Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike club ride was a sightseeing ride to go see Marvin Gaye and Hattie McDaniel’s houses. The route was pretty straightforward, aside from one misstep when we came to a dead end at Pico Blvd. The map did not indicate that the street was fenced off, and even when streets are closed off like that, we usually can get through on the sidewalk.
But Wilton Pl at Pico was totally closed off. But we managed to go around, and we were able to find Marvin Gaye’s house. From there, just a short distance south we found Hattie McDaniel’s house. Then we rode back toward downtown on Adams. This was the first time we’ve ever taken that part of Adams in that direction, and it got mixed reviews.

We took Figueroa back up into downtown, and then through the 2nd St tunnel. The city put in a protected bike lane in the tunnel, so it wasn’t bad to ride. This is only the second time we’ve gone through the tunnel, and the first was during a CicLAvia when the street was closed to traffic.

We stopped for drinks and snacks at Chimney Coffee outside of downtown, and then headed home. It was a pleasant ride.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

It’s Black History Month, so that led us to the theme for today’s bike club ride. Some years ago, I’d read an article about Biddy Mason, who had a really remarkable life story. Today’s bike ride was a visit to her grave at Evergreen Cemetery in East L.A., and then into downtown to see the memorial to her in the alley behind the buildings on Spring Street that stand on the property she owned back in the 1800s.

After that, we rode around and into Echo Park to see if the new Canyon Coffee location was open yet. It wasn’t, so we went a few blocks up the street to Valerie Confections. It had turned into a very nice day by then.

All told, it was a nice day and a nice ride.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

Last week, I saw an item on the news about a guy in La Mirada who decorated his house as the Griswold house in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation“. And of course, I immediately thought, “I know where we’re going this Sunday…”

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/12/07/la-mirada-says-it-wont-fine-national-lampoon-house/

As it turns out, La Mirada is pretty far away from Pasadena, but I figured out a route to get there, as directly as I could make it. So we set out to do the ride.

The first part was very familiar, until we got to the part where we went south from Whittier. Some of the streets were pretty big ones, but they turned out not to be bad for riding. And after a few miles, we made it to La Mirada. When we got there, we saw the house immediately. It was impressive. The guy was there, so he talked to us a bit about how he did it. The whole display was very elaborate, complete with two cars and the beat-up RV. We have no idea where he keeps all that stuff the rest of the year.

The route back was almost identical to the route there. I made it slightly different just to have some different scenery on the way back When we got to Whittier, we stopped at Mimo’s in Uptown Whittier. Then from there, it was just a straight and familiar ride home.

49 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

Today was the first CicLAvia in a very long time, so today’s bike ride was a trip into the city to ride it. The route went from Boyle Heights out to MacArthur Park, so we padded it out a bit on the ride over. We took the route through Rosemead and East L.A. to get to the start. Then we followed the route through downtown out to Westlake before turning around and following it back up to the end in Chinatown. Then we turned off and went for drinks at Chimney Coffee outside of downtown. From there, we ride home by way of Highland Park, passing by the two giant dragonflies on Ave 52.

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

Today’s ride was out to Sun Valley to see the Pink Motel. This is an odd little thing that’s listed by the L.A. Conservancy as a historical oddity.

The ride out was complicated by the fact that today turned out to be the Pasadena Marathon, and so some of the streets were blocked off, and we had to take a detour that involved going up and down some fairly big hills. But in the end, we made it out there all right. And yes, it’s pink. After that, we rode through the equestrian neighborhood in Shadow Hills to get to Tujunga and the Back Door Bakery. We had some snacks and drinks and then headed home.

Along the way, my bike went gimpy, first by refusing to shift the the big chainring. That was odd. And a bit later, it started to feel like one of my cleats was coming loose. I checked them, but they were all right. But then, just about 1/4 mile later, I noticed that the left crank arm on my bike was coming loose. That explained everything, aside from why such a thing would be happening. Fortunately, Michael had a tool with an 8mm allen wrench, so I was able to tighten it back up, and made it the rest of the way home.

