Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s ride was “La Tuna Canyon East to West”. This is the ‘easy’ way through there, since the climb up is broken up in short stages, and we go down the four-mile hill into Sunland. (I actually prefer to do it the other direction, since I like going up the four-mile hill, but I’m just funny that way.)

It was a perfect day. We headed across Pasadena and past the Rose Bowl before riding up into La Cañada. Then it was down Hospital Hill into Montrose for the gradual climb up to La Tuna Canyon.

We stopped for a minute at the top of the canyon, and then headed down the hill. This was the first time I’ve gone down that hill and not been the last guy to the bottom. That was novel. I also used the top gear on my bike for the first time in the two years that I’ve had it.

At the bottom, we got on Glenoaks and rode back into Glendale to our snack stop at Paradise Bakery. As always, I had two chocolate eclairs. Not exactly the Breakfast of Champions, but the eclairs are very good there.

After the stop, we took a slightly different route back across Glendale to get to Verdugo Blvd. Then it was back up the hill to Montrose and the obligatory trip up Hospital Hill. At the top, I noticed that I was dripping and had made a little puddle on the ground, so I took a picture of it. And I had one of those ‘what the hell happened to my life’ moments. I used to see a hill like that and think, “Hey, here’s my chance to break away”, but now I just think, “I hope I can keep up with Newton.”

Coming down the hill, we crossed back into Pasadena. Then Newton and I rode out to Arcadia before I turned around and headed back across Sierra Madre to home.

52 miles.
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Route map and photo locations

Today’s lunchtime ride was the Lida Loop again. This makes something like four weeks in a row, but today we had directions to visit Charles Richter’s old house and his grave site. He is the Richter of the “Richter Scale”, which is familiar to anyone who lives in earthquake country.

We started out and rode through Old Town and down to the Rose Bowl. Then it was up Lida to the top of the hill. When we crossed into Glendale on Figueroa, we saw a deer. It was standing on the side of the road, but when it saw us coming it ran away.

Coming down the hill into La Ca&#241ada, we turned and headed back into Pasadena. Passing by JPL and the arroyo, we went up Casitas St. to Altadena Drive. Then we took a left on Lincoln to get to Villa Zanita, which is on the map as a street, but it was really just a dirt driveway that led back to several houses. We stopped and saw Richter’s old house. He and his wife moved there in the mid ’60s, after their old house was bought and bulldozed to make way for a freeway. The story I was told about this house was that when the realtor found it, Charles was out hiking in the mountains and could not be reached. But Lillian saw the house and decided that he would like it, at least in part because there was a counter that was just the right size for laying out paper seismograms. So they bought the house and he lived there for the rest of his life.

Leaving Villa Zanita, we headed down Lincoln to Ventura, and then left to Fair Oaks. There, we went into the Mountain View Cemetery. The directions I had gotten were not right, so Vikki ended up walking into the office to get a map. You know how it is. The woman always has to ask for directions. But they were very helpful. She got detailed instructions and a map, and we were able to find Richter’s grave very easily.

By this time, it was time to get back to the office. So we took the most direct way back, on Woodbury to Lake and then down Catalina and Wilson back to Caltech.

It was a fun ride.

And on the way home, I saw a house with some very large flowerpots in the front yard. The sign said that they were theatrical props and that they were trying to sell them. I don’t know if they will get any takers, but it was still a wonderfully weird sight.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.

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Route map and photo locations

Today was a cool and overcast morning, which is a very nice change from the withering heat we’ve been having lately. The ride was Gene’s “Atonement Ride”, which he’s been talking about since spring. It has some big and steep hills, so it wasn’t really an appropriate ride for a hot day. So today was the day. I asked him what we were atoning for, but he said it was nothing in particular.

We started out heading west across Pasadena, skirting the Rose Bowl and then heading up past JPL in to La Cañada. Then we took a right and headed up the hill. There were several steep stretches with short flats in between. Just enough to recover a bit before the next climb. By the time we got to the top, we were up high enough on the mountain that we were inside the low clouds. We came out by the golf course on Angeles Crest and then headed down.

About halfway down the mountain, we turned off and did some more climbing. At the top, I noticed that James was making a puddle of sweat every time we stopped, so I had to take a picture. Then we headed down a very steep hill, which was kind of scary, since the road was wet.

