On Saturday Jed, Zack and I took the gold line out to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains where we heard tell of a 30 mile bike path that runs from the mountains all the way to the ocean.
Finding and conquering this bike path is an idea we've bandied about for a while, ever since we first heard rumour of its existence. Recently, stuck one evening waiting for a bus, I perused the Metropolitan Transit Map only to find that last stop of the gold line (Los Angeles Subway) is within biking distance of the said 30 mile path. Shortly thereafter the plan was hatched.
Back to Saturday when my brothers and I, after a late start, made our way on the gold line, finally landing in Sierra Madre Village, a mere hop, skip, and a jump from Santa Anita race track, and also, we hoped, the legendary 30 mile bike path to the ocean. By my calculations it was about two miles to the head of the bike path. Sadly, I am no Magellan; in fact, I am retarded. It was a solid ten miles before we set eyes on our quarry, which was coincidentally located at the top of a quarry.
So, with ten miles already under our belts we headed south on the path with a stiff wind in our face, and in our hearts. The mountain bike, oh so fleet and dominant on the rugged mountain trail, is not the bike of choice on a paved path with the wind in your face. We had three of them, mountain bikes that is, and only Zack's was remotely up to snuff. Sometimes you fight the fight with shiny, precision equipment, sometimes you limp into the fight with whatever you've got. We approached this daunting and relentless abundance of mileage in front of us -not in the guise of fleet gazelles, but with the lumbering consternation of wounded hippos.
We were half a mile into our intrepid journey when I noticed that the air in my front tire was quicky bailing out. Thorns. Two of them. Damn, but no biggy. I was trained by the great Bryan Tabler, so repairing a flat is nothing more than a momentary trifle. Five minutes at best. Unless the patch kit I'm using was made before they invented rubber cement, or the cement is so old that it's completely dried up.
There we were, stuck in a desolate wasteland without rubber cement, no progress possible, my brothers already questioning my leadership for the surprise ten mile jaunt to the thirty mile bike path, which would henceforth be referred to as, "the ride to the ride". Our only chance: flag down a real cyclist with precision equipment, and hopefully he would have a patch kit containing the requisite rubber cement.
The only problem with our plan was, besides finding ourselves in the middle of noplace, where cyclists were few and far between, we also may have looked like thugs. Any smart person riding past would have to weigh the stirring enrichment of moral beneficence gained from sharing rubber cement, against possible thuggery. Luckily, after some time, just the right man came along, so we killed him, ate his liver, and took his rubber cement. Actually, that's not entirely true. He was a nice fellow, and as my brothers rode on (I would catch up to them after the repair), this man, who we didn't even come close to killing, sat with me and we chatted as I used his rubber cement to patch my broken inner tube.
After the repair, I caught up to Jed and Zack a few miles down the path. They were taking in the sights and sounds of a small Mexican rodeo of some sort, the likes of which we had never seen, and which gave us pause to consider the wealth of experience under our noses which we have yet to catch wind of.
The path: It follows a 30 mile stretch of aqueduct, or, as we like to say in Los Angeles a "river". The riverbed is mostly dry, with low lying plants and some debris, and spots of water here and there. In the sections where water was present we saw herons, sandpipers, and a variety of other water birds. The real view on the path though, is looking into the back yards of the suburbanish dwellings pushed up against the riverbed. Here you see the remnants of horse culture that must have permeated these valleys in years past. It seemed that every house for miles, one after another, butted up against each other like crude building blocks, has a makeshift horse paddock in the back yard. It's a happy shanty-town for horses. And where you have horses, you also have chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits, cows, etc. Between the bike path and this shanty-town is a horse trail, a veritable highway of horses and ponies sporting riders of all ages.
At dusk, as the light waned, we encountered basketball sized clouds of gnats hovering over the path. These small clouds demanded our attention. They would appear suddenly, entirely invisible until about 6 feet away when they would materialize like small planets at light speed. The clouds were big enough so that if you were to plow through them, there would be hundreds of small black bugs covering your face, but small enough that with a juke of the head or a quick duck, each cloud could be avoided entirely. We must have looked, at a distance -juking left and right, and ducking indiscriminately-, like idiots. Once, Zack, in his attempt to avoid a faceful of cloud, allowed his front wheel to slip off the edge of the embankment, and he wiped out, skinning his knee and knuckles. He didn't cry, but blood was there.
We finished the ride in darkness, finally getting off the path on second street south of Long Beach. There we began what we refer to as, "the ride FROM the ride" It was another six or so miles of travel before we would reach the the blue line, the subway that would take us home. By the end we were broken and demure. Still, I like to think we made that path our bitch.
In Long Beach we ate burritos and drank beer before climbing aboard the subway which would take us home, another story...which involves a subway colliding with a car, and has us drinking more beer in Long Beach before Rachel drives down from Los Angeles to pick us up.
All told, we rode 45 miles. These miles can be viewed in their entirety here by clicking on this
LINK to a nifty site where you can view our exact route, look at mile markers, or switch to satellite view, zoom in and maybe see us waving at you from the path.
S.W.
