In its various editions since (the last one taking place in 2010), the Watts Happening Ride’s destinations have grown well beyond the iconic towers to include a variety of landmarks involving people, places and events in and around South Los Angeles.

The 2012 incarnation of the Watts Happening Ride will be departing from Silver Lake on Saturday, February 18 at 9 a.m., and will include the addition of a couple locations I’ve recently found. So if you’re not heading out of town for the long weekend and have a hankering to get your bike-riding discovery on, I hope you’ll join me.

For the latest info and any updates, the ride’s Facebook page is here.

When: February 18, gathering at 8:30 for a 9 a.m. departure
Start/Finish: Silver Lake’s Happy Foot/Sad Foot sign (northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard & Benton Way)
Distance: 32.95 miles (route map)
Pace: Casual
Terrain: Flat
Weather: In the event of rain that morning, the ride will be canceled and rescheduled to a later date.
Approximate Time: 5-6 hours
Optional Partial Ride: If doing the full route isn’t feasible, consider joining the ride at approximately 9:30 a.m. downtown on Spring Street (anywhere between 2nd & 9th streets) for the roughly 9-mile portion to the Watts Towers. The 103rd Street Blue Line station is near to the towers and can be an alternative to get you back into downtown.
Things You’ll Need (in no particular order): A functioning bicycle; $7 for the half-hour optional tour of Watts Towers; snacks and water for along the way; money for a late lunch at King Taco.

Five Guys El Segundo, open at night

I’m a big fan of Five Guys burgers and fries, but rarely make the trip down to Carson. So it was a nice surprise at about 9:30 the other night, after a day of negotiations down in the South Bay, to be driving up Sepulveda Blvd. just short of LAX and to see the red and white Five Guys sign on the east side of the road. A quick maneuver into the parking lot, and more luck as Five Guys was open until 10 p.m. I saw, I scarfed. It’s in an office park-nice little shopping plaza with a courtyard and outdoor tables.

Five Guys also has other locations, and planned locations, in and around the Los Angeles area. Of these, the El Segundo outlet may be the most dangerous for me. The In-N-Out Burger just on the other side of LAX may have better views, but I’m partial to Five Guys’ food.

But on a trip to Burbank and back by bike this week, I have nothing to say but “Bravo!” to that burg after I chanced to discover an unheralded and entirely unmarked bike/pedestrian path that was so brand-spanking new it had to have only been recently completed. Paralleling the Burbank Western Channel between Alameda Avenue and Victory Boulevard, it’s short and sweet at barely a quarter-mile in length, but it provides a serene off-street shortcut connection between the two busy thoroughfares that not only serves cyclists passing through but also the residents of the neighborhood to the north of the channel.

Here’s hoping it’s the first of more to come.

UPDATE (1.24): I received an email from Cory Wilkerson, an assistant transportation planner for Burbank, who confirmed that more indeed is to come. He wrote, “We are planning to extend the pathway to the Burbank Metrolink Station, Top Priority Project #8 in our Bike Plan. The project was funded through Metro’s Call for Project and constrcution is schedule for FY 2015.”

After the jump you can find an annotated and embiggenable Google Map screengrab of the path’s location along with two timelapse clips of rides on the segment, the first traveling from Victory to Alameda and the second coming back from Alameda to Victory.

“The Red Line (The Freeways Are Not So Nice),” by It’s Casual. Found at LA Taco

Image from Creative Tools on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license

Metro will offer free fare rates on the Eves of both Christmas and New Years. Here is some information from the press release, as found at Metro’s The Source blog:

The free fare program will be in effect between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. on the nights and early mornings hours of December 24-25 and December 31-January 1.

Patrons boarding a Metro Bus, including the Metro Orange Line, or the Metro Red, Purple, Blue, Green or Gold rail lines during the hours designated will receive a free ride to their destination.

Have fun; be safe. Happy Holidays!

Electric Santa, 4th Street Bridge. Weeeell after midnight. All is calm. All is quiet.

It’s not every Friday night of the year I dress up in an electric santa suit and go biking around Los Angeles  — just this one upcoming Friday night for the Midnight Ridazz 6th-Annual All-City Toy Ride.

This yearly convergence of multiple rides starting at various points around the greater Los Angeles area will bring hundreds  of toy-bearing cyclists together December 9 at 10 p.m. at the historic Plaza de Los Angeles gazebo to donate their gifts to The Alliance for Children’s Rights a worthy organization serving children in need.

All participants are asked to bring an unwrapped toy valued at $5-$25. The celebration will then continue after the toy collection with a ride through downtown that will end up at what I’m feeling will be the most kick ass after-party in the history of All-City Toy Rides, where there will be delicious foods, drinks, musics and funs.

The satellite rides to Olvera Street that are presently organized are as follows, so find the one nearest you and get yourself some of the most unique holiday spirit to be found in town (with or without an electric santa suit):

• Downtown
• East Hollywood
• East Los Angeles
• Echo Park
• Griffith Observatory
• Huntington Park
• Koreatown
• Long Beach
• North Hollywood
• Northeast Los Angeles
• Pasadena
• San Gabriel Valley
• West Los Angeles
• West San Fernando Valley

IMPORTANT: The post-ride party will have a guest list and you won’t be able to get in if you don’t RSVP, so if you’re coming do so either through the All-City Toy Ride’s Facebook page or via email at allcitytoyride@gmail.com.

