JIA-CHI

The annual Los Angeles Marathon is the only time of year when 26-miles of continuous LA streets are closed off to cars - from the East to the Beach.  In recent years, an unofficial cycling race, led by Wolfpack Hustle, has taken over pre-dawn marathon course, hours before any runners have even started the race.  Police officially close off the streets to vehicles at 4:30AM.  That’s when it begins.    

I have been yearning to do the race for the past 2 years.  The first year, rain thwarted my plans.  And last year, I chauffeured my parents around who had come into town to watch my brother, Byron, run the marathon.  This year, I joined the Echo Park Bike Posse & Bodacious Bike Babes in racing from Echo Park, through Downtown LA, and west out to Santa Monica, all before sunrise.

First Street & Grand Ave. _ Downtown LA

Glendale Blvd. & Echo Park Lake _ Echo Park

The Pantages Theater _ Hollywood

The Bennetts _ Santa Monica

Venice Bike Trail _ Venice Beach

The secret garden after-party @ Nathan’s.

Surprise birthday hike in Malibu Creek State Park for good buddy, Scott Goldberg.  Haven never gone up Malibu Canyon Road, I took it as an opportunity to do a nice bike ride into the Santa Monica Mountains.  Adventure buddy Megan Costello joined me as we biked from Pepperdine University to the park.

Malibu Hindu Temple _ Calabasas.  Who knew?

Mulholland Highway & Las Virgenes Road Fruit Stand.

Not only did friends of Scott come out to surprise him, but also his family - from Kansas City.

Birthday lunch @ Cha Cha Chicken _ Santa Monica.  Happy Birthday, Scott!

Off to a great start of our camping trip to Death Valley National Park.  Our rental 8-seat Suburban wasn’t ready at Enterprise, so we ended up having a dance party in my room.  Little did the passengers know, our trip was doomed from the beginning.

Shoshone Village Campground & Hot Springs Pool.

Badwater Basin - the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level.

Golden Canyon Trail

Titus Canyon.

Leadfield _ a mining ghost town in Titus Canyon.

Mesquite Campgrounds.  Overnight, I got extreme food poisoning, most likely from the ham & cheese pita which I bought from the refrigerated section of the Furnace Creek General Store.  Never forget.  Fortunately, Katie Brooke Bennett drove me directly home from Mesquite Springs.  But not before cheering on the cycling friends.

Ubehebe Crater.

Food poisoning was a blessing in disguise.  The Suburban ended up getting 2 flat tires in Death Valley after I left.   True story.

“Boy, oh boy, do humans like to wrangle nature. We chop it, extract it from the ground, refine it, move it, dam it, shape it, smack it up, flip it, rub it down, just generally bend it to our will in every which way we can. Yeah. Do we ever.

And from this we get cities. We get food. We get transportation. We get the computers that this is message is being composed upon and will be read. We get, in short, civilization. Cool.

Yet we also get an environment that is radically altered and perhaps irreparably damaged. We get smog and “superstorms.” We get wars for oil. Blech!

This week on the ride we investigate a couple of the city’s nature stories. And because this is Los Angeles, they are both bold and uncanny, beautiful and perhaps wrong.”

Amir’s Garden _ Griffith Park.  Even Huell Howser did a tour of this hidden corner of the largest urban american park. 

Universal City Red Line Metro Stop, before heading south on Cahuenga Blvd. West.

What is moxie?  Yes, it is the official soft drink of Maine.  But it also equates to courage, determination, and a feeling of high energy.  Fitting for the annual Tweed, Moxie, & Mustache Ride, hosted by C.I.C.L.E.  I rolled out with the Echo Park Bike Posse and the Bodacious Bike Babes from the Eastside, hopped on the Red Line, and congregated at Valley Village Park in North Hollywood for a leisurely, classy stroll through the neighborhood.

Sunset / Vermont Red Line Station.

North Hollywood Red Line Station.

Chandler Boulevard.

The ride took us to SPARC’s Great Wall of Los Angeles.  At a half-mile long, it is the longest mural in the world, depicting the Los Angeles region’s vibrant history of struggle and resistance (curated by Susan Baca).

The passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in time. One or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.

STAPLES Center

With the Echo Park Bike Posse & the Bodacious Bike Babes.

Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park

Though I’ve been biking through Los Angeles for the past 3 years, I had never partook in the monthly Critical Mass.  I know, right?  Ever since my summer in San Francisco, I’ve always held a negative view of the ride, which seemed more protest, and less social.  Stories of San Francisco cyclists shattering car windows and scratching doors was not something I wanted to be a part of.  So I was a bit skeptical, but curious, when buddies from the Echo Park Bike Posse and Bodacious Bike Babes corralled a group of us to ride out on the last Friday of December.  

The ride was anything but lawless.  In fact, there was a lot of law.  The entire route, we were being herded and escorted by a squadron of police cars and motorcyclists, riding along side us and shutting down every intersection for the cyclists to pass through.  Safe, but peculiar for a ride whose ethos was rooted in activism and protest.  

Regardless, riding in a large group around the city, without having to stop at intersections, is always fun, especially in LA.

Dadaocheng Wharf to Guandu Temple along the Danshui and Keelung River Bicycle Paths.  Taipei has not only recently began to boast a vibrant bicycle culture, but also a series of lush rivers and wetlands that weave through the city.  Thus, it was no surprise to me to find that the city created numerous river bike paths and infrastructure that are for the most part connected to each other, creating a network of arterial paths that encircle the entire city.  Along the paths are major nodes, which usually feature public amenities such as a park, a playground, fishing piers, or city bike rental stands.  Dadaocheng Wharf is one of these nodes where Chris and I rented our city-owned bicycles, and headed north to Guandu Temple.  The first stretch ran along the Danshui River.

Zhoumei Expressway Overpass

A public cyclocross course!

The Keelung River Bicycle Path & Guandu Bird-Watching Bikeway.

Guandu Temple.

Overall, the bicycle path was heavily utilized not only by recreational cyclists, but also by commuter cyclists going home from work and the markets.  And not only cyclists occupied the riverpath; there were plenty of causal joggers, runners, and even fishermen.  The city infrastructure for the paths covered a lot the bases: wayfinding signage, clearly marked road paint, covered bench seating, overhead lighting, and even a cyclocross course!  Chris and I ended up biking around 20 miles round trip along the scenic and lush riverpath, all within view of the Taipei city high-rise skyline.

With a permit in hand, Wolfpack Hustle closed down the 2nd Street Tunnel in Downtown LA for drag race.  1,000 feet, sprint.  The starting line was about mid way in the tunnel, and the finish line was at the Figueroa entrance.

There were about 2,000 spectators in the bleachers.  Yes, there were bleachers in the 2nd St. Tunnel.

Don Ward!  The organizer of the event.

Byron came to visit.  We rode from Silver Lake to Golden Road Brewery along the 7-mile LA River Bike Path.  He was amazed at how lush it was.  So was I.