Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Route map and photo locations

We have a couple more weeks before the time change, so today I went riding with Vikki at lunchtime again. We did the fast-becoming-classic Lida Loop.

It was a perfect fall day today. The air was cool, the sun was warm, and it was stunningly clear. A perfect day for riding.

We rode from the office, going through Old Town to get to the Rose Bowl. Then we went up the hill on Lida. On the way up, I saw that the coyote paw that I saw last week was still there. I thought some animal or another would have taken it away to gnaw on by now.

When we got to the top, we flew down the other side into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena. The one picture I took was of the view of the mountains from the road just below JPL.

Crossing Pasadena on Mendocino, we rode to just before the Altadena Country Club. Then it was straight down the big hill back to the office.

As I said, it was a perfect day for riding.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

Route map and photo locations

Today’s Sunday club ride was a sightseeing trip to Downtown Los Angeles. I had read that they had a fake toll plaza built on 4th St as a set for “Live Free or Die Hard“. It was a kind of dreary day, with a slight misting drizzle, so there were only five of us today.

We rode down Sierra Madre and Huntington Drive to get to Downtown. On the way, I picked up another couch for the Abandoned Couches Blog. Then we took Main St into Downtown.

Crossing the 101 Freeway, we passed the old Hall of Justice. This building was ‘home away from home’ for Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson, as well as being Control Secret Headquarters in the title sequence from “Get Smart”.

We took a right on Temple and then a left on Grand to ride down through the towers on Bunker Hill. At the overpass where Grand goes over 4th St, we stopped and saw the ‘Toll Plaza’. It certainly looked real. The toll booths looked real, and they’d painted lines on the street so the whole thing looked like it had always been there.

We rode around to Hope St to get a better view. At the top of the ramp, there was a broken NYPD police barricade. The guard there told us they had filmed a stunt there yesterday. He showed us how the barricade was built of balsa wood, and it had cuts in it so that it would break in predetermined places. I got a picture of Vikki lifting it up to see how light it was.

Leaving Downtown, we rode down Grand to Wilshire. This is where we saw the street dressed up as Tokyo last winter. This time it was just plain Los Angeles.

Continuing on, we took Wilshire through MacArthur Park, passing the über-cool American Cement Association building. It’s been converted into lofts, and it’s a very dramatic building.

Turning off Wilshire on Alexandria, we rode up to 2nd St, where I picked up some more couches. Then we turned right on Larchmont and went to Noah’s Bagels for a snack.

At Melrose, we passed Paramount Studios, as well as a big sign for a burlesque show. Looks like fun. Then we took Bronson north all the way to Franklin. Then we turned right and rode over the Shakespeare Bridge to Rowena Ave.

At Fletcher and Riverside, I stopped to get a new picture of the hillside art project. Then we rode up through Eagle Rock to Yosemite Dr. I picked up one more couch there. Then we took the ‘shortcut’ up the Colorado Hill. It’s short and sweet. I actually said ‘uncle’ and shifted to a lower gear to get up the hill.

The last bit was to take Orange Grove and Paloma back to the park. At that point, I had 38 miles, so I rode out to Sierra Madre and back just to pad it a bit.

42 miles.
cycling

We had to put Buddy to sleep today. This was a very hard thing to do, since Buddy is one of the sweetest and most affectionate dogs we’ve ever known. But he’s a biter.

Buddy has been part of our family for four years. For reasons nobody can seem to remember, we’ve always been calling him “Butt-Boy”. When we first adopted him, he decided that he was Lucinda’s dog. He was always very affectionate with her, and he stayed close to her all the time. Lucinda liked to play with him and get him to jump for treats. But he was always good with her, no matter what she did to him.

About three weeks ago, he bit a workman who was in our neighbor’s yard. This was the fourth time he’s bitten someone in four years we’ve had him. We took him to training classes, we got a muzzle, we got an electric-shock training collar. Still, he just would go berserk at completely unpredictable times and bite.

So in the end, we decided that we just couldn’t live with the uncertainty and the liability of having a dog who bites. And nobody else wants to adopt a dog who bites.

Good-bye Buddy. We will miss you.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s lunchtime ride was the Lida Loop again. Vikki couldn’t go, since she is still recovering from the Furnace Creek 508 last weekend. Her team did well, though.

I left the office and took the usual route through Old Town and then down to the Rose Bowl. Then I went up the little hill on the other side to get to Lida St. On the way up the hill on Lida, I saw a paw in the road. It looked like it came from a coyote or perhaps a medium-sized dog. There was no evidence of the rest of the animal nearby.

Continuing up over the hill, I rode down Chevy Chase into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena by JPL. I saw Shannon at her house and stopped to chat for a bit. I also took a picture of her little driveway art installation.

From there, I got on Mendocino for the ride across Altadena. At one point, a little tiny dog chased me down the street. I had to outrun him, since I’d forgotten to wear my chain-mail socks today.

A little bit farther down the road I saw some filming going on. No sign of what they were filming, though.

The last part of the ride was down the big hill and back to the office. It was a very pleasant ride.

18 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

Route map and photo locations

Today is the Columbus Day holiday, which means a day off for government workers. So I went for a bike ride.

The ride was a sightseeing trip up into La Crescenta and Tujunga. In particular, I wanted to see Pine Cone Road, which figures prominently in John McPhee’s book, The Control of Nature. In the opening of the third section of the book, he describes a night of heavy rain and its resulting debris flow. The flow came down Pine Cone Road and buried the house at the bottom of the hill. But the house was no ordinary house. It had reinforced concrete walls and was nicknamed “The Fort”. It filled up with mud and rocks, but was otherwise undamaged. So I figured that this would make for a good sightseeing trip.

I rode up to La Cañada and met up with Erik. He works in my office, and so we both had the holiday off. We rode up to Rosemont and then turned up the hill.

