Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I had the day off today for Columbus Day, so after Lucinda got out of school, we all went to the dog park with Ripley and Suzie Q. It was a nice day for it. The dogs played a bit, and we just stayed in the shade. I took some pictures for a new dog photo album.

The dog park in our neighborhood is still new, and they are still getting the grass established. So they had signs warning that the sprinklers go on at 3:00 PM. The light was just right, so we saw a nice rainbow in the spray. And yes, there really is a trash can at the end of the rainbow.

It’s fall now. The mornings are getting cooler, and today we saw the first pumpkin stand setting up for business. Today’s ride was through La Tuna Canyon to Sun Valley, and then back by way of Paradise Bakery in Glendale.

We rode up through La Cañada and La Crescenta to get to La Tuna Canyon. Then we did the short climb to the top, followed by the fast four-mile downhill into Sun Valley. Along the way, I had one sightseeing stop. I just finished reading Sue Hough’s biography of Charles Richter. Part of the story involved Charles and Lillian’s involvement in nudism, and made mention that they belonged to a club called Fraternity Elysia, which was at 9804 La Tuna Canyon Road. When I got there, there was just a small side street and some new houses, so I guess the land was sold and subdivided. Another piece of Southern California history plowed under.

At the stop, I got a bottle of orange juice and one chocolate eclair. We were going home over Hospital Hill, so I didn’t want to eat too much.

The ride back was very nice. It warmed up very nicely, and we had a pleasant time. The only mishap was when Don got a flat right at the end of the ride. Of course I had to take a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery.

50 miles.
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This afternoon, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to see the last day’s races at the Elite National Championships at the ADT Center velodrome. We went this last year, and we liked it enough to go back this time, even though nobody we know was racing this time.

We got there just as they were starting. For some reason, we had to go through metal detectors at the door. I’m not sure what they were trying to prevent there.

The events we saw were the team sprint, keirin, team pursuit, and the Madison. They were all fun to watch, although the Madison is the best of the bunch. It has lots of action, and it lasts long enough that you won’t miss the whole thing if you go to the bathroom.

There were a few crashes in the Madison, including one that made a little gouge in the wood surface of the track. They ‘repaired’ this by putting some tape over it.

I also found it amusing that there were at least two riders competing there whose fathers were champions back in the ’70s when I raced.

The final event was an exhibition race. They have a track racing program for kids, and they had a short kids race at the end of the day. Lucinda wanted to try track racing, but when she tried getting on the bike they had there, it was just a bit too big for her. So she needs to grow about another inch or two before she can do it.

We got to see some good racing, and I got to tell a bunch of old ‘war stories’. Overall, it was a fun afternoon.

Today’s club ride was out to Glendale to stop at Paradise Bakery. They have the best chocolate eclairs I’ve ever had. The ride over was kind of a roundabout route, but that was nice, since it’s not really all that far away. We rode up into La CaÖada and then over the hill on Chevy Chase into Glendale. Then up and over another hill on Glenoaks before settling down for the straight stretch out to Paradise.

We had some nice pastries at the bakery. And then it was time for the ride back. This was the purgatory part. The route back went up and over Mountain Ave in Glendale. This is not a huge hill. It’s not the steepest hill. But it’s just steep enough and long enough that it’s really an experience to ride it. And it’s one of those hills that just keeps on giving. Just when it looks like the top, around the next bend there’s some more. I like it.

Overall, it was a fun ride, even though I had to cut it a bit short to get home by noon so Lucinda and I can go to see the bike races at the velodrome in Carson.

40 miles.
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Yet another little adventure from the obituary page of the Los Angeles Times.

Randy Van Horne, whose Randy Van Horne Singers performed the theme songs for “The Flintstones,” “The Jetsons,” “The Huckleberry Hound Show” and several other popular television cartoons of the 1960s, has died. He was 83.

He was yet another icon of my youth who I never really knew existed. I watched “The Flintstones” when I was a kid. When I was 16 and started bike racing, I used to ride with a guy who told me that he still liked watching “The Flintstones”. He said, “you should watch it again, it’s really funny, and we didn’t get most of the jokes when we were kids”. And he was right.

On some level, I knew that a group of people had to have sung the theme song, but nobody ever said who they were. So it’s kind of nice to be able to put a face and a story behind it.

Route map

Today’s ride was the “Newton’s Nemesis” route. This is the one that travels from Pasadena to Duarte, going up each steep canyon hill along the way. It’s got something like 3,200 feet of climbing. We’ve done this ride before. And it never fails to please. Or to hurt, for that matter.

We headed out from Victory Park and rode up the first canyon in Sierra Madre. Then we went down the hill all the way to Foothill, and then back up Santa Anita to get to the canyon in Arcadia. This is the steepest hill on the route, and it’s the only one where I had to say ‘uncle’ and shift. We were pretty high up. When I got to the top, I saw a house for sale with a sign promising “View! View! View!” And yes, there was a view.

Gene and Karen had skipped the Arcadia canyon hill, and when we came down, we found them fixing a flat on Karen’s bike. So I took the requisite picture for the Flat Tire Gallery.

