Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Route slip

Today’s ride was the “Glendale Vistas” route. We haven’t done this one since June, so it was time. It was chilly this morning, but we had a good group of ten riders. Michael came out for the first time in months, which meant that there was going to be competition to be first to the top of the hills. And Vikki is visiting from Canada this week, so she came to ride with us, too.

We rode out of Pasadena to La Cañada. Then we turned up Chevy Chase for the first hill of the ride. The hill up the north side of Chevy Chase is long and winding, with a steep pitch at the end. Then a nice long downhill into Glendale.

At the bottom, we made a loop through Glendale, ending up on Glenoaks, where we stopped at Paradise Bakery. I had my usual two chocolate eclairs, since theirs are the best. And I wasn’t even worried about eating them before the steep hills in the second half of the ride.

Leaving the bakery, we rode back across Glendale and started up into the hills. The first big hill started out on Royal Blvd, which wasn’t too steep. Then we turned on Old Phillips Rd, which was close to flat. Finally, we took a right on Kidonan Dr, which is the steep pitch to the top. And that was where Things Went Wrong.

I was riding up the hill in my usual 39×17 gear, and I was pushing pretty hard to try and stay ahead of Michael. Then my chain skipped. I head the sound of pieces of metal falling on the ground, and the cranks spun free. I managed to get my foot out before falling over, and I looked down to see that the 17-tooth cog on my cassette had self-destructed. It broke into three or four pieces, and the chain was just wedged down into the space where the cog had been. I’ve been riding seriously since 1973, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen something like this break.

Needless to say, this was a problem. First, we took the obligatory picture, and I stuffed a couple of the pieces into my bag for a souvenir. Then I walked up to the next flat spot. I was able to get the chain onto the next larger cog. The picture shows the chain on the 9 speed 8 speed cassette. Then I rode very carefully the rest of the way to the top. The other cogs didn’t seem to be going too far out of alignment, so the bike was rideable, but shifting was probably not a good idea.

Fortunately, we were getting close to the end of the ride, so just continued on. We rode down into Montrose and then up Hospital Hill. Then straight down and back into Pasadena and back to the park.

It was a fun ride, even with the broken cog. Things like that are rare enough that the inconvenience was worth it just to have the story to tell. And it was nice to see Vikki again.

41 miles and one broken 17-tooth cog.
cycling

Today’s ride was the Fall Foliage route through Monterey Park. Apparently there are some areas that have trees with leave that change color and fall in the autumn. And there are some very steep hills, too.

We met at Arcadia Park and headed out. The first part of the ride was pretty uneventful. The first funny thing I saw was a pet grooming place with a sign that said that they had “The Furminator”, which is apparently a line of anti-shedding products. Well, I thought it was funny.

In Alhambra, we saw a couple of abandoned couches. One on the side of the road, and a second one that was being picked up. So now we know what happens to all those abandoned couches.

We crossed over the 10 freeway on a pedestrian bridge, which was kind of novel. And it gave a good view of the freeway, and the lack of traffic at 9:30 on a Saturday morning.

Then we did the first little hill. It was something like 17%, but it was short. Then we had a short downhill, and that’s where we saw the big fountain. No idea what the reason was for it being there, but it was a nice fountain.

The next turn was up Cadiz St. This felt like the steepest hill of the bunch, but Frank said it wasn’t. But it was longer than the others, so the joy was long-lasting. And this was the hill that made me say ‘uncle’ and shift down a couple of gears. We regrouped at the top, and that was where we noticed that part of the group had taken a different route to avoid the hill.

Coming down off that hill, we crossed Atlantic Ave and then rode up another nice hill. And that was where we saw the purple house. Then we came down the other side and rode up into Alhambra. We stopped at the golf course and had snacks at the little coffee shop there. Jon and I were comparing our cleats. Mine are a lot less worn than his. I think that may have something to do with my rarely putting my foot down. We were also all amused by the display of golf energy bars.

Finally, we rode the flat route back to the park in Arcadia. When we were almost there, Bob got a flat. This is Bob’s second appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery.

Overall, it was a fun little ride.

44 miles
cycling

Success is mine. After many test runs, and tweaking the recipe many, many times, I have created what Lucinda and I consider to be the Perfect Blueberry Muffin.

And in the spirit of Open Source, here’s the recipe:

http://www.1134.org/recipes/blueberrymuffins.pdf

I took a vacation day today to do a house project.