At one of the wet turns, there was a little patch of mud, and Jon slipped and fell. Fortunately, we were going pretty slowly at the time, so he just got a little elbow scrape. After a little cleanup, we continued on, crossing into La Crescenta and then down Ocean View into Montrose.

We took a left in downtown Montrose and headed up Hospital Hill. Then we went right on Descanso and went down the hill for a bit before turning up Hampstead and up the hill again. At the top, we crossed over Chevy Chase and rode into Glendale, going up and over the hill to come out at Lida. It was here that I noticed that my bike computer had crapped out. It said I was going 0 down the hill, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t right.

Going down the hill on Lida we came out on Linda Vista by the Rose Bowl and headed south to get to Glenoaks. Then it was time to climb the hill again. That was where I saw the little squashed lizard on the road. Then it was up and over, coming down on the other side just above Eagle Rock. A left on Colorado brought us back into Pasadena.

Our snack stop was at the Corner Bakery on Lake. We all were pretty tired by that point, even though the ride wasn’t actually all that long. Still, it was nice to stop.

The last part of the ride was straight back to the park. Vikki and I took off at that point and did one of our lunchtime routes out to Arcadia. We went up Highland Oaks and back across Sierra Madre on Grand View. After that, I said ‘uncle’ and decided I’d had enough.

It was a fun ride. And I made it up all the hills in my 39×17.

About 49 miles.
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Addendum: Newton has the ride profile up on his blog.

Today’s ride was the Lida Loop again. I rather like that route for a mid-day ride. It was another hot and humid day today. Yick.

On the way up the hill on Lida, I saw the discarded packaging for a “Flexidong”. I guess someone was in a hurry to get it out of the package. This was sort of reminiscent of my days riding in the Hollywood Hills, when I used to find lots of women’s clothing scattered along the road on Sunday mornings.

Coming down the other side of the hill, I rode past JPL and back into Pasadena. I saw Shannon outside her house, sweeping the sidewalk. So I stopped and we chatted for a bit.

Continuing on, I took a side trip to Mountain View Cemetery again, this time to look for Charles Richter’s grave. But all I had was the area and not a curb number, so I couldn’t find him. I’ve asked some people at the Seismo Lab, but nobody knows exactly where he is.

The last part of the ride was down Holliston and back to the office. That two miles downhill is always nice on a hot day.

On the way home from work, I saw some more filming going on. They had the street blocked off, but they said it was all right to ride through, so I didn’t have to detour.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
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Route map and photo locations

Today I met Gene for a ride out to Encino to the velodrome. I had heard that they were going to be doing 1/10-scale radio-controlled model car racing there. I thought that this would be something interesting and different to see.

On the way out, we stopped off at the tiny house we’d seen back in April. We wanted to see if it had sold, and indeed it had. It had a new coat of paint and an owner out tending the garden. We chatted with her a bit and we were glad to see that the tiny house had found some love.

When we got to the velodrome, some of the racers were doing practice laps. The cars were going quite fast. Oddly enough, there was a rather attractive young woman with a camera crew there. Given that radio-controlled race cars are kind of a geeky hobby, her presence seemed a bit odd. So we asked them about it. They were from The Outdoor Channel, which has a show called Inside R/C. So they asked if we wanted to be in the sign-off for the show. We stood on either side of the host, Anna Curtis, while she recited her spiel. She finished with, “and now it’s time for us to go, because these guys want their track back”, while we just smiled stupidly. It was fun. They said that the show would probably air in the fall, so if anyone has cable and can get me a screen-capture, that would be great.

We left the velodrome and headed back across the park. We stopped to refill our water bottles at the water fountain right below the sign warning that ‘lewd conduct’ would be prosecuted. I’m not sure I want to know what goes on in that park after the soccer games are over.

We took Burbank Blvd to Van Nuys and then went down to Chandler, which is a nice, tree-lined street. The shade was a good thing, because I got a flat there. So we stopped in the shade of a big tree and I fixed the tire. The eastern part of Chandler is where the Orange Line busway is, and we got a look at the big articulated bus. It was very quiet, which is maybe why when it first opened it broadsided lots of cars on the cross streets.

On Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake we saw the Barris Custom shop. He is perhaps best known for building the 1966 Batmobile, but his shop makes a lot of weird vehicles for the movies.

