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| Date | Starting Place | Ending Place | Author | Last Update |
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| 04-22-09 |
Santa Monica, California, United States |
Long Beach, California, United States |
ray | 05-04-09 21:17:00 |
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My brother lives right next to Topanga Canyon Road. I could ride from the Valley to Highway 1 over it. It has some tough uphills, high car traffic, and some very narrow sections. I don't have the stomach for it. Instead, I asked my niece's husband, the very nice Ilian, to drive me over in this truck. As it turned out, Ilian was doing some work in my brother's yard and would be over at 10am, anyway. In the meantime, I ate breakfast, talked with my sister-in-law, walked over and bought some bananas and bagels. I also spent time both on-line and on the phone trying to arrange a meet-up with my old friend, Marko, who now lived in Santa Monica. Ilian dropped me off at Highway 1 about 10:30am.  The traffic along this stretch of Highway 1 is a bit treacherous as the shoulder is narrow and there is beach parking on the side of the road. But, the heat wave of the day before had given way to an overcast day that was quite cool, which made the riding a bit more pleasant. Here is a view looking south along the beaches of Santa Monica.  After a short ways (a mile or two), I was able to get off the highway and onto the LA Beach Bike Path, a ribbon of cement dug into the beach that goes from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes. This path allows a biker to completely avoid LA streets and to ride a loaded touring bike on the beach, an uncommon experience. Here is what the bike path looks like:  For much of its length, the bike path weaves back and forth. I assume that this is to keep people from riding too fast. The net effect is that for a fair amount of the time, you are riding into the steady off-shore wind that always seems to be blowing there. On this day, the wind was blowing quite strongly and steadily. I made it to Santa Monica and followed Marko's direction along Main Street, a very quaint street of shops and cafes just two streets over from the bike path. After some phone tag, we talked about old times over a lunch of paninis at a nearby bistro. It was great to catch up and the 2 hours we spent talking were not enough to cover the 10 year gap in our acquaintance. As I was leaving, I got Marko to hold my bike for a picture.  I continued uneventfully on the bike path down to Palos Verdes where the route climbs up and over the hills that make Palos Verdes the exclusive place that it is. The uphill is a bit of a grind but was helped by the wind now being at my back. Palos Verdes is full of wide boulevards, trees, big houses, and horse paths.  The ride through Palos Verdes on Palos Verdes Drive eventually goes through Rolling Hills Estate, another high rent district. The road is fairly busy (I was there during rush hour), has a narrow shoulder, and calls for some vigilant riding. Eventually, it goes through a commercial strip in Harbor Hills and then gets to Wilmington. Wilmington is a really bad section of road to ride a bike through. The only thing I've seen like it is the set of Blade Runner, a dystopic Ridley Scott movie. The views are uber-industrial, the roads are compromised by all the heavy equipment, and it seems like no one wants to be outside. It felt like the most dangerous thing to do was take a deep breath! I can't do the 5 miles of Wilmington and North Long Beach fast enough. The route enters Long Beach proper by crossing over the cement-lined Los Angeles River and the 710 freeway. Since I had been taking pictures of rivers and streams the whole way down the coast, it seemed appropriate to do the same for this river.  The ride through Long Beach, my old stomping grounds, is always nostalgic. I stopped at the site of my parent's liquor store, which is now a parking lot, and ate a bagel for old time's sake. There is a bike path that runs along the beach and away from street traffic. I took it near Belmont Shores where I made my way to John and Becky's house. They were both home and sat around and talked for a while. We went to dinner at a restaurant that I used to take dates to when I was in my teens and I ate a whole pizza and a good part of a salad for three. We returned home, watched the Dodgers lose, and went to bed. |
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