Our house is very old, and part of the attic has no insulation. And so I set out to remedy this. I had to pull up some of the boards and stuff the batts of insulation into the spaces between the joists. As it turned out, I didn’t have to pull up all the boards, and the whole thing only took about two hours of fairly intense work. The worst aspect of it was that my dust mask got soaked with sweat, and air won’t go through a soaked dust mask. Which made it hard to breathe. Yick. Fortunately, I had a couple of masks, so I could switch them when one got too soaked. Fun times.

Saw this on Christmas day:

A big recliner chair, and six remote controls. Yikes.

Christmas came, and Lucinda got a Wii. And she also got a few other things, but that was the big one. Thanks to Uncle Larry and Aunt Francesca for braving the crowds to find it and buy it for her. And we also had a nice dinner and visited with the family. So overall, it was a fun time.

Pictures are here.

The ball got stuck like this tonight. This is pretty rare. In 24 years with this machine, I’ve only seen this happen once before. And I didn’t even get super-powers while it was stuck there.

Today’s ride was the Mt Washington ride. We have done this ride before, but it’s been several months, so the time was right.

We rode north from Victory Park, up into Altadena, and then over through La Cañada and down Hospital Hill. Then we went straight down through Glendale and Atwater Village, over the Los Angeles River and down Riverside Dr.

At the end of Riverside, we went north on Figueroa and then turned left up Mt Washington. This is a nice little climb. Not too steep, not too long. And they repaved the road about a year ago, so it’s pretty nice for riding now. Note in the photos how everyone is smiling as they crested the hill.

Coming down the other side, we got on Ave 50 and took a little detour over to Eldred St. This is reputed to be the steepest street in Los Angeles. The grade is something a bit over 30% at the top. I’d read that the trash trucks back up the hill so that they don’t have to turn around at the top. They are afraid the truck would tip over if they did. We made a couple of attempts at riding up it, but none of us made it all the way to the top without slipping. But we did talk to one of the residents of the street, and he confirmed the story about the backwards trash trucks.

Leaving Eldred St, we rode north through Highland Park and then into South Pasadena, where we stopped at Kaldi’s for a snack. Then we went east through downtown South Pasadena, passing a large inflatable dinosaur. From there, we took Monterey Road east, turning south to get to Duarte Road, and then made a loop back to the park. By then, it had warmed up quite nicely, and we were mostly overdressed for the temperature. So it was a good time to be done.

40 miles.
cycling

Today’s club ride was one that I thought didn’t sound like all that much fun, so it was time for the special sightseeing trip out to Westwood. The main goal was to visit Frank Zappa’s grave, as well as a number of other sights along the way.

I rode down to South Pasadena and met up with Doug and Rachele. And we headed out. We went through Highland Park, making a quick side trip to see the second-smallest house in Los Angeles. It’s been fixed up, and it looks pretty good now.

We rode through Silver Lake and into Hollywood. Riding down Hollywood Boulevard is always a surreal experience, and one that’s best done early in the morning. We stopped briefly at the Chinese Theater to see the costumed performers posing for pictures with tourists.

Going across West Hollywood, we bypassed the Sunset Strip to make another side trip to see Dicks St. Then we went up Doheny to just above the Strip to see the Garagemajal. A lot of the neighbors were upset by it, since it looked like a giant parking structure. But now it appears that it’s just a very large extension on the house.

Crossing into Beverly Hills, we stopped for photo at the tree where Lindsay Lohan crashed her car last year. Then we doubled back one block to pass by the Menendez murder house. And then west again to pass the Witch’s House.

Leaving Beverly Hills, we rode out to Westwood. We stopped briefly to make a phone call, and in the process I slipped and fell on a wet spot on the street. Apparently, this wet spot is wet all the time, and it has slippery algae growing on the pavement. Sheesh.

When we got to the Pierce Brothers Cemetery, we headed over to Frank Zappa’s grave. After that, we played tourist a bit more in the cemetery. The pictures are all in the Graves Gallery.

The next sightseeing stop was Stan’s Donuts in Westwood Village. I always stop for a picture with businesses that have my name on them. (Like these: 1 2  3  4) Then we stopped off at Holmby Park for water before heading up the hill on Benedict Canyon.

At the top of the hill, we turned and took Mulholland all the way to Cahuenga Pass. Riding west to east on Mulholland it nice, since the trend is downhill. And it was a clear day, so the views were very nice. And then we took the most direct route home to Pasadena. We had one minor incident with a car in Glendale when it looked like they were going to pull out into us. Doug yelled at the driver. A little later, she caught up to us at a light. She was rolling down her window like she wanted to say something. I pulled out my camera and took her picture. And she shut up.