In Glendale we stopped at a Carl’s Jr. and got some cold drinks. I filled my water bottle up with ice and water and then drank the whole thing twice. We sat in the air conditioning for a little while before braving the heat again.

In Eagle Rock I hit the proverbial wall. There was no shade and it was well over 100 degrees. I just started riding slower and slower. On the Colorado hill I actually shifted down to my lowest gear and just crawled up the hill. Fortunately, after that there were no more hills. But we had to stop at Memorial Park in Pasadena so I could lie down in the shade and pour water on my head. I think I had heat exhaustion. It was so bad that for the rest of the ride home, I put my foot down at every light, rather than doing my usual track stand. And at the end, Gene rode with me all the way to my street just to be sure that I wasn’t going to keel over.

When I got home, the thermometer on the back porch said 110 degrees. That’s about 44C for non-USAnians. I drank my water bottle four times on the ride, which is over 3 liters of water, but I was still 7 pounds (3.2kg) lighter when I got home. Yikes.

59 miles, one flat tire, and heat exhaustion.
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Today’s ride was a solo effort. I’d forgotten that Vikki was going on vacation, or “on holiday”, as she says in her Canadian parlance. But it was a nice day, so I went anyway.

Leaving campus, I saw a car with a couple of “Wizard of Oz” murals painted on it. “Don’t make me get my flying monkeys!” Then I rode through Old Town and past the Rose Bowl to the hill on Lida.

On the way up Lida, I saw a makeshift memorial on the side of the road for “Blue Boy”, which I gathered was someone’s bike, destroyed in a collision with a car. I guess that means that his owner wasn’t too seriously hurt, which is a good thing.

At the top of the hill, I saw another “Lost Pet” sign. This time it was for a desert tortise. Last week it was a lost snake. There are people who think that lost dogs and cats can predict earthquakes. So what could a rash of lost pet reptiles foretell? Global warming?

Heading down the hill, I made the loop back into Pasadena. I took Ventura across to Fair Oaks and then took a small side trip to Mountain View Cemetery. I’d read recently that this cemetery is used a lot for filming, and apparently today was no exception. There were two separate productions going on there. I rode past both of them to find the grave of Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Caltech. When I was a physics major in college, Feynman was a legend. Reading his book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman was entertaining, inspirational, and it also taught me how to pick locks. Truly a lasting legacy.

Leaving the cemetery, I rode the rest of the way across Pasadena and then down the long hill back to the office. When I got there, I took a Myspace-style portrait in the reflective glass of the back door.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
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Today’s bike ride was a route that Gene selected because it goes on a lot of tree-lined streets. The idea was that the route would have lots of shade. It was already hot at 8:00 in the morning, so we were glad for the choice.

We rode across Pasadena and up into La Cañada. Then we went down Hospital Hill in to Glendale. That was where I saw the “Lots of Pets” car. My first thought was to wonder if they had gotten permission from Mattel for the logo, which was a takeoff on “Hot Wheels”, but the Supreme Court decided that parody is a protected form of free speech, so maybe it’s not a problem.

At the bottom of the hill, we turned and took Mountain and Kenneth across Glendale. We stopped at Paradise Bakery. I had my usual two chocolate eclairs and a quart of water.

After the stop, we headed into Griffith Park and rode through the park down to Fletcher, where we turned and started back home. Some guy without a helmet joined up with us for a bit on Riverside before we turned off. Then we headed back through Atwater Village to Eagle Rock.

We rode across Eagle Rock and into South Pasadena. Then we went north into San Marino and back into Pasadena. And then, POW!!! Doug’s back tire blew out. I immediately whipped out my camera and took a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. Since he was almost home, he said we should just go on. So I rode out to Arcadia with Newton and then came home by way of Sierra Madre.

50 miles.
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Today at lunchtime I went riding again with Vikki. She’s training for Ironman Canada in August, and she ran something like 14 miles in the morning, so today’s ride was a little slower than usual. But it was still a fun time.

We did the same Lida Loop we’ve done several times before. This time we saw some filming going on in Old Town. Then we rode past the Rose Bowl and up the hill into Glendale. Then we rode down into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena.

