Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Since I promised Lucinda I’d take her to the JPL Open House tomorrow, I can’t do the regular Sunday ride. So I went for a ride today.

I decided to do La Tuna Canyon with a little side trip from Sue Hough’s book Finding Fault in California.

I started out going across Altadena on Woodbury Road. Then that turned into Oak Grove. That section of Oak Grove is part of the old Foothill Freeway that was built back in the early ’50s. When the present freeway was built, it was demoted to a regular street.

For the last few months, I’ve been hearing geese flying over our house. Southern California is a desert, and there is usually no water for waterfowl to enjoy. But there is apparently a nice big lake backed up behind Devil’s Gate Dam now. So I think this probably accounts for the recent presence of waterfowl.

From there, I went up the hill, through La Cañada, and then down Hospital Hill into Montrose. Then I took Verdugo down into Glendale.

I took Glenoaks across Glendale and into Burbank. There, I saw a sign in front of Bubank High School. Their prom is tonight, and it’s being held at the Skirball Museum. I think that sounds like a great place for a prom. If my high school had had its prom at a place like that, I might have even gone.

The north part of Burbank is a bit more industrial. It’s under the flight path for Burbank Airport. But I like watching airplanes, so it was all right.

Continuing on up Glenoaks, I crossed the border from Burbank into Sun Valley. At this point, the area started to look distinctly more downscale. It became an industrial area with lots of auto wrecking yards and used car lots with big signs promising “CREDITO FACIL”. The low point was probably passing the landfill. They had a big pipe stuck in the ground with gas flaring off of it. It was giving off a very strange smell. Not really the smell of putrefaction, but not a pleasant odor by any means.

Finally, I got up to San Fernando and the McDonald’s at 1955 Glenoaks. There is a small fault scarp caused by surface rupture in the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake. They just landscaped the scarp and made it look pretty.

Next, I headed back down Glenoaks, back the way I came. San Fernando really had the feeling of having taken a wrong turn and ended up in Mexico. There were lots of street vendors with carts selling pieces of fruit and grilled corn and such. That was also where I saw one of the “Los Angeles, CAMexico” billboards that people have been getting all riled up about. It was kind of strange. But that’s part of what I love about L.A. I can be a world traveler without going far from home.

At one point in Sun Valley, I happened on a street lunatic. He was standing on a corner yelling at nobody in particular. The light was red, so I pulled up and stopped. He looked at me and said, “Hello, sir” in a very pleasant voice. I smiled and said hello back. Then he turned back to facing nobody in particular and started screaming, “L.A. LAW!!! I’M A LAWYER!!!” Then the light turned green and I left. Have I mentioned lately that I love living in L.A.?

Also, I happened to notice KAOS Auto Parts. I had to stop for a picture, even though Siegfried wasn’t there. Agent 13 was probably hidden in the mailbox in front of the building.

After all this fun and frolic, it was time for the trip over La Tuna Canyon. This is a nice four-mile uphill ride through a part of Los Angeles that feels more like rural Nevada. Near the top, I passed a few other bike riders. I said something like, “Ain’t we got fun?” and they just laughed. It was also about here that I ran out of water. It was hot, so this was a problem.

Cresting the hill in La Tuna Canyon, I went down Honolulu Ave into La Crescenta. That was where I saw a sign for “Lauren’s Party” at a park entrance. I thought, “if they are having a kid’s party in this park, they must have a drinking fountain.” So I stopped and refilled my water bottle. Now all was right again for the rest of the trip home.

I went back up Hospital Hill and down past Descanso Gardens and back into Pasadena. It was a very nice ride.

53 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike ride was Gene’s ‘Horizontal Bomp’ ride. Mostly flat, with just a few little hills.

We started out east through Arcadia and into Monrovia. Then we turned south and went down to Temple City. From there, we went west back across San Gabriel and San Marino and then up Los Robles back into Pasadena.

We stopped for a snack at Il Fornaio in Old Town. I had a mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich, which is my favorite thing there. While I was eating my sandwich and Steve was drinking his coffee, everyone else was working on Spencer’s bike. He just got a new bike, and he wanted to raise the handlebars up a bit. So of course, everyone had to get in the act.