Overall, it was a fun little ride.

67 miles.
cycling

Lucinda is getting better at pinball. She knows the basic strategy for playing our machine, and she’s learning to catch the ball on the flippers to set up the two essential shots.

The basic plan for playing “Future Spa” involves getting the letters to spell ‘FUTURE SPA”, Each letter is worth 2,000 bonus, and you can get up to 42,000 bonus. And the four inline targets multiply the bonus up to 6x. So there are two essential shots to learn:

• The left-flipper shot to the rollover for adding letters;
• The right-flipper shot for the bonus multiplier targets.

And she’s starting to learn how to do the Slap Save.

We’re having some fun with this.

And Lucinda set a new personal record this evening with a score of 386,430 points. She was quite pleased.

Route slip

Today’s ride was the La Tuna Classic. That’s how I refer to the route that does La Tuna Canyon from west to east. Up the four-mile hill. Call me weird, but I’d rather ride up that hill than down it any day. So today was the day.

Gene came out to the park to see us off and to deliver some new club jerseys. He can get around with a walker now. So he’s able to move around the house, but he’s not back to work yet, and certainly not riding yet. Still, he looked good.

We set out and rode across Eagle Rock and into Glendale. We took Mountain and Kenneth across Glendale and into Burbank. Then we took Glenoaks the rest of the way to Sun Valley, where we got on La Tuna Canyon Road. Then it was time for that nice long climb to the top.

At the top, we rested a bit and enjoyed the sunshine. Then we headed down into Montrose. We stopped at Oven Fresh bakery. Only one of the tables was in the sun, so we all crowded around it. If we’d been a half-hour later, they would have all been in the sun. But we just rode up the hill too fast.

After the stop, we headed back across Altadena. On one street, a dog got out of its yard and ran out at us. Rachele got spooked by this and bumped wheels with another rider, and she fell down. Fortunately, she didn’t land too hard, and she wasn’t hurt. And on that note, we rode back to the park.

The final bit of riding was back home from the park, and along the way I saw a house with one of the busiest holiday displays I’ve ever seen. And the channel 7 news truck was there to look at it. I guess it’s a slow news day.

48 miles.
cycling

Today’s club ride was over Turnbull Canyon into Hacienda Heights, with a stop at the big Buddhist Temple there. Here’s the route: http://www.foothillcycle.org/PDFRouteSheets/turnbull_temple.pdf

It was pretty chilly this morning when we set out from Live Oak Park in Temple City. We rode down the Rio Hondo bike path to Whittier Narrows. Then we went across to the San Gabriel River bike path and rode that down to near Beverly Blvd in Pico Rivera. At that point, a few of us took a little detour to go see Dork St.

When we got back on the route, the group was several minutes ahead of us. I decided that my goal was to catch everyone by the time we got to the top of Turnbull Canyon. I’ve been more ambitious about hill climbing since I beat Newton up that hill.

On the way up the hill, we saw three guys skateboarding down. They had their friends following them in a car. I managed to get a picture of one of them as they went by.

By the time I got to the middle of the climb, I’d passed everyone, or so I thought. But then I did a mental inventory of who I’d passed and realized that I hadn’t seen Silvio. This meant he was still up ahead. So I picked up the pace, and when I got to the last big switchback before the top, I saw him. But I knew he was too far away to catch in the short distance remaining. Oh well.

At the top, there was a nice view of downtown Los Angeles. And on the way down into Hacienda Heights, there was a nice view of the San Gabriel mountains with their new coat of snow from the rain last week.

When we got to the bottom, we rode over to the Hsi Lai Temple and had a look around. It was pretty impressive. Even though I’m half-Chinese, I really don’t know anything about Buddhism. So it was interesting to see.

Leaving the temple, we took Colima Road back up over the hill into Whittier. I got a picture of Silvio hamming it up at the top. Then we rode down into downtown Whittier and stopped at a little pastry shop there. They had a nice courtyard with tables in the middle of the building. It would be very nice in the summer, since it was shady. Fortunately, it had warmed up enough that we weren’t too cold sitting in there.

On the way home, we passed the corner of Citrus and Orange in Whittier. That ranks right up there with the intersection of Summit and Mountain in Pasadena, and the one I saw many years ago: Hatfield and McCoy.