We usually go down Holliston to get back to the office, but today Vikki suggested a side trip. She had been reading American Bungalow in the dentist’s waiting room, and they had an article about Reinway Court, which is off Los Robles in Pasadena. So we went to see it.

It’s a little bungalow complex. Many little houses that look like they are from the 1920s or so, all on a fairly large lot. Apparently, the family that owns it has had it for many years, and they are restoring all of the units, and they are going to be for rent. It was interesting to see.

The last part of the ride was down Green St and back to the office. It was a nice ride. On the way home after work, I saw a sign pleading for the return of a lost pet snake. And then I saw that a house down the street from mine is for sale again. This is the house where they filmed a scene for the new “Nancy Drew” movie. It sold a few years ago for something like $600,000. But the real estate market here in L.A. has slowed down a lot since then. My guess is they won’t be able to get that for it today. But we will see.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a sightseeing trip to see two castles in the Hollywood Hills.

We started out on Paloma, and we hadn’t gone more than a few blocks when Michael had to stop. His pedal was coming off. I had a look at it, and it appeared that the last mechanic who worked on it had cross-threaded it. The crank threads were stripped out, and it was a total loss. So he pulled out his phone to call home for help, while the rest of us continued on.

The church in Eagle Rock didn’t have a witty sign up today. Just a hand-lettered paper saying that the sign was being rebuilt. Maybe they need to use the Church Sign Generator.

When we started up the little hill on St. George, Matt and Newton blasted by me. I got out of the saddle to chase them and PANG!!! It was a tremendous spoke-breaking noise. But when I looked down, my wheel wasn’t wobbling too badly. So I rode up the hill and we found a shady spot to stop and have a look. I’d broken two spokes, right next to each other. So that explained why the wheel was still mostly straight, but just hopping a little. There really was nothing to do but go on.

We turned off Franklin and headed up the hill. The streets up there are narrow and rough. But they are also very quiet. We rode up Hollyridge to the first castle. On the way up, we passed another house with a castle-like stone wall in front. But it wasn’t the real castle. When we reached the real castle, it was quite obvious.

From there, we rode down into the canyon below the Hollywood sign. Then we rode up the other side, coming out at the top of the ridge by Wolf’s Lair Castle. I took a couple of pictures there before we saw Gene walking up the street, holding his broken chain like a dead snake. We were all astounded by this, since we’d had a very bad run of mechanical problems today. Doug mentioned that someone he knows always says that when Mercury is in retrograde, it’s bad for mechanical things. Not that any of us believes in astrology, but that’s about as good an explanation as any for what happened.

Someone had a chain tool, and Gene had a quick-fix link, so they pieced it back together. While they were doing that, a very attractive young woman on a bike stopped to chat for a few minutes. She said that she lives close by there in the hills. Sadly, that probably means she won’t ever come out to Pasadena to ride with us.

When the chain was fixed, we started out again, heading toward the Hollywood sign. When we got to the junction at Mulholland, we’d lost most of the group. I rode part way back and didn’t find them. So I pulled out my phone and called Newton. He said that Gene’s chain had broken again and that they were still back at Wolf’s Lair. So they ended up having to take several links out of the chain to get it to go back together.

While we were waiting for them, Doug and I rode the short distance up Mulholland to get a close-up view of the Hollywood Sign. Then when we were re-grouped, we headed down the hill to Lake Hollywood. From there, we rode up one more steep hill and then down to Barham for the long downhill into Burbank. When we got there, we stopped at Priscilla’s for snacks.

On the way down the last hill, I had noticed that my handlebar tape was unraveling. I had lost my handlebar plug, so the tape was coming undone and flapping in the wind. Is there no end to the torment? I ended up stuffing it with a paper napkin for the ride home.

After the stop, we headed back home by the most direct route possible. Being on gimpy bikes tends not to encourage taking the Long Way Home. Fortunately, we managed to make it back to Pasadena without further incident.

43 miles, one stripped pedal, two broken spokes, one broken chain, and unraveling handlebar tape.
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Today’s ride was an easy, flat one. We rode east through Arcadia and Temple City, and then north to Sierra Madre.

The only picture I took was of a half-finished topiary rocking horse on Grand View in Sierra Madre.

From there, we came back into Pasadena on Sierra Madre Blvd, and then back to the office. It was a bit cooler today than it’s been lately. Still hot, but not like the last week.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
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