Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s ride was a visit to yet another “Open Streets” event, this time in Irwindale and Baldwin Park. And as with the Vernon event a few weeks ago, there are only about two dozen people who actually live in Irwindale, so I guessed that it might not be too crowded, either. And along the way there, we went to see the F-86 in the park in West Covina. It’s made of solid concrete, but Roadside America still insists that it’s a real F-86 airplane.

We stopped for snacks at Panera in West Covina, and then we continued on to Baldwin Park to pick up the beginning of the Open Streets route. We rode that all the way to Santa Fe Dam, and then took the bike trail back up to Duarte. And then home by way of Sierra Madre.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike ride was a visit to USC and the Fisher Museum to see the art project in front of the museum commemorating the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. We did this before, but it was several years ago. Besides, it seems that people doing un-American things is more in the news again lately for some reason…

It had been long enough since we did this ride that I had to make a few adjustments to the route, but that wasn’t a bad thing. We rode the usual route into downtown, and then south to USC. Along the way, we stopped to see the old Parker Center, which was the long-time headquarters for the Los Angeles Police. It’s slated to be torn down soon, so I wanted to see the building again before it’s gone. Besides, I still remember going to the Street Scene in downtown L.A. back in the ’80s. They had stages set up all over the Civic Center area, and I always wanted to know what rocket scientist thought it was a good idea to put the hardcore punk stage on the street in front of Parker Center. And of course, everyone was shocked – shocked, I tell you – that a riot broke out.

Riding through downtown, it was a misty sort of morning, which made for some nice sunlight reflecting off the buildings. We haven’t seen that since we did “Down for the Count” in 2009.

We stopped at USC to see the garden and the art installation there, and then continued on to Larchmont Village and bagels at Noah’s. Then we rode home through Silver Lake, and up Benton Way, which we haven’t done in a while.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

We did the “La La Land” ride again today. We did this last year, so I didn’t take as many pictures this time. It was more a chance to show the locations to some new people who weren’t riding with us last year. So if you want to see the actual locations, have a look at when we did it last year.

48 miles

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was to visit the two playgrounds with the sea monsters. We’ve done this one before, but that was about six months ago. There wasn’t really anything significant different this time, aside from the big blue sea serpent at Vincent Lugo Park being fenced off, apparently for some sort of repair. Still, it was a nice ride.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike ride was for another Ciclavia-type event, this time in Vernon and Huntington Park. Our biggest complaint about the Ciclavia events is that they tend to be overcrowded, but I guessed that this might not be a problem this time, since only about two dozen people live in Vernon. People live in Huntington Park, but it’s a pretty small town, so I thought it might not be too crowded. And that’s how it worked out. We had giant streets almost completely to ourselves.

After taking the full tour of Vernon and Huntington Park, we headed back up into downtown. We passed my favorite building at Wilshire and Figueroa (“101 Times!”), then continued on up into Chinatown. We passed the theater that always has something funny on the marquee. Last spring it said something about “We lost our winter fat, and now we just have spring rolls.” Then we rode up and over the hill by Dodger Stadium, and then down to the river for snacks at Spoke.

52 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Last week, there was great excitement around here because one of the Corpse Flower plants at the Huntington looked like it was about to bloom. Kathleen and I went there to see it, and we were ready to go back as soon as the flower opened. But it never happened, and in the end they dissected the flower to try and see why it didn’t bloom. But then on Thursday, we heard that one of their other plants had bloomed unexpectedly, so at lunchtime on Friday, I rode my bike over there to go see it.

It’s reputed to be the biggest flower in the world, and yes, it’s big. It was roped off, which made it hard to lean in close enough to smell it. I was able to just pick up a little bit of the famous smell of the flower. But still, ever since I first heard about this plant on an episode of “Nature” on PBS back in 1986, I’ve always wanted to see one. And now I’ve finally had the chance.

This past week, I saw an item about an art gallery in Sherman Oaks that is holding an exhibit and auction of artifacts from Disneyland. So I figured this might make for a good destination for this week’s bike ride. The gallery wouldn’t be open when we got there, but I figured we could peek in the windows and see at least a few of the items.

The ride out there was pretty flat-ish. We rode down to the L.A. River and then up the bike path to Griffith Park. Then through the park and out Moorpark St into the Valley. We had to take one short detour because they were repaving Lankershim, and so the road was closed there. But we made it out to Sherman Oaks just fine. When we got to the gallery, we peeked in, and we were able to see just a few items. Most of them were farther back in the gallery, and so we couldn’t see much. But we saw enough that I want to take a trip out there to see the show for real before it goes away.

Coming back, we stopped at the gelato place in Studio City. And then back home across Glendale, with the gradual climb up and over Chevy Chase and Linda Vista. It was hot-ish, but not terrible.

49 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s ride was our old Whittier Greenway Trail route. Not a lot special to see along the way, but a pleasant ride. And we stopped for the obligatory photo-op at Dork Street in Pico Rivera.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Last week, I saw an article in the L.A. Times about how the house from :”The Brady Bunch” is on the market again for the first time in 45 years. Needless to say, when I saw this, I knew where we were going to ride this Sunday. For a route, I started with the route we used for the Amelia Earhart tour last March.

When we got to the house, there were two other groups of people already there to look at it. Apparently, it’s supposedly the second-most-photographed house in the country. So we took our photos and moved on. We stopped for snacks and drinks at Sweet Salt in Toluca Lake.

Usually, we’d take the L.A. River bike trail on the way home, but the stretch of the river trail by Griffith Park is closed for the construction of the North Atwater Bridge. So we rode through the park and got on the bike path at Los Feliz. Then we headed home by way of Highland Park and South Pasadena, with one brief stop at my office to have some ice water from the water cooler.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This past week, I saw an article in Atlas Obscura about Mack Sennett Studios and how they were behind pie fights becoming a comedy staple back in the 1920s:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-people-throw-pies

It said that one of the buildings from the old studio still exists, and that it has a small historical marker out in front of it. So with that, we had a bit of sightseeing for today’s ride.

We took a slightly roundabout route to get to Huntington Drive for the ride into downtown. Along the way, we saw that the wrecked car we saw last Sunday was gone, and most of the debris was cleaned up, but I still made a point of staying as far away from that crushed glass as I could. Then we rode the last bit into downtown. We stopped briefly to look at the construction site where Metro is building the entrance to the tunnel on 1st St for the Regional Connector.

We rode across downtown and then up to Echo Park. We took the small side trip to see the old Mack Sennett Studios building. Then we doubled back, passing by Randyland to our snack stop at Pollen. We’re all still a bit shell-shocked by Chango Coffee closing, so we d wanted to try yet another place in the same neighborhood. It was nice, but table service only, which is a little inconvenient from our point of view.

On the way out of Echo Park, we saw yet another car that looked like it was wrecked while being peacefully parked.

At the south end of the L.A. River bike path, we got on Figueroa St, only to ride right into a monumental traffic jam. We later found out it was caused by some guy who was threatening to jump off the Ave 26 bridge over the Pasadena Freeway. So both sides of the freeway were closed, and all the traffic spilled over onto Figueroa. It was a mess, although I read later that they managed to save the guy.

40 miles.

Route map and elevation profile