48 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

I recently figured out how to access the Huell Howser Archives at Chapman University, and I’ve been watching a lot of his old shows. And one of them was an episode of “Visiting” from 1997 where he visited Angelus Rosedale Cemetery to learn about some of the history there. It’s a very old cemetery by Los Angeles standards. We’ve visited here before, to see Dooley Wilson, and also to see the two pyramid crypts there.

So today’s bike club ride was a visit to Angelus Rosedale to see some of the graves Huell Howser had talked about in his show. We rode downtown by our standard route, and then just a bit west to get to Washington and Normandie and the cemetery. We made a loop around, based on information from findagrave.com. Finding Hattie McDaniel and Dooley Wilson was fairly easy. But Tod Browning turned out to be in the small mausoleum, and I wasn’t able to find him until I did a search and found a photo of his niche and its surroundings. Caroline Severance was relatively easy, with a fairly large vertical stone. We had a lot more trouble finding Anna Wong and Maria Rasputin, which in the end turned out to been because the map I had was outdated, and one of the roads on the map had been taken out and used as space for more graves. But in the end, we found them all.

All of this turned out to have taken a fair amount of time, so we decided to forego the usual snack and drink stop, and we just headed home from there. It was getting very hot, so we figured that was the prudent course of action.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

I don’t always go on the Foothill Saturday rides, but I generally make a point of going when they’re doing one of my routes. And since today is in fact September 11, it seemed appropriate to do the ride that visits two 9/11 memorials in the Los Angeles area.

The first is in Rosemead, and it’s one I found through Roadside Americal. It’s thousands of little stainless steel doves, one for each person who died in the attacks, all welded together to form pair of hands, holding a bent steel girder from the World Trade Center towers. It’s simple and elegant.

From there, we rode west into the city, going through East L.A. and downtown, and then up through Echo Park to get to just outside Dodger Stadium, which is where the fire department training center is. The gates there are usually locked on weekends, but they had them open today, and there were some firefighters there to answer questions about the memorial there. It’s a part of the steel exterior structure of the lobby level of the South Tower.

After that, we rode through Chinatown and stopped for drinks and snacks at Chimney Coffee.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This is the bike club ride from August 29, 2021.

I’d read recently that the city of Los Angeles had bought and was refurbishing the house that Walt and Roy Disney lived in when they first moved here from Missouri.

So, of course I said, “I know where we’re riding this Sunday.”

The house is in the Los Feliz area, and we’ve never been down that street, despite riding by a block away countless times over the years.

When we got near the house, we took a short side trip to see the “Snow White cottages”. The story is that Walt brought his animators over there to see those houses, and he told them that the house in “Snow White” should look that them. Then we headed over into Los Feliz to see the actual house. It’s a pretty typical house for the neighborhood, but now it’s special. And just a block or so down the same street is the building where Walt set up his first studio.

From there, we rode back into Griffith Park and then up to Burbank. We went down Alameda to see the giant imposing gate that is now the face of the corporate behemoth that Disney has become. They’ve planted trees that have grown quite large, so it’s difficult to see the main building with the Seven Dwarfs holding up the roof.

Anyway, no matter how you slice it, it’s an amazing success story. And a little piece of what makes living in Los Angeles tremendously entertaining.

42 miles.
Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride is one we haven’t done since 2014. In the Palms section of west L.A., there is an apartment building called “Crapi Apartments”. It’s a real place. The first time I saw a photo of it, I thought it was a Photoshop gag, but it’s real. So we went to see it today. It was a relatively long ride for us, but it’s quite flat. The day started out cold-ish. It was cold enough that when I saw a shopping bag full of takeout container trash, I tore one side off the bag and stuffed under my jersey. And then I wasn’t cold any more. And by the time we were headed home, it was pretty warm, so it was a good day for riding.

52 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride is one we haven’t done in several years. It’s a visit to Orion Ave in Van Nuys, also known as the “Leave it to Beaver” street, and it’s reputed to be the most-filmed street in Los Angeles.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3DLxGQVv_0

53 miles.

Route map and elevation profile