Stan’s Obligatory Blog

7/19/2006

Lida at Lunchtime, yet again

Filed under: — stan @ 6:04 pm

Today’s ride was a solo effort. I’d forgotten that Vikki was going on vacation, or “on holiday”, as she says in her Canadian parlance. But it was a nice day, so I went anyway.

Leaving campus, I saw a car with a couple of “Wizard of Oz” murals painted on it. “Don’t make me get my flying monkeys!” Then I rode through Old Town and past the Rose Bowl to the hill on Lida.

On the way up Lida, I saw a makeshift memorial on the side of the road for “Blue Boy”, which I gathered was someone’s bike, destroyed in a collision with a car. I guess that means that his owner wasn’t too seriously hurt, which is a good thing.

At the top of the hill, I saw another “Lost Pet” sign. This time it was for a desert tortise. Last week it was a lost snake. There are people who think that lost dogs and cats can predict earthquakes. So what could a rash of lost pet reptiles foretell? Global warming?

Heading down the hill, I made the loop back into Pasadena. I took Ventura across to Fair Oaks and then took a small side trip to Mountain View Cemetery. I’d read recently that this cemetery is used a lot for filming, and apparently today was no exception. There were two separate productions going on there. I rode past both of them to find the grave of Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Caltech. When I was a physics major in college, Feynman was a legend. Reading his book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman was entertaining, inspirational, and it also taught me how to pick locks. Truly a lasting legacy.

Leaving the cemetery, I rode the rest of the way across Pasadena and then down the long hill back to the office. When I got there, I took a Myspace-style portrait in the reflective glass of the back door.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

7/16/2006

Glendale bike ride

Filed under: — stan @ 2:33 pm

Today’s bike ride was a route that Gene selected because it goes on a lot of tree-lined streets. The idea was that the route would have lots of shade. It was already hot at 8:00 in the morning, so we were glad for the choice.

We rode across Pasadena and up into La Cañada. Then we went down Hospital Hill in to Glendale. That was where I saw the “Lots of Pets” car. My first thought was to wonder if they had gotten permission from Mattel for the logo, which was a takeoff on “Hot Wheels”, but the Supreme Court decided that parody is a protected form of free speech, so maybe it’s not a problem.

At the bottom of the hill, we turned and took Mountain and Kenneth across Glendale. We stopped at Paradise Bakery. I had my usual two chocolate eclairs and a quart of water.

After the stop, we headed into Griffith Park and rode through the park down to Fletcher, where we turned and started back home. Some guy without a helmet joined up with us for a bit on Riverside before we turned off. Then we headed back through Atwater Village to Eagle Rock.

We rode across Eagle Rock and into South Pasadena. Then we went north into San Marino and back into Pasadena. And then, POW!!! Doug’s back tire blew out. I immediately whipped out my camera and took a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. Since he was almost home, he said we should just go on. So I rode out to Arcadia with Newton and then came home by way of Sierra Madre.

50 miles.
cycling

7/13/2006

Lida at lunchtime, again

Filed under: — stan @ 9:41 pm

Today at lunchtime I went riding again with Vikki. She’s training for Ironman Canada in August, and she ran something like 14 miles in the morning, so today’s ride was a little slower than usual. But it was still a fun time.

We did the same Lida Loop we’ve done several times before. This time we saw some filming going on in Old Town. Then we rode past the Rose Bowl and up the hill into Glendale. Then we rode down into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena.

We usually go down Holliston to get back to the office, but today Vikki suggested a side trip. She had been reading American Bungalow in the dentist’s waiting room, and they had an article about Reinway Court, which is off Los Robles in Pasadena. So we went to see it.

It’s a little bungalow complex. Many little houses that look like they are from the 1920s or so, all on a fairly large lot. Apparently, the family that owns it has had it for many years, and they are restoring all of the units, and they are going to be for rent. It was interesting to see.

The last part of the ride was down Green St and back to the office. It was a nice ride. On the way home after work, I saw a sign pleading for the return of a lost pet snake. And then I saw that a house down the street from mine is for sale again. This is the house where they filmed a scene for the new “Nancy Drew” movie. It sold a few years ago for something like $600,000. But the real estate market here in L.A. has slowed down a lot since then. My guess is they won’t be able to get that for it today. But we will see.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

7/9/2006

Mercury in retrograde…

Filed under: — stan @ 5:37 pm

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a sightseeing trip to see two castles in the Hollywood Hills.

