Glendale Vistas
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Today’s ride was a nice ride out through Glendale, with a stop at Paradise Bakery.
The morning was kind of gray and hazy, but the weather forecast said that the haze would go away.
We started out heading west. We skirted the Rose Bowl and headed up into La Cañada. Then we took Chevy Chase up and over the hill. On the downhill side, we got going fairly fast. I saw my speed get up to 38, which is probably the fastest I’ve gone in 20 years. Back when I was young and fearless, that was no big deal. But now that I’m older and more cautious, I tend not to go so fast down the hills. But every time we do a fast downhill, I think of the day back in 1976 when I was riding down a big hill in Harriman State Park in New York. I had an old analog speedometer on my bike that had a little plastic wheel that read the speed off the front tire. Going down this hill, the speedometer pegged at 50, and then the little plastic wheel couldn’t handle it any more and broke off and flew into the woods. And all I could think was, “I broke my speedometer – Cool!” Ahh, youth.
At the bottom of the hill, we headed down through Glendale for a bit, and then came back north to Glenoaks Blvd. We took a left there and rode a bit to get to Paradise Bakery. They have the best eclairs there, so I always get two of them.
After that, we went south on Sonora, where we passed Jimmy’s Super Lunch. We have no idea what’s so super about it, but it was funny. Continuing on, we passed the Bette Davis Picnic Area and headed into Griffith Park. We did one loop around the park, going up the hill behind the Zoo and down past the golf course, and then out to Los Feliz Blvd. Then we went back, passing the Autry Museum and the front side of the Zoo.
From there, we went back up Sonora to Kenneth in Glendale. By this time, the sun had burned off the early-morning clouds and it was starting to get hot. We continued on Mountain back to Verdugo Blvd. Then it was time for the long climb up to Hospital Hill.
When we got to the top of the hill, it was all downhill from there. We went down Descanso and Chevy Chase, and then crossed the freeway to get back to Woodbury Road. Then we took Woodbury and New York back to the park.
52 miles. see the route map
July 11th, 2005 at 7:17 am
‘I had an old analog speedometer on my bike that had a little plastic wheel that read the speed off the front tire. Going down this hill, the speedometer pegged at 50, and then the little plastic wheel couldn’t handle it any more and broke off and flew into the woods. And all I could think was, “I broke my speedometer – Cool!†Ahh, youth.’
Back in high school, I had a friend who was an obsessive cyclist like you.
One day while riding around south St. Louis on his bike he was pulled over by a cop for riding 45 mph in a 20 mph zone. After pulling him over, the cop asked, “Do you realize you were going 45 in a 20 zone?”, to which my friend replied, “Yeah! Isn’t that *great*?”
He paid that ticket with pride.