The sides of the Crescenta Valley are pretty steep. And they get steeper up near the top. This road was no exception. We took it all the way to where it ended, and then we turned to go west a bit to La Crescenta Blvd, which then went farther up the slope. Then, at the top, we saw Lower Shields Debris Basin. A quick right turn brought us to the base of Pine Cone Road, and to “The Fort”. The house looks pretty sturdy. In the book, McPhee mentions that when the owners rebuilt, they added a second floor and put the bedrooms upstairs. And the house is still there today.

In the book, McPhee also mentions the steepness of Pine Cone Road. He says it is “steep enough to stiff a Maserati”. Needless to say, I wanted to ride up it. It was steep, but not the steepest hill I’ve ever seen. It was probably about 20-25%. Still, it was a good climb up the top. At the top was Upper Shields Debris Basin, and also a commanding view.

Coming down off the hill, we rode up into Tujunga. This was for a quick side trip to see Elliott’s house from “E.T.” This house is also at the top of steep hill.

From there, it was all downhill. We took Tujunga Canyon down to where it turns into Honolulu. Incidentally, this is also where they had a temporary internment camp for Japanese-Americans in 1941 before they were shipped off to Manzanar.

Continuing on down the hill, we went into Glendale, and then took a left on Chevy Chase to ride back up and over the hill. On the way up Chevy Chase, we saw a bobcat. This was the first time I’d ever seen one in the wild, if a suburban yard in Glendale counts as ‘the wild’. I took a couple of pictures of it to commemorate the occasion.

Continuing on Chevy Chase, we climbed the hill and headed down the other side, back into La Cañada. At the bottom, Erik headed for home, and I headed east, back into Pasadena. I took the ‘scenic route’ home, up to Mendocino and then home by way of side streets. Along the way, I came upon a hawk that had just killed a pigeon. It was standing on top of the pigeon carcass in the middle of the street. When it saw me coming, it picked up the pigeon and started to fly. It was apparently a pretty big effort to fly while carrying a dead pigeon, so the hawk just flew up into the first tree, and it just sat on a branch there. So I took a picture of it.

It was a fun ride.

43 miles.
cycling

Today we went down to San Diego to visit with Grandpa. We took the train, which is generally fairly pleasant. When we got there, we went to brunch at a restaurant right on the beach. So Lucinda got to play in the waves a bit. We also saw some seals swimming by.

We had a nice time visiting. Then, when it was time to come home, the screwup began. When we got to Grandpa’s car in the bowels of the parking garage, he thought I had the key, and I thought he had the key. But no, the key was up in his apartment. So we had to climb the stairs back to the lobby and then get the security guy to let us in to the apartment to get the keys. So we left late for the train station. On the way there, we consoled ourselve by noting that the northbound train is always late. And when we got to the station, we found out that it was in fact 9 minutes late. The problem was, we were 10 minutes late. And we got there just in time to see the red tail light on the train leaving the station.

So we went and got a little takeout dinner and waited for the next train. Naturally, it too was late. But in the end, we got home fine, and just a little worse for wear.

Today, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to the new velodrome to see the bicycle races. It was the last day of the Elite National Championships. I had heard about this because Gilby of Ugly Bike fame had qualified and was going to be there. I had taken Lucinda to see a bicycle race once before, and she had liked it. So I thought she might enjoy this event.

We got there just after noon. The first race was in progress. We watched two heats of the women’s scratch race, followed by the men’s and women’s team sprint, the keirin, and the big Madison. The races were all fun to watch. I used to race track a bit in the Old Days, but I felt especially old in that the keirin and team sprint are events that didn’t even exist when I was racing.

We got to see Gilby race twice in the keirin. The second photo is a bit blurry, but it shows her ‘race face’. As an aside, it was hard to get good pictures there. Being indoors, there wasn’t really enough light to get good action photos.

After her races were over, Gilby came up into stands and we got to visit for a bit. That was nice, even if Masi Guy never showed up.

The last two races were the Madison and the final of the women’s scratch race. The Madison is always a fun event to watch, even if it’s not always clear what’s going on. Just watching the riders doing their exchanges is always a show. I noticed that they were all doing hand throws. Back when I raced, almost nobody did that. It was considered an ‘exotic’ technique in those days.

The last race was the women’s scratch race final, and it was a good race. There were several breakaways that almost were able stay away. And the woman who won led out the sprint. Normally, the person who leads out the sprint gets passed at the end, but she was so strong that she held them all off. It was impressive.

Overall, it was a fun day.

Route map

In honor of nothing in particular, Vikki and I did a second lunchtime bike ride today. We did the same route as on Tuesday. It was a pleasant enough day, and it was a pleasant ride, except for the jerk in the blue pickup (CA license 7B21502) who harassed us on Temple City Blvd. So if you see him, he’s a jerk.

The last part of the ride was across Sierra Madre and Pasadena, back to the office. By then, we’d just about forgotten about the jerk. So it was a nice ride after all.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

Found this today. This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. And thanks to Trisha for the pointer to this:

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com

Route map

This week we did the lunchtime ride on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. The route was the flat one out to Monrovia and back.

We headed out east on San Pasqual, and then took California around the bend into Temple City Blvd. Left on Camino Real, and then left again on 5th St in Arcadia.

5th St is a nice quiet street, mainly because it doesn’t go through. It stops at the railroad tracks. But there is a little pedestrian tunnel under the tracks, so we just rode through that and continued on into Monrovia.

The last part of the ride was up the hill to Grand View and then back across Sierra Madre. There were a couple of deer on the street there, but they ran away before I could get a good picture. Then we headed down the hill and back to the office.

It was a very nice ride, and there were no killer hills this time.

19 miles at lunch, 28 for the day.
cycling