Ride Reports

Find yourself headed to Los Angeles and thinking "Gee, I'm going to like the weather but I'm going to hate the cars. I sure wish I could ride my bike out there, but there just ain't no way!" Well there is a way. A fine, delightful, safe and easy way to ride a road bike in the Greater Los Angeles Concrete and Cars Megatropolis. I found myself in just his situation last month and found some easy and scenic riding is available.

Ok, ok. I'l admit that riding in L.A. isn't the same as country road riding in Western Tennessee. It is scenic, unique, and easy. But different. The riding is mostly along the beaches of Pacific Coast in both Los Angeles and Orange County. Both counties have invested in linked state parks that both protect and provide access to the beaches from Santa Monica to south of Huntington Beach. There is more than 50 miles of mostly linked paved multi-use paths that run along the beach.

Starting at the Will Rogers State Park on the north edge of Santa Monica (public parking is available but it is not free - about $5-15 for the day) you can unload your bike and head south on the path passing the Santa Monica Pier and down to Vience Beach. You most definitely leave the multi-use path and walk your bike along the arcade walk to "experience" Vience Beach. Music, muscle building, body showing, roller blading, cafes, shops and a mix of some of the more, well different, people you expect in Los Angeles. I saw TV commercials being filmed, garage bands (sans the garage) jamming, TV personalities, transients, hawkers, and more. Back on the multi-use path you continue south and ride around Marina Del Rey (which is Angeleno for "Big Bucks for Marina Living"). This is one of the very upscale and well known mixed commercial, retail and residential developments in LA County so you do a little investigating to shop, sip and see the other California lifestyle. Continue on the beach path past LAX where you can experience countless jets departing just over your head out in max climb. From there you enter the land of Bay Watch. Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach are the Beach Volleyball capitals of the world and look just like the place where Bay Watch was taped. "Pamela where for art though and those". The residential homes with this beach view are, yep, pricey. Continuing on, the beach disappears and becomes rock bluffs along the Palos Verde penninsula. Riders have to pedal there way up and over the hills there on surface streets that do have bike lanes. Once over Palos Verde you manage your way through Long Beach Harbor to Long Beach then you are back on the beach path. Continuing through Seal Beach (saw no seals there, neither the marine mammal or the Navy kind) and on to Hunnington Beach in Orange County.

Give this great ride a try. I recommend you check out the maps on the following two websites: "List of LA County Bike Paths" on Wikipedia.org and the Orange County Transportation Authority's Bike Ways. In addition there are numerous websites that give you great information about riding in the area.