When we were riding through El Monte, we heard a weird noise. Silvio had a flat. The noise was the nail stuck in his tire hitting the bike frame. This marks Silvio’s first appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery.

And that was our ride.

53 miles.
cycling

I finally got to go through and separate the pictures from the 1978 Longsjo Classic in Fitchburg, MA. Apparently this is a stage race now. But back then it was a single-day criterium in downtown Fitchburg. The course was about a mile, and it went up and down a hill in town. The race itself was something like 100km.

I don’t remember a lot about the race itself. I rode the whole thing, staying snug inside the pack. I didn’t try to do anything fancy. But it was still a fun time. About the only real memory I have of the race is that I spent a good part of it following Jon Schuster. He was a Category 1 racer with the Indy USA team, which was the big team of the day. A lot of the National Team members rode with them, including the Stetina brothers. Wayne Stetina won the race that day. But I followed Jon because he was big. Like a moose. And when he moved through the pack, it was like the Parting of the Red Sea. Everyone just got out of his way. And I just sort of followed along. It was fun.

So have a look at the photos from that day. It’s old-school late-’70s bike racing at its best.

More things I see while riding my bike instead of driving:

Signs in a posh neighborhood in Pasadena, warning of roving wild animals. Keep your cats, dogs, and small children indoors.

I can go to the mall right before Christmas and get Doris Day Parking. They have a bike rack right by the door. And almost nobody uses it. Who knew?

And there are feral peafowl in Arcadia.

Saw this today in the L.A. Times:

Alison Jackson: Confidential An exhibition of photographs toying with the notion of celebrity. M+B, 612 N. Almont Drive, L.A.

This is an exhibit of photos of celebrity look-alikes, staging the pictures we’d like to see. The photos cover a full range:

• The impossible: Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and their baby;
• The improbable: Madonna ironing her clothes;
• The completely plausible: George Bush looking perplexed by Rubik’s Cube.

This looks like a hoot. Have a look at the gallery on their web site: http://www.mbfala.com/Jackson/Jackson_Confidential.html

Route slip

The rain has moved on, and today was a gloriously clear day. A bit chilly by SoCal standards, but still quite nice. The mountains had a good dusting of fresh snow, and it was very much the type of day when they take postcard pictures.

After riding up Mt Hollywood last week, and Mountain Lion Hill the week before, we decided it was time for a flat ride. And we also wanted to go someplace where the outside tables are in the sun, rather than the shade. So the Bagelry ‘fit the suit‘.

The ride out there was nice and flat. Not much to say about it. And when we got to the Bagelry, it was indeed very sunny at the tables. So our plan worked. And we were all very amused by Rachele’s sushi-hat.

And on the way back I made sure to get a picture of the house with Jack Skellington on the front lawn.

It was a nice ride.

45 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike club ride was out to La Verne. This is the same ride we did back in August. The main difference this time was that, instead of being insufferably hot, it was really quite chilly. We’d had a winter rain storm come through on Friday, and Saturday morning was cold and still slightly threatening.

We met at Library Park in Monrovia. On the way out there, I saw a house with a large Grinch on the front lawn. I like that.

Leaving the park, we headed straight east to Duarte, where we picked up the Santa Fe Dam bike path for a short distance. Then we got off and rode across Azusa to Glendora. We had to take a detour, because Sierra Madre Blvd in Glendora is closed for construction. It’s been closed for ages. And it’s all because they are building yet another much-needed subdivision. The sign proclaims “Opening Summer 2006“. Yeah, right.

Passing through Glendora, we got to San Dimas, where we turned and rode up San Dimas Canyon. Passing the park there reminded my of the time we went to the Hawaiian Festival there. Mmmm. Spam…

At the top of the hill, we regrouped and headed back down. The road passes by Live Oak Reservoir, which was where we used to do nighttime training sessions when I rode with the Claremont cycling team back in 1978. It still looks the same. And Rachele, one of our new riders who just graduated from Pomona College, tells me that they still train up there all these years later. So I had her take a souvenir picture for me in front of the gate.

Coming down the very steep hill, we rode into La Verne and stopped at the bakery at Bonita and D St. It was still chilly, so sitting around wasn’t all that nice.

The route back was pretty straightforward. We took Gladstone St most of the way. That’s the street that’s about 1% downhill. Not enough to see. But it’s enough that we always end of going really fast on it. At the end, we did the run around the back of the Irwindale brewery and into the Santa Fe Dam nature center.

Just as we got to the nature center, we heard a very loud POP! Rashied’s back tire had blown off the rim. So I grabbed my camera and took a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. This is Rashied’s first appearance in the gallery.