We started out on Paloma, and we hadn’t gone more than a few blocks when Michael had to stop. His pedal was coming off. I had a look at it, and it appeared that the last mechanic who worked on it had cross-threaded it. The crank threads were stripped out, and it was a total loss. So he pulled out his phone to call home for help, while the rest of us continued on.

The church in Eagle Rock didn’t have a witty sign up today. Just a hand-lettered paper saying that the sign was being rebuilt. Maybe they need to use the Church Sign Generator.

When we started up the little hill on St. George, Matt and Newton blasted by me. I got out of the saddle to chase them and PANG!!! It was a tremendous spoke-breaking noise. But when I looked down, my wheel wasn’t wobbling too badly. So I rode up the hill and we found a shady spot to stop and have a look. I’d broken two spokes, right next to each other. So that explained why the wheel was still mostly straight, but just hopping a little. There really was nothing to do but go on.

We turned off Franklin and headed up the hill. The streets up there are narrow and rough. But they are also very quiet. We rode up Hollyridge to the first castle. On the way up, we passed another house with a castle-like stone wall in front. But it wasn’t the real castle. When we reached the real castle, it was quite obvious.

From there, we rode down into the canyon below the Hollywood sign. Then we rode up the other side, coming out at the top of the ridge by Wolf’s Lair Castle. I took a couple of pictures there before we saw Gene walking up the street, holding his broken chain like a dead snake. We were all astounded by this, since we’d had a very bad run of mechanical problems today. Doug mentioned that someone he knows always says that when Mercury is in retrograde, it’s bad for mechanical things. Not that any of us believes in astrology, but that’s about as good an explanation as any for what happened.

Someone had a chain tool, and Gene had a quick-fix link, so they pieced it back together. While they were doing that, a very attractive young woman on a bike stopped to chat for a few minutes. She said that she lives close by there in the hills. Sadly, that probably means she won’t ever come out to Pasadena to ride with us.

When the chain was fixed, we started out again, heading toward the Hollywood sign. When we got to the junction at Mulholland, we’d lost most of the group. I rode part way back and didn’t find them. So I pulled out my phone and called Newton. He said that Gene’s chain had broken again and that they were still back at Wolf’s Lair. So they ended up having to take several links out of the chain to get it to go back together.

While we were waiting for them, Doug and I rode the short distance up Mulholland to get a close-up view of the Hollywood Sign. Then when we were re-grouped, we headed down the hill to Lake Hollywood. From there, we rode up one more steep hill and then down to Barham for the long downhill into Burbank. When we got there, we stopped at Priscilla’s for snacks.

On the way down the last hill, I had noticed that my handlebar tape was unraveling. I had lost my handlebar plug, so the tape was coming undone and flapping in the wind. Is there no end to the torment? I ended up stuffing it with a paper napkin for the ride home.

After the stop, we headed back home by the most direct route possible. Being on gimpy bikes tends not to encourage taking the Long Way Home. Fortunately, we managed to make it back to Pasadena without further incident.

43 miles, one stripped pedal, two broken spokes, one broken chain, and unraveling handlebar tape.
cycling

7/5/2006

Lunchtime bike ride

Filed under: — stan @ 8:23 pm

Today’s ride was an easy, flat one. We rode east through Arcadia and Temple City, and then north to Sierra Madre.

The only picture I took was of a half-finished topiary rocking horse on Grand View in Sierra Madre.

From there, we came back into Pasadena on Sierra Madre Blvd, and then back to the office. It was a bit cooler today than it’s been lately. Still hot, but not like the last week.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

7/2/2006

Glendora and back

Filed under: — stan @ 1:01 pm

Today’s ride was out to Glendora, with a stop at a new coffee shop there.

We started out with a big group. Probably the biggest to come on the ride in a long time. We headed east on Longden into Live Oak and on into Arrow Highway.

At the entrance to Santa Fe Dam there was a long line of cars waiting to get into the park. None of us knew what was going on there, but whatever it was, it must be good to get that many people coming out on such a hot day.

When we got to It’s a Grind, we took three of the outside tables and dragged them over into the shade. It was only about 10:00, but it was already hot. I had a large orange juice. It was fresh-squeezed and quite good.

After the stop, we headed up Barranca to Sierra Madre. There used to be a big plant nursury up there, but it’s gone now. In its place we could see the beginnings of yet another much-needed suburban housing development. The sign said “Coming Summer 2006″. Considering that they haven’t even gotten the roads in yet, I think they’re not going to make that deadline. Even if they have the help of Sukut (”Moving Earth to Award-Winning Levels”).

