Bike Racks

We got our Smart Car in August 2011.  Since then, we've taken it on many trips.  We've had to do little things to maintain the car in the last year, such as brakes ($427.69) and new tires ($647.35). These we have had done at Boulevard Auto Repair in Van Nuys.  We get regular service (e.g. oil changes) here at Glendale Lube Center.

Photo credit: Anne Hamersky (January 2012)

In academic years 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, I was driving 80 miles per weekday!  I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.  We got rid of our 2nd car in February of 2015 and thank goodness for that.  I overheard two people discussing the Public Transit Subsidy Program at CSUN, specifically in regards to Metrolink.

CSUN employees who opt to use the bus, rail, or train to campus may be eligible for a discount of up to 60% off the cost of the monthly transit pass. The total monthly discount will not exceed $100.

One person was explaining to the other that the discount really starts to pay off when you become a single-car family.  Now we drive when we have to (or want to) but if we don't want to drive, we take the Metrolink train with our bicycles.

April 2015 we got the rack, June 2015 we got the bike (Fuji)

Free2Go Bike Rack (#FREE2GO) $109.00 + $15.00 via Flat Rate USA = $124.00

Becoming a single-car household wasn't without its challenges.  We had a bike rack for our old 4-door Honda Civic, but we needed a way to transport at least one bicycle in the case of an emergency. The first rack we purchased is the Free2Go.  As long as your bike weighs less than 45 pounds, this rack will work.  In fact, it's even my preferred rack for transporting our beach cruiser bike, due to the shape of its frame.  At around 2 pounds, the Free2Go bike rack can even be slipped into your messenger bag or backpack if you are driving a rented SmartCar.  The car-sharing company car2go operates in 9 US cities, including San Diego, but not yet in Los Angeles.

October 2015 we got the bike (Fix-D), October 2016 we got the rack

Thule Helium Aero 3 Bike $399.95 + $189.95 Hitch (U-Haul) + $60 Installation + Tax? = $697.10

Fix-D 700C Road Bike - Silver/Red (28") = $98.09

This year, we upgraded our carrying capacity with a 3-bike rack, which is kind of ironic since we have a 2-passenger car.  It was pretty expensive to get the hitch installed, but we finally got the car paid off so it seemed like the right time to start making modifications (spending the money we would have put into a car payment).  We're considering where to take this rack.  So far, we've used it to go out to Riverside and over to the LA River Bike Path with out-of-town guests.  At 20 pounds, the Thule rack can be installed by one female (me) solo.  It has a load-capacity of 110 pounds.

I'm not wild about the Los Angeles car culture, but there are still some remote areas that are not well-served by public transportation (e.g. Point Mugu) where we would like to camp and bring our bicycles.  I'm still not totally sure what we're doing over the winter break, but it will most likely involve our new bike rack.  Even though we have a really tiny house, we both fantasize about the next bicycles we want to buy.

MultiModal Weekend (Part I)

The weekend of October 14-16th was a big experiment for me.  I used bike, bus, car and train to get around LA County.  I have been wanting to write about the experience and compare each way of getting to and from downtown Los Angeles for a resident of Glendale.

https://www.strava.com/activities/744729565

Friday, October 14th, after work I left California State University, Northridge around 2pm.  I rode along the Orange Line Busway Bike Path.  I rarely ride at this time, but there were lots of school-age teenagers walking on the sidewalks of Reseda and Van Nuys.  I got a little bored in NoHo, but that's normal.  It's not that fun riding in the bike lane along Chandler Blvd, especially when there aren't any other cyclists out there to chase.  After cutting down Keystone, I took an unplanned left turn on Alameda, which had a pretty nice bike lane (that I'm not seeing on Google Maps).  The video below shows it at 53 seconds in.

I went down Victory Blvd to a little side street called Ruberta, which used to have a cool "Halloween House" but now it doesn't.  I refilled my water bottles in the drinking fountain at the Glendale Narrows, then rode/pushed/carried my bike across the Bette Davis Picnic Area (Cyclocross training) and up to Riverside Dr to gawk at the closure of the Los Angeles River Path.  

The Army Corps of Engineers will be hosting a public meeting on Monday, November 7th, from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at the Friendship Auditorium by Griffith Park (3201 Riverside Drive) and LACBC encourages all to attend and speak up.

All that being said, I took the detour through Griffith Park and entered the bike path by the dog park. I exited the path at Fletcher and took the route through Silver Lake and along Sunset Blvd to reach Spring St. I don't know why other people don't like going that way. It was also the first time I really didn't need a route sheet. That's what I love about CicLAvia, it makes me understand how to reach downtown LA without a car.

Raw crunchy four kale mix, shredded cabbage, apples, shredded carrots and avocado, grape tomato, tossed w/ maple orange dressing, topped w/ currants, hemp seeds & creamy hummus dressing drizzle 

http://thelacafe.com/salads.html

After reaching LACBC headquarters, I had dinner at the LA Cafe.  I don't know if it was the 2 hours and 40 minutes I'd just spent winding my way gradually from The Valley to Downtown LA, or if the salad was REALLY GREAT but I haven't had a better meal in years.  There were picnic tables in a parklet, a couple of nice bike racks to lock up.  It was the ideal way to wind down from my ride and take in a street view of the city.

Now I'm off to make the City of Glendale more walkable.  I'll have to finish this post in a multi-part series.

