Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bike ride to the Pacific Ocean

I headed out on my bike today to bike to the beach. It was hazy when I set out, so I didn't take my camera this time.

By the way, I must mention that I don't find air quality here to be too bad at all so far. I've seen worse in Toronto. The air is not completely clear, but that's a moisture thing as much as (or more than) a pollution thing, since the city (or the part I'm in, anyway) is in a basin surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and ocean on the fourth, so the air gets trapped here. It's also more humid here than I had counted on (darn!), but nothing like Ottawa, still bearable. And yes, it is very much still summer here! Beautiful weather, never brutally hot, and cool (but not that you'd need a jacket) in the evenings and at night.

When we have bad air in Ottawa, I can feel it in my lungs, and I haven't felt like that here yet. I'm sure it does happen, but so far so good, at least bad air days aren't an everyday occurrence. I also don't have any allergies here- I was worried that I might since the plants would be different from back home (I did 4 years of allergy shots in Ottawa that worked so I don't have allergies there either), that maybe I'd be affected by something here, but so far so good on that too.

Anyway, back to the bike ride. I set out hoping to find a bike path that follows one of the "rivers" here, the river being a concreted-over drainage ditch.

I did find the path, but couldn't find a way to get down to it anywhere! So I ended up on some very pleasant residential streets in Culver City (a west LA neighborhood), but those eventually came out onto Venice Blvd, which has a bike lane, so since that had been my plan B I figured I'd better take that rather than risk getting lost on my first outing. LA is a grid city though, so it's hard to get completely lost.

I found the bike lane to be great, and the motorists very respectful (it's a shared parking/bike/right hand turn lane), no close calls or homicidal vibes at all. However, Venice Blvd. is just plain ugly! Six lanes wide, plus the cycling lane in each direction, and lowbrow commercial the whole way (the kind with parking lots out front), with some pockets of residential.

It's a great route in terms of being direct (and long, it runs from the ocean almost to downtown), but I am going to have to find a better route for aesthetics. I had chosen a pleasant route on the way to the bike path I couldn't get onto, and there are no doubt other routes like this. My own street (Hauser Blvd.) seems good this way, it's pretty, mostly residential, traffic not too insane, and it has lights at the major intersections. LA seems to have lots of semi-residential routes like this, it's just a matter of finding them, so I will work on that.

So, at the beach (it was Venice Beach I ended up at due to the Venice Blvd. route) I stood in the ocean for a few minutes and watched the surfers, and then headed back. It was 38 km round trip (that said, I took an indirect route there as I was hunting for that path) and 2h 15min of biking.

The beach path looks great, but I didn't bike much of it today as I'd already been on the road an hour once I got there. The beach path is incredibly long, follows the beach the whole way from Santa Monica down the coast to the bottom of the city.

On my return to the apartment, it was fun watching the altimeter on the bike computer shoot up as it passed each floor.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there! Was thinking of you today when I watched the dozen real-time LA webcams. Noticed the "fog". Was wondering if it could have been related to the brush fires near LA...

    Regarding air quality, it used to be bad but for the past 20 years, California has the toughest environmental standards in the world (for cars, industry and citizens). Many cars sold on the canadian market still do not meet the California standard and can't be sold there (they have a California emissions version). You will notice that all over California, even at the gas pump, they have a special device to suck the fuel vapours into filters. It is that weird plastic cover on the fuel spout. Of course, wood burning is forbidden (no wood stoves or fireplaces are permitted: only gas is ok) as well as two stroke engines (like on chain saws) and charcoal BBQs. Up here, we are still ligh years behind in terms of environmental protection. Interesting point: you may also have noticed that electric cars and hybrids park for free everywhere (public parkings and park meters) and can use the bus lanes on highways...

    Next time you go to Venice beach, don't forget to take your camera for pictures to post. If you wish, you can go to an electronics store such as best buy and get yourself a bike mount for your GPS. The GPS has a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 3 hours.But I guess it is not essential as you are pretty good at navigating cities (remember Paris or Vienna?).

    I can't wait for you to go visit the La Brea Tar Pits. This is something on my list of things to see. I also heard great things about the museums in LA.

    Anxiously awaiting your next post.

    Keep up the good work!

    -Eric

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  2. Sounds fun N. I have no doubt that you'll find a great route to the beach.

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