Coming down into Azusa, we got on the bike path briefly to cross the river into Duarte. Then we headed west, passing by the ‘Nun Crossing‘ sign and into Monrovia. From there, we basically went straight home across Arcadia and Sierra Madre.

When we got back to the park, I had 37 miles, and it wasn’t even 11:00. So I followed Jon home to South Pasadena. We paused briefly at a new plus-size store on Colorado. I’d never seen plus-size mannequins before. Then we rode south into San Marino and then took Monterey in to South Pasadena. After Jon turned off, I continued on Monterey Road out to Arroyo and then back by way of Holly St and Orange Grove.

By the time I got home, it was very hot. But it was a nice ride.

51 miles.
cycling

6/29/2006

Lida at Lunchtime (Again)

Filed under: — stan @ 10:32 pm

Today’s ride was the Lida Loop. If you want to see the route map, have a look at the one from last time. You can see the locations of today’s photos here.

There were a few amusing sights this time. When we were going up the hill by the Rose Bowl, there was a fire crew working in the brush. Nearby there was an artist painting in the shade. And there was a film crew working at a house at the top of the hill.

When we crested the big hill on Lida, we saw a garbage truck with a big public-service ad written in Armenian. That was an odd sight, but sadly I was not quick enough to get a picture of it. Then when we rode down into La Cañada we stopped to admire the plastic cows gracing the lawn of one of the houses.

The last part of the ride was two miles downhill back to campus, which was nice, since it was pretty hot.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

6/24/2006

Leisurely Saturday Morning Ride

Filed under: — stan @ 10:49 pm

Since I can’t go riding tomorrow, I went on the Saturday club ride today.

I met Gene down by the freeway and we rode down to Temple City to the park where the ride started.

The route was a odd thing. It went this way and that way, doubling back on itself. “Noodling around”. Most of it was flat, but there was one pretty steep hill thrown in for no apparent reason. After that hill, Gene and John and I were ahead of the rest of the group, so we took a ‘longcut’ and went up another steep hill. That was where we saw the deer. A doe and two fawns.

After the ‘longcut’ hill, John said that he knew of another one right nearby that was an even longer hill, so of course we had to go do it. On the way up, we got a good view of the smog. We were also wondering why there was an electric fence along the side of the road. Then we saw the sign for the goat grazing brush control. But there were no goats in sight. Maybe they were on a coffee break.

After all the hills, we stopped at T-Burger in Monrovia. We sat around and socialized for a bit before continuing on. We rode out to Duarte and then down the Santa Fe Dam bike path. We took that all the way to Lower Azusa Road. From there we took the standard route back up Peck Road and back across Arcadia.

I’d thought that the ride would work out to about 40-45 miles, but when I got home, I had 57. So it was a bit more than I’d planned. But it was still fun.

57 miles.
cycling

6/22/2006

Bicycle racing as economic metaphor

Filed under: — stan @ 12:48 pm

I’m not sure what this is doing in CNN Money, but they have an article about bicycle racing, and in particular, an explanation of life in a racing peleton in economic terms. It’s very amusing and also very true-to-life:

money.cnn.com/2006/05/26/magazines/fortune/peloton_greatteams_fortune_0612/index.htm

And a tip of the cycling helmet to Laura Lemay for the pointer to this.

6/21/2006

Noodle Lunch

Filed under: — stan @ 10:23 pm

Route map

Today’s lunchtime ride was just a noodling-around-going-nowhere-in-particular ride.

Vikki and I started out from the office and headed east across the Caltech campus to San Pasqual. We took that to Madre and then went south to California and took that until it turned south and turned into Sunset. Then we went left on Camino Real.

Continuing on east on Camino Real, we rode to Second Avenue, where we went north. We took that all the way up past Foothill and then went west a bit to get on Highland Oaks. We took that all the way up to Grand View, which was a big climb when I first did it, but this time it was just a little hill. Anyway, we took a left there and rode that all the way to Michillinda.

Going down the hill on Michillinda, we went right at Sierra Madre and rode down past Pasadena High to Paloma, where we went right. We took that west a bit to Sinaloa and from there it was my standard route to work, which was fitting, since we were going back to work. Since this was just a ride for the sake of riding, I didn’t take any sightseeing pictures, but it was still fun.

18 miles at lunch, 23 for the day.
And no flat tires this time.

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