After that, we went west a bit more, down into the arroyo. We passed Idealab. I’m always a bit surprised to see that it’s still there. We crossed under the famous Colorado Street Bridge and down past the Rose Bowl. They were having the swap meet there today, and there was a sign pointing the way to the valet parking. Now maybe it’s just me, but ‘swap meet’ and ‘valet parking’ are two phrases that, unlike a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, just don’t go together.

Anyway, from there, we went up the hill out of the arroyo, up to Windsor Road. There, we passed the house with the plastic cows in the yard. Then we continued on up the hill all the way to Loma Alta. We took Loma Alta up to the top of the hill on Lake Ave, and then we took some of the side streets across Altadena. We passed a classic example of a debris basin at the mouth of Rubio Canyon. We also had a look at the big landslide on the Mt. Wilson toll road. It appears that people have made a little foot trail across it now, but aside from that, there hasn’t been any substantial work done on clearing it yet.

We then headed down the hill on Altadena Drive back to the park. It was still pretty early, so I noodled around Pasadena a bit just to get in a few more miles. That was where I passed the corner of Summit and Mountain. Then I finished up by taking Mountain back across town.

50 miles.
cycling

Gene said that today’s ride would be hilly. And it was. It was fun.

Back in my racing days, when I was out riding it was always a point of honor that I had to be the first one to the top of every hill. And no matter how much it hurt, I almost always did it. That urge has never left me, even though now that I’m 45, I don’t always have the strength to do it. But I still want to.

Today’s ride started out up Altadena Drive. We went up the hill to the mountain front, and then west over to the arroyo, just across from JPL. Then we went down Windsor, passing the house with the two plastic cows in the yard. We took Woodbury across into La Cañada. Then we started climbing. It was about this time that Jon got into the Flat Tire Gallery. This was his second flat of the day, but since the first one was in the parking lot at the start of the ride, I only took pictures of the second one. While we were waiting for John to fix his flat, we met up with another rider. Dan is new to the area, so he decided to join us for the rest of the ride.

A bit farther up the hill, we passed a house that looked like it must belong to a firefighter. The gate was decorated in a very ornate flame motif, and it had a fire extinguisher in the middle of it.

We went up a bunch of different streets to end up at the top of the hill between La Cañada and Glendale. The road up there was closed to traffic, due to a small landslide, but that wasn’t a problem for us. We crested the hill and then went down Mountain Ave into Glendale. At the bottom, we crossed Verdugo and then went up into the Verdugo hills.

We cruised along through the hills for quite a while. We passed one rather interesting-looking house up there before coming down into Burbank and Glenoaks Blvd. Then we went left and headed back into Glendale, where we stopped for a snack at the Paradise Bakery. They have the best chocolate eclairs there. Jon and I both had two each. We also all ate some homemade olive bread that I’d brought along.

After the stop, we headed back across Glendale. We passed by the Harp Center, and then headed up Chevy Chase. After a bit of uphill, we turned on Linda Vista to cross over the hill into Pasadena. At the top, we paused briefly for a souvenier picture, and then headed down the hill to the Rose Bowl.

From the Rose Bowl, we went east across Pasadena on Orange Grove and back to the park.

45 miles.

cycling

It was April 23, 1978. It was the Acton Road Race. I was excited, because they had separate races for categories 1 and 2. Usually in those days, 1 and 2 were combined, and if you were a Cat 2 like me, it meant that it was harder to place in the top ten. So the prospect of a separate Category 2 race was very nice. On the other hand, it was in the mountains, and there were some climbs on the course. I was generally pretty good at hills, but being from New Jersey, I wasn’t used to the size of the hills here.

The course was a nice 24-mile loop through the hills north of the Antelope Valley Freeway, about half-way from Los Angeles to Palmdale. The race was three laps, or 72 miles.

The course was very nice. The roads were smooth, and it was a perfect spring day. The pack was about 50-60 riders. I was hoping just to stay in the pack and finish with the group, since I’d had some bad experiences in the last two road races in the mountains.

The pack stayed together for the whole race. On the last lap, when we were going up the last big climb, I lost contact with the pack. I was feeling discouraged, and I was having trouble going up the hill. But then, about half-way up the hill, I suddenly started thinking:

“I am not going to let this happen again. I got dropped at Pyramid Lake. I got dropped at Bouquet Canyon. I am not getting dropped again!”

