Sunday Morning Coming Down

Up before it made sense at all this morning to drive to Griffith Park with my bike on the back of my car, to ride back to Long Beach along the Los Angeles River, passing within a half-mile of my home, then back up to Griffith Park to retrieve my car and drive home.

I covered around 85 miles on two wheels, at a speed that pleased and surprised even me. Normally I don’t hustle along at quite such a clip, but for at least the first couple of hours this morning I was riding in a small bunch with some other folks who were setting a good pace, and that helps inspire a rider and protect him from the wind at the same time.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve done this ride, though this year they stretched it a little longer. Last year I was way too busy to even think about it; if I was doing any meaningful riding, it was mostly in Northern California, between filing court papers and hunting through box after box of miscellany for old financial records.

It’s nice to be back on two wheels more often, instead of spending all my free hours hauling north and south through California’s Central Valley.

Every rider wears something.

Wildfire swept through Griffith Park about a year ago (not for the first time), burning through more than a square mile of dry hillside, at one point threatening the Hollywood sign. I see the moonscape wreckage from the freeway every time I drive north, but I’m usually in the middle of traffic and trying my hardest to get out of the snarling L.A. freeway system to start the long ride up the middle of the state. Today I happened to be out of the car at a spot where I could get a good picture of some of the burned hills.