Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Last fall, we did a ride to go see some of the installations of the “Word on the Street” art project. At the time, not all of the signs had been installed. So today, we did another ride to go see some of the signs that have been installed since then.

The first part of the ride took us down to the L.A. River, and then up through Griffith Park, ultimately to end up at Groundwork Coffee in the old Pacific Electric depot in North Hollywood. There was another big bike riding group there, as well as the usual assortment of people with their dogs.

After snacks and drinks, we started back. We stopped at the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk, as well as in two small parks in Glendale to see the street signs. Then we came home by way of going up and over Chevy Chase and Linda Vista.

47 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

For years, I’ve noticed that there’s a giant shopping center next to the 5 freeway in Burbank, and it has big cutout models of famous Lockheed airplanes on top of the signs. I recently found out that that land was the site of the main Lockheed airplane factory, so I wanted to go see it, just to appreciate just how enormous it was.

Along the way, we took a short detour to see the F-104-on-a-stick in the park in Burbank. That was one of the planes built in the old Lockheed factory. Then we took the short ride down Empire Ave to the site of the former factory. It’s a huge piece of land. I’ve seen pictures of lines of B-17 bombers being built inside there during the war.

After that, we headed west, passing by Burbank Airport and the airplane topiary at the entrance. The new topiary is jasmine, and it was blooming. An airplane covered in flowers looks a bit odd, but it smelled nice. On the way down Clybourn Ave, we saw that it looks like the kiddie-ride boneyard has been cleaned out. No more killer clowns, I guess.

The route home went down the L.A. River bike path. When we got there, we found out it was closed from the end near the zoo all the way to Los Feliz. So we ended up riding through Griffith Park to get to where we could start on the path again. Apparently, they’re building some sort of bridge to connect the bike path to Atwater Village on the other side of the river.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Last Friday, I went out to West Hollywood to see the Daily Show’s Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library, and I thought it was funny enough that it was our destination for the Sunday bike ride today.

The route was nearly identical to the route we took when we went to see the places that are “Instagrammed to death.” When we got there, there was already a line of people waiting to go in, so I guess word gets around. After that, we went for bagels at Noah’s in Larchmont, and then home by way of downtown L.A. All told, it was about 46 miles.

Today’s bike club ride was another visit to Glendora to peek in on Rubel’s Castle. As it turned out, there was a group there about to take a tour given by the Glendora Historical Society, so we got to talk to them for a bit about the castle. So that was entertaining. Then we rode back down the hill for snacks at Classic Coffee before heading home.

39 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

It’s been a few months since we visited the giant shiny new pot shop in Maywood, and I’ve gotten some requests to go see that again. So that’s what we did today.

On the way into downtown, I stopped to take a few pictures of the warehouse-turned-gallery where the “Beyond the Streets” art show is being held. I’ve heard good things about it.

When we got to Maywood, the security guards at the pot shop remembered us from when we’d visited back in January. I guess they don’t get a lot of bike clubs visiting.

Heading back into downtown, we went out 7th St, and then up Bonnie Brae to Echo Park. And when we got there, we found out that Chango Coffee was no more. So we went a few blocks up the street to another hipster coffee shop and bakery. It was pretty good, but we really did like Chango.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was our regular route to Whittier, but this time with a short side trip to see a giant suspended teapot fountain outside an Asian shopping center in Temple City. When we started out, it was kind of misting and damp, but thankfully, that stopped once we got a few miles away from the mountains. We also discovered two new topiaries in front of a preschool in Temple City. And finally, we did the photo-op with Jen at Dork St in Pico Rivera. So all around, it was a fun little ride.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was the Ciclavia “Heart of the Foothills”. This was the first time that there was an official Ciclavia event inland. The route went from San Dimas to Claremont. When we ride to Claremont, it’s about a 58 mile round trip, which is a bit beyond our normal 40-45 for a Sunday ride. So the plan for today was to start by taking Metro to the end of the line in Azusa. From there, we rode to San Dimas, where we picked up the Ciclavia route. We rode the route out to Claremont and back. We didn’t stop in Claremont, since we wanted to get back before it got too crowded.

Back in San Dimas, we stopped for snacks at the Bagelry. Then we rode back to Pasadena. This made a total of 44 miles riding. When we first got off the train in Azusa, I forgot to turn on my GPS thingy, so it missed the first few miles. And it also didn’t count the initial two miles from the park where we start to the Metro station at Allen.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Yesterday, I was at the Aon building stair climb. While we were there, there was a crew setting up for shooting a scene for Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” on Wilshire Blvd. They had lots of fake rocks and fake broken chunks of pavement, as well as a couple of fire cars, like the ones we saw in Griffith Park once that turned out to be for an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”. The setup crew said they were going to be working all day to set the scene, and the actual filming would be done of Sunday morning, so that was our sightseeing destination for today.

We got an early start today, so we made it downtown in time to see the 8:46 Metrolink train to Lancaster go by. If we see that train, that means we made good time getting downtown.

When we got down to Wilshire, it was pretty obvious that this shoot was a Big Deal. There were a lot more prop cars, and hordes of extras in business suits with dirt smeared on their faces milling about. We even saw Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson there. Apparently, her super power is the ability to create earthquakes, which Jen and I thought was pretty funny, since that meant her character had the power to make us have to go into work.

After gawking at the shoot for a few minutes, we continued on our way. We made a loop out and back through Hancock Park. Then up Benton Way through Silver Lake and then to the L.A. River bike path. We stopped for snacks at Spoke. Then we headed home by way of the Arroyo Seco bike path.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a trip to Chinatown in Los Angeles to see the bronze statue of Bruce Lee there.

We rode out across Eagle Rock and Glendale, and then down the L.A. River bike path. Then through Elysian Park to get to Chango Coffee in Echo Park. I’d remembered this time to check the Dodgers schedule to be sure there was not a game today, since that park gets pretty crowded on game days. We had snacks at Chango before taking Bonnie Brae St down to 7th St. This was novel, since we ride Bonnie Brae fairly often, but this was the first time we ever did it in this direction. It looked like a whole new street. We noticed The Bonnie Brae House for the first time today. We were wondering what was special about it.

Just before we got to 7th St, we passed 666 Bonnie Brae. The police and fire department were there in force today, for reasons that were not entirely clear. Then we turned on 7th and rode back in to downtown L.A. Then up Figueroa St to Chinatown. There, we went to see the Peephole Cinema, and then across Hill St to the Bruce Lee statue.

The route home was back up Huntington Drive, which is another route we do frequently, but not in that direction.

40 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This week I was a bit short on inspiration of things to go see, so we took a trip to Hollywood to see just a small random selection of items that we hadn’t gone to see before. Also, I’d been sick the previous week, so I wanted to do something a little on the easy side. And according to my logs, we hadn’t ridden out that direction in a while. The two bits of sightseeing on the route were RuPaul’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the mural of silent movie stars underneath the Hollywood Freeway on Argyle Ave.

We rode through downtown Los Angeles, and then up through Hancock Park to get to Hollywood. When we got there, we found RuPaul’s star on Hollywood Boulevard. It was right in front of a storefront that was completely dedicated to advertising RuPaul’s Drag Con. Seemed appropriate. Then we headed across Hollywood on Selma Ave. We had to carefully pick our way through the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. Then we found the mural under the freeway, It’s right across from Castle Argyle. Both of those made brief appearances in “La La Land“.

We stopped for snacks at Spoke. And then headed up Figueroa St to go home. In South Pasadena, I bailed out and took Metro back, just because I was still getting over being sick last week.

38 miles, including the ride home from the Metro station.

Route map and elevation profile