And suddenly, I was suffused with the strength of ten Grinches. I caught up with the pack at the crest of the hill. At that point, I was going so fast, that I ended up at the front. We crested the hill and went flying down the other side. We crossed the freeway and took the right turn that meant we were almost at the finish. I was so excited that I’d caught the pack that I was able to stay at the front all the way to the end. The finish was an uphill sprint, and I managed to reach the proper mental state of Zen Hulk-dom to do the sprint.

I came in 8th, which was pretty good, considering that I recovered from getting dropped. In fact, that was the only race I ever rode where I was able to catch the pack after being dropped. So overall, it was a remarkable and perfect day.

And sadly, as with most of my favorite racing stories, I have no pictures to go along with it. Just my own memories.

Last Monday, I saw an item on cnn.com about a street in Pico Rivera named Dork St. Of course, my first thought was to look it up on the map and see if it was close enough to ride to. It turns out to be just below Whittier Narrows Dam, so I wrote to Gene and we made plans for a ride.

We met at Victory Park here in Pasadena and headed south. We went through San Gabriel, passing by the convalescent hospital where Curly Howard died. Then we turned south through Whittier Narrows and into Pico Rivera.

When we got to Dork St., I had to take some pictures. Sadly, my photo-op with the sign didn’t come out very well, so I guess we’ll have to go back again some time.

After that, we got on the San Gabriel River bike path and headed north. The path took a kind of strange route around and over the dam, but the rest of it was pretty much straight and slightly uphill. It was along here that Newton met up with us for the ride into Glendora. We also passed the big Irwindale gravel pit, which was also Fred Flintstone’s gravel pit.

Then we headed east and north into Glendora. In Old Town, we saw a store that apparently specializes in Beanie Babies. And I’d thought that Beanie Babies had peaked some years ago.

Next, it was time to see the Castle. Rubel’s Castle is something of a landmark in Glendora. Sadly, like all good castles, it was surrounded by a high wall, so we couldn’t see much. Still, it was interesting.

From there, we headed back by way of the San Gabriel River bike path, and then through Duarte, Monrovia, and Arcadia.

51 miles.

cycling

“Looks like another perfect day
I love L.A.”

Today was a perfect L.A. spring day. On the warm side, sunny, and just very pleasant. Today’s ride was the Foothill Cycle Club ride out to the Getty Center in West L.A. Gene said that the ride would be about 50 miles.

We started out going straight across Eagle Rock and Glendale, where we saw a just-happened car accident. Of course, I took a picture.

Next, we went through the L.A. Equestrian Center, where they have separate horse and bike lanes in the street. We also passed the Bette Davis Picnic Area. We’d heard of Bette Davis Eyes, but not a picnic area. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

When we got to Burbank, we passed Warner Bros and headed up the hill. We got onto the beginning of Mulholland Drive and then went up a nice big hill. We stopped to regroup at the scenic overlook above the Hollywood Bowl. There was a tour bus stopped there, so I took a picture of it. The people on the bus were all taking pictures of the HOLLYWOOD sign and the Bowl, so I figured I’d be a reverse-tourist and take a picture of the tour bus.

From there, we continued on up Mulholland. We rode almost the entire length of the Hollywood Hills portion of the road. I stopped at the little park just past Laurel Canyon to refill my water bottle and take in the view of the Valley smog. When we were nearly to the 405 freeway, we turned left on Roscomare and headed down into Bel Air. That was where we saw a rather odd vehicle with the “TV SUCKS” license plate. We continued on down the hill until we got to the bottom, just below the Getty.

It was at this point that I decided that it was getting too late, and I needed to head for home. So I left the group and headed back up the hill on Sepulveda. That was where I joined the Flat Tire Gallery. Since I was alone, I thought I might not be able to get a picture, but then another rider stopped to see if I needed any help fixing the tire. I told him I had it covered, but he helped me by taking the picture. Of course, after he left, I realized that both tubes of glue in my patch kit were dry. So I couldn’t patch the tube, so I had to put in the spare tube. Then I was back on the road.

