Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Physician accused of deliberately injuring two bicyclists is convicted

I’ve been riding seriously for more than 35 years now, and I’ve had countless run-ins with assholes like him. So it’s really nice to finally see someone getting punished for acting like that.

Today’s bike ride was a trip out to the Variety office building on Wilshire Blvd, across from LACMA. There is a piece of the Berlin Wall on display there for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. It was a perfect fall day for riding.

We left Victory Park, and almost immediately, JJ got a flat.

We rode down Huntington Drive to Mission Rd and Main St into downtown Los Angeles. Then we took Olympic Blvd all the way out to near Hancock Park. The section of the wall was on display on the lawn in front of the building, so we were able to get up close to look at it.

For our snack stop, Gene suggested Farmers Market, since that was very close to us. We went there and settled in, but then one of their security guards told us we had to leave. He pulled out a piece of paper with the ‘Code of Conduct’ on it. It said that bicycling was not allowed inside the market. We pointed out that we were not bicycling. We had dismounted and walked in. But he still gave us a hard time, so we resolved never to go there again.

Coming home, we went through Hollywood. At one point, we heard sirens and saw smoke coming from Beachwood Canyon, below the HOLLYWOOD sign. Then we rode over the Shakespeare Bridge and home by way of Highland Park and South Pasadena. We passed a very energetic and excited street preacher along the way.

It was a very nice ride, aside from the run-in with the guard at Farmers Market.

45 miles.
cycling

Sunday’s bike ride was our old favorite route through northeast Los Angeles, with a nice climb up Mt Washington. It was cool in the morning, but warmed up nicely. It was a perfect fall day.

There wasn’t a lot remarkable about this ride. We did a slight variation on the route, taking different streets down the big hill. The change of scenery was nice, but the streets were pretty rough, so it was a real bone-shaker. Our snack stop was at Kaldi’s in South Pasadena. And then we just headed straight home from there.

It was a very nice ride.

38 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike club ride was my “Down for the Count” route out to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City to visit the grave of Bela Lugosi. The last time we did this ride was two years ago. And with everything that has happened in my life since then, it seems like it was another life. So it was time to do this ride again.

It was cool in the morning, and there was a slight mist around the towers in downtown Los Angeles. This combined with the morning sun reflecting off the windows of the new Ritz Carlton to make a very striking sight.

When we got to Holy Cross, we first went to the Grotto to see Bela Lugosi. Then we wandered around a bit near there, where we found Sharon Tate, Rita Hayworth, and Jack Haley. They have all been added to the Graves Gallery.

On the way back, we stopped at Noah’s Bagels on Venice Blvd. Then we rode Venice almost all the way into downtown, and then north to Silver Lake for the trip home. Once we got to Fletcher Drive, we were back on familiar territory. From there, we took the most direct route home, through Eagle Rock and up the Colorado hill into Pasadena.

It was a very nice ride.

53 miles.
cycling

Last Friday, I went to a talk at Caltech about debris flows, and how they are almost certainly going to happen this winter because of the Station Fire. The speaker made mention of one particular house in Sunland. She said that the house had been destroyed by debris flows in 1978, and that it was then rebuilt in exactly the same place. Because of this, it is expected to be destroyed again when the rains come. So of course, I immediately looked up the address and worked out a bike route to get there and see it.

I took the direct route there, since I didn’t feel like riding through Burbank and Sun Valley on a weekday. And riding up Foothill Blvd through La Crescenta and Tujunga was no picnic, either. But I made it to the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon and got to take in the charred mountain vista. It was impressive. Then I rode up into the little private neighborhood on the north side of the canyon. The fire had come down to within about 100 feet of the houses there, and the burned area looked pretty devastated. And when I found the house, I could see why it had been destroyed. There is a large drainage area above it, and it’s situated in a narrow part of the canyon. And there is no debris basin above it. Anything that comes down from that drainage gets funneled through the canyon where the house is. I suppose the owners know this. Aside from mud and rocks destroying the house every 30 years, it looks like a very pretty and idyllic place to live.

On the way out, I saw two news trucks parked at the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon. The first rain of the season is predicted for tonight, so they may be setting up to see the first mudflows.