When we got to Monrovia, we rode up a couple more steep canyons. We saw some deer munching on someone’s front-yard garden. Then we came back down and started the flat portion of the ride.

We rode out to Duarte and then got on the San Gabriel River bike path and rode down to Santa Fe Dam. Randy and Newton took off and decided that they wanted to go fast. So I just got behind them and drafted all the way around the top of the Dam. I told them I wasn’t going to pull, but I just stayed on their wheels and enjoyed a nice fast ride.

Our snack stop was at Planet Cookies in Monrovia. They had run out of orange juice, so I got an enormous piece of carrot cake instead. For some reason, it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

On the way home, we passed a little drive-in dairy in Monrovia. It has new owners, and they now have a big fiberglass cow wearing a lei out front. So of course I had to get a picture of it. Maybe next time I’ll get my picture taken with it, too.

It was a fun ride.

42 miles.
cycling

Today’s club ride was out to Claremont, which I wanted to go on , since Claremont is a sentimental favorite place for me. It was where I first spent time away from home, and it was also where some of my best bike racing memories come from.

We met at Arcadia Park and headed out. The route was pretty much straight east, and it was pretty flat. About the only unusual thing that happened was when I got a flat in Azusa. We were riding down Foothill Blvd when I noticed that my front tire was going soft. It was odd, since it wasn’t leaking very fast. So we rode a bit more until we turned off on onto a quieter street, where I sat down to fix it. That was when I saw the nail in the tire. At least it wasn’t a mystery. I put in a new tube, and Gene took the obligatory picture for the Flat Tire Gallery.

When we got to Claremont, we went to a bagel place the Gene knew. The town looked pretty much the same as it did back in 1978, which is pretty remarkable. We had our bagels and then we started back.

The route back went down Gladstone, which is a nice street for riding. It’s about 1% downhill. Not enough to see, but enough that you can ride really fast and feel like a champ. Gene set the pace, and he towed us all the way back to Irwindale at high speed. I said he was riding like he’d just remembered that he left the iron on at home.

We rode into the Santa Fe Dam area and then up the bike path to get back to Duarte. Then it was straight west to home. When I got home, I had 58.5 miles, so I rode around the neighborhood a bit just so I could see “60” on my odometer.

60 miles.
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There’s a vacant former furniture store on Colorado Blvd here, and the windows have been given over to local artists. Cathy and I were walking by there recently, and we both liked this one. I can’t really explain why.

Route map

Last weekend we went to the “Cone Migration” art show at Bandini Art in Culver City. This was a show of art made by Lana Shuttleworth, using orange traffic cones that she released on city streets and later collected. It was also sort of an interactive art show in that visitors were encouraged to take a cone to “release into the wild”. Of course I thought this would make for an interesting and amusing bike ride with the regular Sunday group.

I strapped the 8-pound cone on my back, using a Jansport pack, a belt, and some packing tape. The trick was to get it to stay point-down. Once I figured that out, it was fine. I rode down to Victory Park to meet the group.

As it turned out, there were a lot of people on the ride this week who had not been there last week when I had suggested this activity. So I had to tell them the story of the the cone migration and art and all that. They all thought it sounded funny, so we were off.

Riding with the cone wasn’t too bad, aside from the weight of it. It was attached pretty close to my center of gravity, so it didn’t throw my balance off. I was even able to trackstand normally at traffic lights. I also could not feel any difference in wind resistance, even though it certainly looked like it had to be adding a lot of drag.

We rode out of Pasadena, across Eagle Rock and into Glendale. At one point, a guy who wasn’t with our group passed us. I couldn’t resist chasing him, and I was able to settle into a fast pace line with no problem. The cone didn’t cause any problems with drafting.

We rode into Griffith Park and then down to Los Feliz. We had to stop for a bit to fix a flat, but that gave me some time to take a sightseeing picture with the cone in front of the Mulholland Fountain.

Next, we headed up into Elysian Park. We were going to make a sightseeing stop and release the cone at the Los Angeles Fire Department training center and the World Trade Center memorial there. When we got there, the gate was closed, but then some of the other riders found another gate that was open. So we all went in and looked at the steel column and plaque there. Then we placed the cone just outside the gate, recording the location and date on the cone label, and also taking a picture of the GPS unit to show the actual coordinates of the release.

After the release, I felt much lighter. We continued down the hill into Chinatown. We stopped for a shack at Philippe’s on Alameda. Then we headed home by the direct route. Up Main to Mission, and then Huntington all the way back to San Marino. Then straight up Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park.

It was a perfect day for riding, and it was a fun ride and fun to participate in an art project.

Because this was a special ride, I made a separate gallery for the photos. They are here:

http://www.1134.org/gallery/index.php/stan/bike/conerelease

42 miles.
cycling

Today was the Last Lunchtime Ride. Or at least the last the Vikki will be on. She’s moving back to Canada next week. So Eric and I went riding with her today to give her a good send-off.

We did a slightly different route today. It was similar to the Lida Loop that we do, but climbs the hill on Inverness and St Katherine. But the rest of the ride was the same. It was a perfect day, and we had a nice time.

18 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling