Stan’s Obligatory Blog

While most men in my position would playing poker or watching football, I went for another bike ride after work today. Vikki and Matt at my office are both triathlon enthusiasts, and they told me about an informal practice time trial on Friday evenings at the Rose Bowl.

When I first got down to the Rose Bowl, there was a nice big thunderhead over the mountains. It was pretty impressive, so I took a picture of it. Then I rode around a bit and did some sightseeing. There was some filming going on underneath the Colorado St. bridge. The thing that caught my eye was the big fan. I guess they were filming something that was supposed to be happening on a windy day.

Heading back to the Rose Bowl, I found Matt, and we rode around for a bit. I was telling him that I felt a lot of resistance to doing the time trial, and I finally realized that I was just feeling embarassed about how slow I was going to be. And even if I wasn’t slow, there is basically no chance that I could go as fast as I did back in my racing days. So no matter what, I was going to be disappointed. Such are the trials of aging former athletes.

So we finally did it. We did four laps around the Rose Bowl, which my bike computer said was 12.3 miles. It took me 37 minutes to do this, which works out to 19.95 miles per hour. On the face of it, that seems pathetic. I once did a 10 mile time trial in 23:19, which is 25.73 miles per hour. At that pace, this would have taken me only 28:41. But that was in 1978. Oh well. Anyway, once I got over feeling sheepish about the whole thing, it was actually pretty fun.

39 miles
cycling

Route map and photo locations

I went for another ride today after work. This time I went west to the Rose Bowl. There is a big semi-organized group ride there every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s sort of a practice race, and it’s quite the sort of thing I would have done back in my racing days. But I’m no longer young, strong, and fearless, so I’m not interested in doing it any more. When we first moved to Pasadena in 1995, I did it a few times just to see what it felt like to be riding fast in a racing pack again, but after some guy who didn’t know what he was doing knocked me down and sent me to the hospital, I decided not to do it again.

I rode down to the Rose Bowl on Orange Grove, passing the Pasadena Fish Market. “U Buy, We Fry”. When I got there, I did one lap around the Bowl. Then I went up the little hill to Linda Vista and took that up to the bridge over the freeway below JPL. Then I took Woodbury Rd. back across Pasadena. That was where I passed the “Apartments for Rent” sign. Nothing says “home” like concertina wire.

16 miles
cycling

Route map and photo locations

Cathy and Lucinda went on a trip to visit Cathy’s friends in Austin, Texas. Being that I hate Texas, I elected not to go along. So I’m at home playing bachelor for a week.

After work, I went for a bike ride. I went out through Sierra Madre to Arcadia. Right near Santa Anita racetrack I snapped a picture of the oddly named “Analist Turf” sign. Perhaps it’s just me, but I think they really meant ‘Analyst’. The way they spelled it, it sounds more like an XRCO award category.

While I was taking the picture of the sign, a Boom Car pulled up the light, so I got serenaded by a very loud “Boomp Ba-Boomp! Boomp Boomp Ba-Boomp!” It was a catchy riff, so I ended up humming it for a good bit of the rest of the ride.

Continuing east through Monrovia, I got on the bike path along Royal Oaks. That was where I saw the ‘nun crossing‘ sign. I’ve been by there many times before, but this was the first time I noticed that sign, so I had to take a picture.

At the end of the bike path in Duarte, I turned around and headed back. I was heading into the setting sun, which made me feel like I was back in New York, racing at Kissena Velodrome. The back stretch of that track faced directly into setting sun, and it was my favorite place to attack. Sort of like the old WWI flying ace trick of diving out of the sun.

The last part of the ride was through the Monrovia foothills to get back to Arcadia and Sierra Madre Blvd. Then it was (mostly) downhill all the way home.

22 miles
cycling

See the route and photo locations

Today’s ride was out to San Dimas, passing next to Bonelli Regional Park there.

We started out heading south and east through Arcadia and Temple City and finally Covina. Along the way, we passed the 99-cent burger place, and also Inflictions Tattoo, which I’ve heard good things about in tattoo circles. Then we went south, passing by the edge of Bonelli Regional Park to Via Verde.

When we got to Grand Ave in Covina I noticed that my tire was going flat. Newton asked if I could make it another five minutes. We made it up a little hill and around the corner onto Cortez St. There was a nice shady spot to sit and fix the flat. John took the obligatory picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. I also managed to get a nice macro-focus shot showing the little wire that had punctured my tire.

Leaving the nice shady spot, we headed west until we got to Citrus. Then we went north past the freeway and stopped for a snack at a Starbucks there.

Next, we went west on Workman Ave until it ended, then we went north to Badillo St and took that west into Ramona Blvd and finally Lower Azusa Road. At El Monte Blvd, we turned north back up to Duarte and then west to Holly, right by Santa Anita racetrack. We took Fairview west some more to Golden West and rode up the western edge of the Los Angeles County Arboretum. We didn’t see any peacocks roaming the streets, though.

Coming out back on Michillinda, we went north, passed behind Sears, and then took Orange Grove back to the park.

50 miles.
cycling

I built the two gates for Lucinda’s play structure. One is at the top of the ladder and the second is to allow access to the top of the monkey bars. Lucinda asked for that one. The instructions that came with the bars explicitly said that children should never play on top of the bars, but Lucinda wanted to be able to do that if she wanted. She does it at the park, so we decided it’s not a big deal. So I built a gate so that the upper level will feel like it is enclosed, but still have access.

In the first two pictures, Lucinda is checking out the gate at the top of the ladder. The second two pictures show the gate to the monkey bars.

With this, I have officially completed all that I initially set out to do with this structure. We are considering adding a tarp roof, but that’s still in the planning stages. So I think it’s time for a rest.

When we visited Grandpa last week, I got to dig through some piles of old photos and rediscover pieces of my past. I found a big stash of pictures from my bike racing days, which was fun. I also found my 6th grade class picture. This was from Radio Park Elementary in State College, PA.

I will never forget Mr. Wagner, and I think of him pretty often, considering how long ago I was in his class. But the reason is simple. In the fall of 1970, he won some sort of sweepstakes, and his prize was a trip to the Rose Bowl and Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. This seemed terribly exotic to all of us kids there in central Pennsylvania. When he came back, he gave our class a slide show of his trip. Lots of pictures of parade floats and football. Both things that really don’t interest me. But I remember one thing he said about the trip. That it was 75 degrees on New Year’s Day. And I made a mental note right then and there that when I grew up, I wanted to live in this ‘Pasadena’ place. And now, here I am. And it’s quite nice. So I will always fondly remember Mr. Wagner for (perhaps unwittingly) piquing my interest in Southern California, which has turned out to in fact be my Most Favorite Place.

Addendum: Here’s a map with the route plotted and photo locations marked.

Today’s ride was out to Glendora, with a stop at a little bakery there.

We started out heading east and south to get to Longden Ave. We took that all the way out to where it merged into Live Oak, and then that turned into Arrow Highway. We passed Arrow Radiator (aka “a damn good place to take a leak“) and also the hot rod mailbox.

When we got to Glendora, we sat down and had some pastries. Philippe spent some time chatting with the baker, who was also from France.

After the snack stop, we took a quick side trip to Rubel’s Castle to marvel at the sight of an actual castle sitting in the middle of a suburban housing tract. Then we came back down the hill a bit and took Sierra Madre west. That was where I saw the Fatboy Ice Cream truck. Is that an example of truth in advertising?

We crossed the San Gabriel River on the bike path and headed into Duarte. We took the standard route home, straight across Duarte, Monrovia, and Arcadia. Then we headed north a bit and took Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park.

At the park, Philippe, Spencer, Vikki, and I all kept going. I took them on my somewhat convoluted route to Caltech so that they could see the funky palm tree. Then Vikki turned off and headed for home.

We then went south into San Marino. We went all the way across San Marino and into South Pasadena, where Spencer turned off for home. Then Philippe and I took Fair Oaks Blvd south to Huntington Drive for the trip home. Fair Oaks and Huntington used to be a big junction for the Pacific Electric, and the modern street intersection still shows this.

It was a hot and humid day today, which is unusual for Southern California. We do hot all the time here, but humid is not common. So we did one more short stop so that Philippe could get a new, cold bottle of Gatorade. I snapped a picture of the store sign, since it looks like a throwback to a bygone era.

Continuing west on Huntington, we passed Twohey’s in Alhambra. They have a very nice neon sign outside, although I don’t know why the guy on the sign has a clothespin on his nose.

The last bit of the ride was back up Sierra Madre Blvd, and then I was home.

53 miles.
cycling

Today we took the train down to San Diego to visit Grandpa Schwarz. Riding the train is a pleasant way to go there, and it’s an arduous trip by car. The only bad thing(s) that happened were that we missed the first two trains. When we got to the Gold Line station in Pasadena, the train left just as we were coming down the stairs. We had to wait for the next train, and then when we got to Union Station, we looked out the window and saw the Amtrak Surfliner leaving for San Diego. So we had to wait for the next one.

Once we got there, we had a nice time. Grandpa picked us up at the train station and we all went to lunch. After that, we went back to his apartment. He played computer games and music with Lucinda, while Cathy and I looked through piles of old photos. I found a lot of pictures from my bike racing days back in the late ’70s, which was fun. I’ve scanned some of them for my photo album already, and I’m going to see about getting the slides scanned.

After a fun and relaxing afternoon, we got back on the train for the trip home. The train was crowded, so we ended up in the front car, which turned out to be entertaining. The engineer had the door to the cab open, so we could look out the front window. He also let Lucinda blow the train horn. So we had a fun trip back.

When we got home, we were all tired, but it was a fun day.

I’ve been playing some more with Google Maps. I made up a little script to create the xml file for listing the photos on a bike ride. So I tested it out with the pictures from the ride to Encino from a few weeks ago.

Here are the pictures

I guess the next step would be to plot the route on the map…

Note: I’m doing some experimenting with Google Maps to show the locations where the photos were taken. Here is a map showing the locations of today’s photos. Click the markers to get the caption and a link to the full-sized photo. And let me know how it works and if there is anything else I should add.

Today’s ride was out to Larchmont Village for a bagel at Noah’s.

We started out going west, across Pasadena and down into the arroyo. We went down past the stables at the bottom and then up the other side into Highland Park.

Going down York Blvd, we passed the Los Angeles Police Department Museum. This has been on my list of things to see for a long time. It sounds interesting.

Turning south on Eagle Rock Blvd, we went down to Ave 36 and then Fletcher. We passed the old Van de Camp’s bakery, which has been saved from the wrecker’s ball and is now slated to be a new L.A. City College campus.

Crossing the Los Angeles River, we passed into Silver Lake. We went around the Silver Lake Reservoir and then down the hill. That was where we saw Mom’s Donuts and Chinese Food. Yikes.

A few turns later, we were in Koreatown, where we saw a very strange sign with a gorilla on it. But since the signs were all in Korean, we have no idea what they said.

Crossing Western Ave, we passed the event horizon that divides the mansions of Hancock Park from the barred-window liquor stores of Koreatown. We went west until we got to Larchmont Blvd.

At the corner of 2nd St and Larchmont, we passed the former home of Adriana Caselotti, who was the voice for the original Disney Snow White, back in 1937.

We stopped for a bagel at Noah’s on Larchmont Blvd. We got lucky, and there were tables and enough chairs for all of us right out in front.

Leaving Larchmont, we went north to Melrose, and then took a quick right and then left to get to Gower St. We went up the west side of Paramount Studios to get to Santa Monica Blvd. Then we went right to get to Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

At the cemetery, we stopped to see Mel Blanc. We also went and had a look at the rocket monument we saw last time. I went over to get a closer look and found out that it was indeed an Atlas rocket, and that the monument is for Carl Morgan Bigsby, who died in 1959.

Leaving the cemetery, we went north on Bronson through Hollywood. We turned right on Franklin Ave and went east. We passed the Dearly Departed Tours van, which sort of fit in with the cemetery visit. Then we crossed the Shakespeare Bridge and headed back across the river to Highland Park.

We went up Burleigh Road and La Loma to cross the hills and get back to the Arroyo. Then Gene and most of the riders went east on California, and just a few of us went straight up Arroyo to the Rose Bowl.

From the Rose Bowl, we went up the little hill at the end to get to Linda Vista, and then went north to Highland and the bridge across the freeway below Devil’s Gate Dam. Then we took Windsor Road north some more and then Altadena Drive back across town and back to the park.

50 miles.
see the route
cycling