It was an interesting little sightseeing ride.

38 miles.

Addendum: Here’s the Google Maps view of the terrain there, and you can see that there are two big canyons north and northwest of the house, and both those merge into the narrow canyon where the house is. Check it out.

cycling

Sunday’s bike ride was over to Griffith Park. It’s a nice route with not a lot of hills. It was cool and overcast, and it never really warmed up.

As you can guess from the pictures, there wasn’t much interesting or amusing along the route today. The two girls riding horses in the park were cute, but aside from that, there wasn’t much else to see.

43 miles.
cycling

On Sunday, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to watch the final day of racing at the Elite National Track Championships. We’ve been going to this for the last few years, and it’s always a fun afternoon.

When we got there, we saw my old racing friend Cleve at the video camera by the finish line. He and I used to ride races in the New York area, and particularly, the Tuesday and Thursday evening races they used to have at SUNY Old Westbury on Long Island.

The first races we saw were the men’s team sprint finals. And then it was the highlight of the day: The men’s Madison final. This is always a fun race to watch. It’s very hard to keep track of what’s happening, but there’s so much action that it’s just fun to watch anyway. The race is 200 laps, so it lasts a while, which is different from most other track events. So it’s good all around.

The last event of the day was a women’s Madison. This is the first time I’ve ever seen women riding one of these races, and they did very well. In the end, Team Vanderkitten gained a lap on the pack. They rode very well and clinched the victory. I hope they make the Madison an official women’s event in the future. These women showed that they were up to it.

It was a fun afternoon. It was about as much fun as it’s possible for me to have when someone else is riding the bike.

Today’s ride was a new route that I made up, cobbled together out of pieces of other rides we’ve done in the past. The intention was to make a nearly-flat route that went mostly south from Pasadena.

We started out from Victory Park and headed south into Temple City, and then we got on the Rio Hondo bike path down to Whittier Narrows. There we went over to the San Gabriel River bike path to go south some more. We got off in Pico Rivera, where we took a short detour for a group picture at Dork St. Then we headed east into Whittier.

We got back on the San Gabriel River bike path to head back. We went straight north past Whittier Narrows and up to Lower Azusa Road. The path is slightly uphill the whole way, since it’s following the river. That was when I looked back and saw Scott helping Sage out with a little push to keep her going as fast as the rest of us. It was her first time riding with our group, and she said she was a little out of practice. I also got in the act to give Scott a rest. I practiced my Madison throws to keep Sage going, and together, we got her all the way up the hill to our snack stop at Merengue in Monrovia.

While we were sitting outside, a car drove up, and Vikki got out. This is the second time I’ve run into her in a weirdly unexpected way. Our snacks were quite good as usual. David really enjoyed his sandwich and plantain chips.

The ride home was pretty low-key. Mostly flat, except for the slight hill up through Sierra Madre. I stayed back, chatting with Sage and doing Madison throws to keep her going.

It was a fun ride.

45 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike ride was the old route out to San Dimas for a bagel, but reversed. The plan was to ride out there, get a bagel, and then stop off for minor sightseeing on the way back. A few weeks ago, I’d see a trailer park on Covina Blvd where the streets were named for the original Mercury astronauts. Or at least five of the seven original Mercury astronauts. There was no clue why Gordon Cooper and Wally Schirra didn’t get streets. I looked it up, and there’s a Cooper Court in San Dimas, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Schirra St.

On the way back, I got a laugh out of the Chinese billboard for the Venitian in Las Vegas. I guess they’d heard about all those stereotypes about how much Chinese people like to gamble. Being Chinese, I can feel free to poke fun at the stereotypes, like when I see a Chinese restaurant with a health department grade of “B”.

Aside from that, there wasn’t much memorable about the ride. It was pleasant, but not remarkable.

42 miles.
cycling

On Saturday afternoon, I suddenly found myself with a couple free hours, so I went riding. I did my usual route down to South Pasadena, over the water tower hill, and then up to the Rose Bowl. I noticed today that they’d put up signs making it more explicit which way the pedestrians are supposed to walk there. And that despite there being a clear sign about every 50 yards, people were still ignoring them and walking the wrong direction. Makes me want to carry my riding crop when I’m riding there.