Toluca Lake and some sightseeing
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Today’s ride was a sightseeing trip out to Toluca Lake. The stops were an elaborate homeless camp on an island in the Los Angeles River, and also F*art in Eagle Rock.
We started out doing the usual route across Pasadena, down the Colorado hill into Eagle Rock, and then across on Hill Dr. That was where my phone rang. It was Vikki. She had brought two of her Furnace Creek 508 teammates out for the ride, but due to some confusion, they had thought the ride started at 8:30. So I gave them directions so they could catch up to us, and we continued on.
In Glendale, I spotted a pair of abandonded couches, so I snapped a photo for the Abandoned Couches Blog. Then we continued on to Sonora, where we went left to get to Riverside Dr and the L.A. Equestrian Center. We rode through Burbank to Toluca Lake and our snack stop at Priscilla’s.
We had some bagels, juice, and such at Priscilla’s. When we were ready to leave, I called Vikki and found out that they were almost there. So I rode back down Riverside to find them, stopping to get a picture of the “Not a Through Alley” sign, which I thought was funny. After all, alleys are almost by definition not intended for through traffic. So I don’t know why they felt the need to actually put a sign up to that effect.
Once we were all together again, we headed back on Forest Lawn Dr into Griffith Park. Then at Riverside we got on the Los Angeles River bike path. We took the bike path all the way down to Fletcher, stopping briefly to see the very elaborate homeless camp in the riverbed. I guess it’s not a bad place to camp when it’s not the rainy season here.
Turning left on Fletcher, we headed back north to Eagle Rock Blvd, which we took all the way to the end at Colorado. Then we stopped to see the sign and window displays at F*art. Looks like an interesting place. Love the knife block. Then we went right to Yosemite for the trip across Eagle Rock. At Townsend, we took another right and rode up and over a short but steep hill. Gene said, “but it looked flat on the map!” Coming down the other side, we got on Meridian and took that to Ave 64.
A quick right on 64 and left on York brought us into South Pasadena and Monterey Rd. We took that across San Marino and then up Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park. At this point, I had 42 miles, and it was still early. So I rode with Vikki and her teammates out to Arcadia and back. On the way back through Sierra Madre, we paused to collect one more abandoned couch. Then we finished up the ride and came home.
It was a very pleasant ride.
52 miles.
