There’s about eight miles of Los Angeles River separating its bikeways in Elysian Valley and the city of Maywood. Like most normal people you probably haven’t troubled yourself wondering if that entire stretch of riverbed between those two points is navigable by bike. But if you’re like me and my friend Andrew it was time yesterday to see if we could connect those two dots. We did.
A selection of stills from the trek are viewable here on Flickr, most notable among them is the Bicycle Monument installed below the Olympic Boulevard Bridge, the in-water river chair (full functionality proven by Andrew) south of the 10 Freeway overpass, and best of all: the fellow south of the Washington Boulevard Bridge sitting on a utility cable spool reading a newspaper who looked at us as funny as we looked at him. A map of the entire 22-mile-route we rode is here.
After readingZach Behrens’ poston LAist last week about the man seen fishing in the L.A. River, I began to consider how little I know about the often hidden natural habitat of our city. Living in such urban surroundings, dwarfed by skyscrapers and barricaded by strip malls, it’s easy to forget that the City of Los Angeles is also a thriving and abundant ecosystem with actual wildlife and everything.
In an effort to learn more, I decided to check out the following books, “The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Re-birth” by Blake Gumprecht and “Down by the Los Angeles River: Friends of the Los Angeles River’s Official Guide” by Joe Linton. Both are available on Amazon, but I’m first going to see if our brand new Silver Lake Library has them.
I’m certain that there are also many blogs dedicated to this subject, so if you have a particular one that you recommend, please leave a comment here and let me know. I’d love to check it out.
When I bike-park near the Glendale power station this morning to do my old-man stretches, this little daddy long-legs is hanging out on the railing that lines the L.A. river.
By the time I finish lengthening my triceps and punishing my hamstrings, the spider has crawled onto my top tube.
When I hop back on to ride home, the spider stays put.
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