After the press conference this afternoon to celebrate the completion and opening of Los Angeles’ first-ever buffered and bright green Class II bike lane running on Spring Street between Cesar Chavez Avenue and 9th Street, the cyclists in attendance then inaugurated the wonderful thing with a bike ride upon it. During my second lap my timelapsing handlebar-mounted bike cam snapped the above shot as I passed great Los Angeles photographer Gary Leonard crouched as he snapped me. Of course I yelled “Take my picture, Gary Leonard!” while rolling by.

Cadillac ELR formerly known as the Converj coming to us soon.

Wednesday I got to meet up with GM exec Jim Federico, Executive Director of Engineering, Electric Vehicles at the L.A. Auto Show. I got to ask some of my own questions as well as those you readers posed as part of the ticket contest I was able to run. It was an interesting visit, certainly a lot of information with some answers as well. Where to start with the questions and answers is my big dilemma.

Al Pavangkanan posed the question regarding new battery technology. Jim couldn’t give specifics of what they have in store but did say that they are working with the battery suppliers to develop new technologies that will give us more power for the size compared to what we have now. The problem all the manufacturers have run into is that there isn’t a rush to develop batteries as there isn’t really a market demand for them yet in quantities to offset their costs. Those costs affect what we pay for an EV now, but as demand increases, production increases there will be more incentive to develop new battery technology and help lower costs. 

GM has several Electric vehicles coming our way. In answer to reader Gzank6 I got multiple answers regarding the sticker shock of an EV. Short term, yes we will see more affordable EV’s as well as more expensive luxurious ones coming our way from GM. Short term we will be seeing the Spark EV due this spring in Los Angeles that will be priced “much less” than the Volt. The Spark EV will be an all electric auto. It will be followed by a much more luxurious Cadillac ELR in a couple of years. The ELR will be based on the Volt plug-in gas electrification strategy and designed to fit a premium automobile.  Pricing is really affected by the cost of the battery, as demand increases and production increases there will be savings in terms of volume that will enable manufacturers to price the cars lower than we see right now. He couldn’t give me the specifics on other cars coming our way in the near future but could tell me we will see several electrified vehicles in the future.

Ticket winner Buzz posed two questions. First was whether EV’s were just temporary followed by what “green technology” will GM use in the future for market sustainability. Federico stated quite clearly that GM sees Electrification as the future of the automobile. It will come in many forms. From pure EV’s to plug-in to fuel cells. Electric automobiles will be the future regardless of where the electricity comes from whether it be plugging into the power grid, fuel cells or a “1 cylinder diesel” powering an on-board generator. All of those are in GM’s current research plans and we will see it in our cars here in L.A. in the not too distant future.

Reader Doni elle raised several questions. From their being “curiosities” to the issue of infrastructure and lack of support for apartment dwellers in particular. Infrastructure is a problem for the roll out of Electric Vehicles and plug ins. Federico said that GM and the other manufacturers are working with state and local officials to address these concerns. The better the infrastructure to support an EV the better it will be for all of the manufacturers. Right now we are in the infancy of the Electric car and as the market grows we will see many more varieties of cars to suit different drivers needs. This growth is dependant on infrastructure development not just in L.A but across the country, at least here we are eager to get our hands on them.

For reader Genie, the question of carbon foot print was raised. GM addresses in how the car is made where possible and is improving on that. How the car is charged is an infrastructure issue. (My two cents on that topic is that as long as we are generating our power from the burning of fossil fuels instead of clean sources the EV’s will always have a CO2 component to them. I won’t plug another manufacturer here but at least one will offer up a solar option through the dealership selling you the EV that will give you a carbon offset enough to cover the juice needed to charge the car).

MINI Coupe: all fun, no mess

Like many Los Angeles area folks, I’m crazy about cars. Fortunately, I’m able to incorporate my love into my work, and covered the L.A. Auto Show on Press Day 1 yesterday. Unfortunately, my day was ruled as much by the cars on the roads outside than by the shiny new models inside the Convention Center.

I left my house by the beach after rush hour to avoid traffic, hit the show very hard, then skedaddled out of there by about 4:15 p.m. to avoid the evening rush. As a result, the compressed time I spent at the show was somewhat manic. Stopping off at Langer’s on the way home? Forget it.

Inside the show, the car companies advertise their cars based on many attributes: quality, value, economy, luxury, technology, and driving fun. But I didn’t see or hear one mention of anything to do with traffic. Such a discussion would seem to be antithetical to the car companies’ mission, which is of course to sell more of those shiny sexy cars.

As a car lover, I’m guilty of moving out here and contributing to the problem. In my defense, however, I work mostly from home, and put on very little mileage. My car is over 8 years old, and I’m going to hang onto it as long as I can. My trips to L.A. city proper are rare.

I know it’s not a new subject area, but what is the toll — to our psyche, our finances, and our quality of life — that we in the Los Angeles areas pay each year for our traffic? Can anything be done about it, or is all hope lost? I’m no traffic expert, but I would think that living closer to where we work, having a shorter commute, is one way to make the problem better. Another is more and better mass transit, to the extent possible in sprawling, designed-for-cars L.A. Maybe the new Expo Line will help.

I hope something will help. The Auto Show demonstrates that we’re putting out amazing cars. The roads in and around L.A. show that there are fewer and fewer places to put them.