At the top of the hill, I had to go through the tunnel, and then down into the Valley. I went down into Sherman Oaks, almost as far as the Galleria, as seen in “Valley Girl”. Then it was east on Valley Vista and Moorpark for the ride back across the Valley. It was around this time that I ran out of water, and I started thinking, “I’d really like to be home now”. It was also about this time that there was a magnitude 5.1 earthquake near Bakersfield. This set off my pager, and soon my phone rang, too. There was a problem with the aftershock probability report getting on the web site. So there I was, riding and talking computers at the same time. I can’t even remember how we got anything done before cell phones.

I went back through the Equestrian Center on the way out, pausing briefly to snap a picture of the Bette Davis Picnic Area. Then it was straight across Glendale and Eagle Rock to home.

66 miles.

cycling

Since I can’t go riding on Sunday, I met Newton today and we went out to Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas. It was a perfect spring day, aside from being a little bit windy.

We started at Live Oak Park in Temple City and rode up to Irwindale and the Santa Fe Dam bike path. That was where Newton got the chance to be the latest entry in the Flat Tire Gallery. His tire was one of the ones that has some goop inside it that is supposed to seal punctures, but instead, the goop just sprayed out of the tire and got all over him. Yick. And that’s why I’ve always been skeptical of that goop.

After putting on a new tire, we continued east through Glendora. We took Sierra Madre Blvd until it ended, then we went south a bit and continued east on the old Route 66. In San Dimas, we went south, passing by several stables. Then we continued on into La Verne, where we passed Brackett Field and the drag strip at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.

From the Fairplex, we went west up the hill through Picnic Valley. Back in 1978 when I used to ride with the Claremont Colleges cycling team, we used to ride around there. We always called it the “Picnic Valley ride”, although I never knew why. It was only today that I saw the “Picnic Valley” sign, so yet another of the Mysteries of the Ages has been resolved.

We rode up Via Verde, over a fairly large hill, coming down the other side into Covina. We were going to stop at a little cafe there, but it was closed. But that was where I saw the Proposition 65-ish warning sign about the building being unreinforced masonry that is unsafe in an earthquake.

After that, we got back into Azusa, passing the old Drive-in there. It was just after that that we were cut off by a guy in a car who wasn’t paying attention. He cut in front of Newton and immediately turned into a parking lot. So I took out my camera and took his picture. Now, what he did was most likely an honest mistake. He wasn’t paying attention, but if he’d owned up to that, it would have been fine. But no. He got belligerent and started yelling and cursing at us. So we just left. But then he caught up to us a few miles down the road and started harassing us. This was truly the tipping point between an honest mistake and Active Stupidity. He got out of his car and tried to challenge us to a fight. But we just ignored him, and he finally went away.

The last part of the ride was through Monrovia, where I got into one more fight with a car. A couple in a car pulled up next to me at a stop sign and started turning right across me. So I yelled at them. And they started yelling back. Now I realize that there are lots of bike riders who don’t follow the rules of the road, but I’m not one of them. But while I was presenting what I think is a valid complaint – you don’t turn right through another vehicle – they just kept yelling at me about how bike riders don’t stop for stop signs. So whatever.

Anyway, when it was all said and done, it was actually a pretty pleasant ride.

57 miles.
cycling

For the record, the CVC sections that they violated are:

21750. The driver of a vehicle overtaking another vehicle or a bicycle proceeding in the same direction shall pass to the left at a safe distance without interfering with the safe operation of the overtaken vehicle or bicycle.

22107. No person shall turn a vehicle from a direct course or move right or left upon a roadway until such movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after the giving of an appropriate signal in the manner provided in this chapter in the event any other vehicle may be affected by the movement.

22108. Any signal of intention to turn right or left shall be given continuously during the last 100 feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.

22109. No person shall stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a vehicle on a highway without first giving an appropriate signal to the driver of any vehicle immediately to the rear when there is opportunity to give the signal.

Today’s ride was a pleasant ramble with no mountain climbing or anything extreme.

We started out going east through Sierra Madre, Arcadia, and Monrovia. We took the rolling-hills route, since it has less traffic. We ened up going through Duarte to the San Gabriel River and Santa Fe Dam area. It was a perfect warm spring day, but we could see the snow up on Mt. Baldy off the distance.

We went south on the San Gabriel River bike path down to South El Monte, and then headed back west through Temple City. We passed the old Driftwood Dairy there. It’s a bit of a throwback to an earlier era here.

