A Bike Ride Called America: Hurry for Hollywood

With US Customs clearance now handled pre-flight in Canadian airports, arriving at the domestic terminal in LAX almost feels like being unceremoniously dumped into a local bus station. The baggage claim area seems shockingly unsecured, open to street level and the chaos of shuttle buses and taxis. I was directed to a remote oversize baggage counter to claim my bike, but no one was there, and no bike box came out. I asked someone with a badge for information but I got that classic blank "not-in-my-job-description" stare. After waiting for 20 minutes, I trudged back to the main area and asked at the office, and after a few futile calls, the guy at the counter decided to head upstairs into the bowels of the baggage area. The boxed bike was there, but nobody had put it on the conveyor belt. Not in their job description, most probably.

In this day of high resolution digital photography, I fail to see how this is even a reliable photo of me

The Grand Canyon below: studying the terrain I'll be going through in the coming weeks got me excited and terrified at the same time

It took me a good hour to reassemble the bicycle, ensure it was road-worthy, and load all my baggage on it. The torrent of traffic swirling around the terminals was intimidating, but with the help of my GPS and some luck I found a service road that led out of the terminal. It was a circuitous route but it wasn't stressfully busy.

First iconic building of the trip: the LAX Theme Building

I had pre-booked a cheap room not too far from the airport knowing I was arriving in the late afternoon, and it was 7pm by the time I got there. A shower and a meal was all I could muster before crashing into the bed.

Woke up early the next day and had breakfast before heading off on a loop ride around town. The weather was surprisingly cool, not much different from what I left behind in Ottawa. I made a beeline for the beaches and get a view of the Pacific Ocean. I wound around Marina del Rey and into the neighbourhood of Venice, and then emerged into the honky-tonk atmosphere of Venice Beach.

Playa del Rey just behind the airport

Venice, California style

The beachfront bike path was busy all the way into Santa Monica Pier.

the amusement park on Santa Monica Pier

The bike path passes below the pier and the sunlight streaming through the gaps of the planks made really interesting patterns that look like Morse code

This being Sunday, the beach was busy

Funny side story: this guy was wearing an Elmo suit sweet-talking kids into getting their parents to take a photo with him and then asking for money. I secretly snapped this photo when he was taking the suit off, after which he goes into a tirade slandering one of the businesses on the pier. Turns out he was more like Oscar the Grouch.

The bike infrastructure in LA is completely inconsistent, from over-engineered pathways to token bike routes that have really narrow curb lanes. Drivers here can be really mean and cyclists are sometimes terrorized into using the sidewalk even on the designated bike routes. I'd blame it on poor urban design, a lot of the buildings are gated courtyards that have little street interaction.

I headed up inland into the ritzy part of town and ended up looking like a fish out of water as I rode along Rodeo Drive. Trying to avoid getting run over by all the expensive cars, I wove through the back lanes of Beverly Hills — I probably should have picked up one of those Star Maps to see whose backyard I was riding past.

Typical Beverly Hills laneway that lead to the garages and service entrances (a.k.a. where the trash comes out)

A Beverly Hills tree-lined street. They seem to use one type of tree for each street to make them distinct, some have palms some have oaks or figs.

I got my In-N-Out Burger fix

I went farther into Hollywood. I rode halfway up to the sign (which you can't really access) but I found out the higher you go the less of it you get to see, so I went back down to take a lousy photo of it.

Too bad that with its ideal cycling weather, LA isn't really that great to get around on a bike. They should take cues from New York City and Boston and put their excessively wide streets on a diet. I had a tough time getting into the city core, and although I had been here once before, I did not remember downtown being so hilly.

I stumbled into this part of town and right on cue, a woman stops her car in front of me and starts yakking in Tagalog to someone on the street corner.

I got to the Walt Disney Hall at a golden hour when the slanted afternoon sunlight tints its stainless steel curves with the colours of the warm California sky