Bicycle Fixation Weblog
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04/22/2012: "Earth Day Ride"
The day dawned cool and gray and pretty much stayed that way for me on my Earth Day Ride, as I never strayed too far from the coast. Bicycle Fixation HQ is in the Miracle Mile, about twelve miles from the sea; from there, I pedaled over to Crenshaw Boulevard and headed south.
On the way to Crenshaw, I rode the new Expo Line bike lanes, which are a bit narrow but do have the advantage of actually existing. Even saw a couple of cyclists zipping through the mists, as well as a train (non-revenue; they're still testing the tracks and signals).
Then it was south almost the full length of Crenshaw, once a center of LA's Black community but now quite the melting pot, with Koreans in the north, Black folk in the middle, Vietnamese and White folk in the far south, and a fair bit of mingling of Black, Brown, and White all along its length.
Said mingling did not continue once I crossed PCH and rode up to Rolling Hills Estates, land of horse barns and five-Range-Rover families. Climbing into the drifting mists and ecupalyptus groves gave me a good little workout, and on the way out--after I'd passed the numerous "All Bicycle Laws Enforced" signs--I detoured briefly to Malaga Cove to amuse myself with the slightly audacious fountain that graces an otherwise totally whitebread upscale stripmall. A few classic references can excuse any number of hyperlactating mermaids, it seems.
Then, joy of joys!--I discovered a bike corral in Redondo Beach, and a nicely done one at that. Since I wanted coffee, I took advantage of it immediately, while swarms of roadies, who of course banish the Kryptonite from their kit, rode blithely past it. I don't doubt that had the day been other than dank and gloomy, there would have been a few more bikes locked there.
After my cuppa, I descended to the Marvin Braude bike path, the famous one that runs along the sand, and pedaled on to Redondo Beach for a walkabout, then Playa del Rey for an omelette, and finally (after a stop at the Bridge, of course) home, for a sweet, invigorating, and carfree Earth Day ride of around 50 miles. Which is little different from my non-Earth-Day Sunday rides, but...
...But any excuse will do!