After passing Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, we took Huntington Drive through San Marino. From there, we went north, climbing the scarp of the Raymond Fault to get back into Pasadena. We stopped for a snack at Corner Bakery on South Lake Avenue.

Next, we headed east, across the Caltech campus. We stopped at one of the pools there to look at the egret. Then we continued on, back across Pasadena.

When we got back to the park, we only had about 37 miles, so Kevin and I continued on up Altadena Drive. We went and looked at the massive landslide that has buried the old Mt. Wilson toll road. It was pretty impressive. Then we continued on across Altadena to the top of Lake Ave and Alta Loma. Just below Rubio Canyon, we saw the historical marker for the old right-of-way from the Mt. Lowe Railway.

At the top of the hill, we continued on Alta Loma to Lincoln Ave, and then down to Mendocino. We took Mendocino back across Altadena, and then back to the park.

It was a very pleasant spring ride.

50 miles.

cycling

Who knew? The Boulevard of Broken Dreams is also a place to go bike riding. Since tomorrow is Easter, I can’t go on the regular Sunday ride. So I convinced Gene, Newton, and Matt to go on a ride today in the Hollywood Hills.

We started out on the standard route out of Pasadena and across Eagle Rock, and then into Los Feliz. After crossing the Shakespeare Bridge, we went south and got onto Hollywood Blvd. On the east end, it’s Little Armenia for a bit, and then it becomes Thai Town. That was where we saw the Thai food place with a big hot dog on the roof. We also passed the infamous Jumbo’s Clown Room. Legend has it that several now-famous women did turns stripping there.

After Thai Town faded away, we were on the part of Hollywood Blvd that every tourist sees. The Walk of Fame. We just passed most of it by, but we did make a point to stop and see the star for Godzilla, since he is one of only a few completely fictitious characters who have stars there.

Most tourists think that Hollywood Blvd ends at La Brea Ave. The locals know that it goes on to Laurel Canyon, but I know that it goes even farther than that. On the other side of Laurel Canyon, there is a little street that goes up the hill. That is the continuation of Hollywood Blvd. It’s a little residential street in the hills, the kind that looks like a noodle on the map.

We rode up the hill, stopping to look at one house with a weird chimney. We only took one wrong turn on the way up, which was surprising, since a lot of the intersections up there are not well-marked. A lot of times, it’s hard to tell which way is the continuation of the street and which is the cross street. We continued on until the Boulevard of Broken Dreams merged into Sunset Plaza on top of the hill. From there, we went down the other side on Lookout Mountain Road, down into Laurel Canyon.

At the bottom of the hill we did a quick left and right on Laurel Canyon Blvd, passing by Houdini’s old house, and then up Willow Glen. This is a very narrow and steep street that climbs up the side of Laurel Canyon to the Mt Olympus area. I always remember reading about Mt Olympus in the October 1969 issue of National Geographic. The article was about the floods and mudslides that year in Los Angeles, and it had a photo of Mt. Olympus, which was a new development at the time. Part of the caption read:

To protect Mount Olympus in Hollywood, right, developers graded slopes and moated lots with storm drains. Sites near the summit sell for as much as $85,000.

Needless to say, $85,000 sounded like a staggering sum back in 1969, but it seems ludicrously cheap by today’s standards.

After passing the faux-greek temples on Mt Olympus, we went down into Nichols Canyon. Turning left on Nichols Canyon Road, we then climbed up out of the canyon to the top of the ridge at Mulholland Drive. Crossing Mulholland, we took Woodrow Wilson down to the freeway.

Crossing the freeway, we were back in the city, but we took one more detour, going up Wonder View to Lake Hollywood. This was one more climb, but it was worth it to avoid the traffic in Cahenga Pass.

After all that excitement, we headed home across Burbank, Glendale and Eagle Rock. For some reason, I was pretty tired from all that climbing, so I was actually quite glad to be taking the relatively non-hilly way home.

52 miles.

cycling

Just a postscript to the story about Fargo Street from yesterday. I guess I really did give it maximum effort, because I’m sore today. My legs, arms, and back are all sore from the exertion. I really can’t remember another time when I got sore arms from a bike ride. So it’s just one more reason why Fargo Street is something special. And of course, why I’ll have to try it again in the future.