While Rashied was fixing his tire, the rest of us went inside to get some water and look at the exhibits and such. We saw the stuffed Snow Goose I’d seen last time. But this time it was hanging from the ceiling in a reasonably realistic-looking flight pose. Which was better than the last time we saw it.

When it was all over, we’d had a nice ride, even though it never really did warm up.

55 miles.
cycling

Years ago, I started a collection of ‘farewell pages’ from dead dot-coms. At first it was great fun, collecting shots of Kozmo.com, Firedup.com, and of course, the big fish, Webvan.com.

You don’t hear much about things like this any more, but they’re still going belly-up. Just this evening, I did a search and found a bunch more for my dead dot-com gallery. I have 427 entries now.

And it’s always fun to have a look down Internet Memory Lane.

Route to Griffith Observatory
Route back from Griffith Park

Today’s ride was a new variation on the route over Mt Hollywood. In the past, we’ve done it from north to south, but today we went the other way. This was largely so we could stop for bagels at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake. We had 12 people on the ride today, which is a fairly big group for us.

We rode down through South Pasadena to Highland Park. And our first sightseeing stop was to see Chicken Boy. Truly a cultural landmark.

Continuing down Figueroa, we crossed the L.A. River and got on Riverside Dr. We took a short side trip on Oros St. to see the tiniest house in Los Angeles.

When we turned on Fletcher to head over to Griffith Park, we came to a roadblock. It was the City of Angels Half Marathon. Who knew? Fortunately, the people at the barricades were very nice, and they let us ride through as long as we stayed out of the way of the runners.

At Hillhurst, we turned north and started up the hill. We rode past the Greek Theater and up to Griffith Observatory. The climb up to the observatory is reasonably steep, and Om set a pace where I had to really work hard to keep up. We regrouped at the top and I took a souvenir picture of the group there. Then we headed down the other side to Mt Hollywood Drive.

The road over Mt Hollywood has been closed to cars for years. So it’s nice and quiet for riding, but the road surface is sometimes pretty bad. Still, it’s a nice ride up to the top. The road was closed to bikes for several months after the recent fires, and it was only recently reopened. On the way up, we saw that the fire had come very close to the road in some places.

We regrouped again at the top before doing the winding downhill into the Valley. I stopped a couple of times to take some ‘action shots’ of riders rounding the turns. When we got to the bottom, we headed off to Priscilla’s.

Sadly, the outdoor tables at Priscilla’s are pretty much all on the north side of the building. The shade is nice in the summer, but it’s cold sitting outside in winter. We had our bagels and such, and then we headed for home.

We took the mid-route home, taking Glenoaks to Chevy Chase, and then up to Linda Vista to go over one more hill. Then down Lida to the Rose Bowl. From there, we went down to Orange Grove and headed straight back to the park.

It was a pretty fun ride, and we got to see Chicken Boy.

45 miles.
cycling

Today’s club ride was the “Crown City Trainer“, which is a nice little route that goes up and down and all around the hills just west of the Rose Bowl. It was a chilly morning, but the rain stopped, and we were all ready to ride.

Starting out from Story Park in Alhambra, we headed west, and then turned north into South Pasadena. We climbed up the hill to the water tower. Then, it was the steep downhill back to Monterey Road.

Next, we headed down into the arroyo and turned south into Highland Park. We looped around to go back north on Ave 66, which led us into Easy St.

We did one totally gratuitous hill on Romney St. This hill is completely optional, since there is a street that goes around it. But we all did it anyway. But it’s steeper and harder going the other direction.

Crossing the San Rafael Hills, we crossed the 210 freeway and headed up Patrician Way. This is a nice climb. It’s only steep at the beginning, and it’s broken up with some flat stretches along the way. We regrouped at the top, and then enjoyed the downhill side, complete with several hairpin turns. Going down that hill always reminds me of the race I rode in Pittsburgh back in 1977.

At the bottom, we rode north just a little bit on Linda Vista, before turning up Inverness to climb back up the hill again. This is a nice long climb, and it gets steeper near the top. We regrouped again at the top, but we didn’t want to stay there long, because it was kind of cold and windy there.

Coming back down the hill, we headed back into Pasadena to our snack stop at the Corner Bakery on Lake Ave. We found a table in the sun and enjoyed the warmth.

It didn’t really warm up like we all thought it would. But even though we were all cold, it was still a fun time.

40 miles.
cycling