davids, just to see what it looked like now. All the Davids were gone, but it looks like the house is still for sale. After that, we stopped for a bagel at Noah’s on Larchmont. Then we rode over to Silver Lake and headed up Benton Way. From there, we rode home by way of Eagle Rock Blvd and up the Colorado Hill.

It was a nice ride, and I think we will be doing this route again with the Sunday morning group soon.

44 miles.

Since the last Sunday of this month is Christmas, I decided that we should move the monthly ‘longer ride’ back a week. So this week, we rode to the San Fernando Mission cemetery to visit the graves of Lee de Forest and Chuck Connors. Lee de Forest was the inventor of the Audion Tube, which was a precursor to vacuum tubes, which made modern electronics possible.

The route was pretty simple. We rode across Eagle Rock to Glendale. Then we got on Glenoaks Blvd and just rode north for many, many miles. That’s where we saw the giant Mario walking down the street, which was suitably weird.

When we got to the cemetery, we found Lee de Forest and Chuck Connors. Most of us knew Chuck Connors for his role in “The Rifleman” on TV, but we didn’t know that he had also been a professional athlete, playing both baseball and basketball. That’s a pretty good range of skills.

The ride back was nice, aside from my getting a flat in Sun Valley. We rode up La Tuna Canyon coming home, and that’s always fun. Our snack stop was at Goldstein’s Bagels in La Cañada. They were playing Christmas music there, which I thought was a bit odd.

All told, it was a nice ride.

56 miles.