LA River Ride ~ Report

The LA River Ride this year was hot, literally.  Of everything I could say about the day, the heat is the most noteworthy.  According to the Weather Underground, the temperature was 97 degrees.  Although at some points on the roads, a cycling computer read well into the triple digits.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) did a fantastic job of providing water stops.  Hollenbeck Park had restrooms and large water reservoirs (and music!).  Maywood and Dills Parks were also great!  There were small Clif bars, peanut-butter pretzels, water, electrolytes, and trail mix with nuts and rice crackers.

Hollenbeck Park

Maywood Park

Dills Park

Aquarium of the Pacific

I am extremely grateful to all the volunteers who made these rest stops possible.  I am also grateful to Wayne "Ridetime" Howard for taking us on the Metrolink Metric Century the weekend before the LA River Ride.  Riding in the heat for the majority of the day helped us prepare to successfully complete this ride without incident.

We completed 70 miles in about 7 hours, for some segments we were going 16-18 mph.  I will caution riders that the segment of the river trail around Firestone has some really nasty underpasses.  The trail zig-zags around some large curbs after going over a kind of bump and there is no visibility for riders coming under the roadway.  I'm not complaining, it's always great to have an underpass, but these ones are gnarly and we had a rider from our group collide with another rider in a head-on collision.  It's unclear who (if either of them) violated the centerline rule, and I'm not saying the trail should be removed or redesigned, but I am urging all cyclists to ride safely in this part of the course.  Riders that passed us, walking their bikes, mentioned that someone always "goes down" in this part of the ride, every year.

CicLAva ~ The Valley

I realize this post is almost 2 months late.  It's been on my "to do" list.  CicLAvia - The Valley was AWESOME!  Like many of the "open streets" events we've attended, we rode to this one from our house, CAR FREE!  The weather was overcast for most of the day, which was nice biking weather.

We met with Walk Bike Glendale at the Glendale Central Library.  Congressman Adam Schiff was there.  We had a large feeder ride, maybe about 80 people.  Along the Chandler Bike Path, we combined with Walk Bike Burbank.

It was about 11 miles to the start of CicLAvia.  We took California west to Concord, across the Fairmount Bridge to the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk.  We rode along Riverside to Keystone, and up to the bike path at Chandler.  The organizers did a great job puting in protected "bike lanes" between Vineland and Lankershim using orange traffic cones.  Wish those were permanent!  We posted a video of the feeder ride here.  This was my first experience as a ride marshal.  I hope to attend some workshop for training to become an official, but for now, my experience with group cycling in the Riverside Bicycle Club will suffice.

We arrived in North Hollywood and split from the group.  Some video from the CicLAvia event is here.  I don't think our GoPro battery lasted long enough to capture beyond the Universal City Hub, but we did get one video at the hub.  The course was dreamy and many businesses were packed with customers.  I was reminded of this event at a recent Bike To Work Day ~ Happy Hour at the Moose Den where I met someone who skated the entire CicLAvalley.  I did take a little bit of video at our lunch stop, which gave me the idea that about 80,000 people participated in this CicLAvia.

As a reminder, the CicLAvia ~ Pasadena event is in TWO WEEKS.  Will you walk, skate, or bike it?  We're headed to Pasadena today for the Amgen Tour of California finish!  Hope to see our friend John Morlock, from Ride 2 Recovery working a booth there.

Ride 2 Recovery

14 year old Michelle Morlock will be participating in two Ride 2 Recovery (R2R) Challenges in 2015. This young lady is an inspiration to me and I want to help spread the word about her 2015 fundraising goals.

R2R is a 501c3 that uses cycling as the core activity to help Active Duty Military and Veterans to recover from both physical and non visible injuries through cycling. R2R puts on approximately 6 to 7 Challenge Rides a year. Each Challenge Ride is approximatly 350 to 450 miles ridden over 6 to 7 days. All hotels, meals, loaner bikes and support are provided at no charge to the injured Veterans.

Civilians that wish to participate in these rides can. They are however required to raise $3,000 for R2R. 14 year old Michelle Morlock of Los Angeles will be riding in the Texas Challange in April riding from Houston to Ft. Worth. Then in September the Army Vs. Navy Challenge riding from West Point N.Y. to Annapolis Md. You go girl!

Project Hero ride, January 25, 2015 (Michelle at far right)

You can help Michelle reach her fundraising goal in one of three ways:

(1) by donating online. Visit https://ride2recovery.com/donate.php  Type in her name Michelle Morlock.

(2) by mailing in a check. Please remember to put in the notes section = Sponsor Rider Michelle Morlock. The mailing address is:

Ride 2 Recovery
attn: Donations
23679 Calabasas Rd. #420
Calabasas, CA 91302

(3) attend a fundraiser dinner. @ Bob's Big Boy (4211 W Riverside Dr, Burbank. CA 91505) from 3-9:30pm on Friday, May 15th. 15% of proceeds from that time period will automatically go towards supporting Michelle in her challenge fundraising.

Any amount you are comfortable with (even a number of $10 donations will add up) will help Michelle reach her targets for the Texas & Army vs. Navy Challanges. Donations from $1 to $1,000.00 will be accepted.  

Included in the R2R family of programs is Project HERO. Project HERO are the local branches of R2R that recruits and trains the Veterans to participate in the Challenge rides. There are over 50 Project HERO programs nationally with 3 in Los Angeles County.

Project Hero training ride, January 25, 2015, 56 mile route

I have been riding with Project Hero Hollywood and Michelle for several months and I'm impressed with her strength and positive attitude.  She is our fearless leader, who sets the pace for the group. She skillfully navigated 17 mph wind gusts on our January ride.  I have no doubt she will be successful in completing the two challenges this year.