And sometimes he rides it!
A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that somewhere during my travels I hit the front fork of my bike against something hard enough to knock off a big chunk of paint. I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to fix it properly right away, so I did a quick temporary patch. Today, I redid it (mostly) right. Check out old & busted vs. new hotness:
I rode my river loop again. The Riverside/134 end of the path is under construction, and it’s been sort-of blocked off for a while. It used to be blocked with a six foot high plastic fence, which meant you had to lift your bike over the side rail and walk on the slanted cement sides of the river. That was torn down – by cyclists, I’m sure- pretty quickly. THey replaced it with this more durable concrete street barricade:
I like it. It’s a lot easier to lift my bike over.
When I got to the other end of the path, I chatted with a guy who told me the other side of the river was also open and you could ride all the way down the river. I said “Is it paved?” He said it was.
It was not.
But there is a pretty nice view of the river on that side.
I had just gone over the Baum Bicycle Bridge when I saw two bike cops going the other way. That’s not terribly common, but not particularly weird… until I realized that they were just the advance guard for two people slowly pedaling by on recumbent bikes, who were then followed by another FIVE bike cops.
That’s a total of seven cops protecting two people I did not recognize. That’s about five more cops than I’ve seen in three years of riding the river bike path. Probably not the most effective distribution of bike police, especially considering that a couple of people got shot on the bike path in Frogtown a few days ago.
You might think that people getting shot on the path would make me a little leery of using it, but it still feel safer than riding down most major streets.
This is Mister Bike. I got him in April. Mister Bike is a Fuji Touring Bike, and we went a lot of places for a few months, culminating with a 100 mile ride to Santa Barbara on my 50th birthday in June.
Then I sort of neglected him. First it was “I’m going to take a break for a few days.” Then it was “Man, it got hot.” Then “I’m sick.” Then hot again, and then laziness and inertia took over. And that’s sad, because I love Mister Bike. So it’s time to get re-acquainted.
Tonight I did my favorite local ride. It’s a roughly 25 mile loop that takes me past Warner Brothers and down the L.A. River bike path to Frogtown. Yeah, I know it’s officially “Elysian Valley,” but wouldn’t you rather live in Frogtown?
Plus, the end of the ride has a mural with frog people!
