Why is Winter Cycling Can be Such a Drag in Los Angeles

My late afternoon ride on a typical winter's day –January 27th – along the bike path south of Venice Beach, was a disappointment. 

There I was, initially pedaling in bliss along the coast. The mountains above Malibu to the north, and the mountain that is the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the south, formed the wide open jaws of Santa Monica Bay. The island of Santa Catalina, 27 miles across the sea, floated like a serene, purple leviathan. 

Then I noticed pale puffs and stringy tangles of fog just beginning to muster in the bay, as they planned for a silent shore invasion in the evening. The fog slightly marred my otherwise clear views out over the Pacific. With a shock, I noted that the temperature had dipped to about 65 degrees, and I had to pedal hard just to stay warm. Why, oh, why, did I leave my arm and leg warmers at home?

True, this late in the afternoon most people were somewhere else, so the bike path was like my private, closed-circuit training course, as I headed south to the Redondo Beach Pier, and back north again. Even so, I soon realized the occasional cyclist, jogger, surfer, volleyballer – whomever – were intent, like the fog, on blocking my views! That really frosted me on what should have been a perfect winter's ride.

 The rude dude, above, blocked my view without even realizing it.

 Even the birds got in the way.

 A cyclist barged into my careful composition.

 Two surfers politely hurried through the scene.

More surfers blocked my potential view of gray and blue whales off the coast of Los Angeles.

 

 Stuff cluttered the beach.

All-in-all, it was a miserable day at the beach.


Note: click on images for a larger sized view.

Sock it To Me

Whether or not there are greater rewards for giving than receiving, I was happy to spend some time and money shopping with my wife for gifts for family and friends, and giving to people less fortunate than I am. Our big shopping expedition took us to REI, the outdoor store. Among other items, we bought some socks for our daughter. There was a special on socks, so I bought myself a pair of bike socks, too. I can never have enough bike socks. 

It's always difficult to decide what to give my brother. This year, I decided to give him a subscription to a new bike magazine. On the way back from REI, though, my wife and I decided Dan might need something a little more tactile to enjoy on Christmas, since his first copy of the magazine wouldn't arrive for a while. At first I thought I'd give him my pair of bike socks. 


Then Kathy and I decided Dan needed at least two pairs of socks. So later in the week, I headed over to a little bike shop I like. The guys there have been good to me (as have all the people at all the little bike shops I visit on occasion). I bought two pairs of socks, and when I got home, even though I liked and wanted the socks I'd purchased for myself, I decided to give them to Dan, too.

On Christmas Eve, I headed over to one of our favorite restaurants, Bloom, to pick up a take-out order for my visiting daughter and son-in-law. On the way home, I stopped in at the 7-11, to pick up a six pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and six pack of Fat Tire beer. After dropping off lunch and the pale ale, I visited the bike shop where I'd purchased the socks for my brother, and dropped off the Fat Tire beer. I was happy to bring the guys a gift I knew they would like. 

When I spied boxes of two seasonal varieties of Clif Bars, gingerbread and pumpkin, in the shop, I decided to spend a little more money. However, and despite my protestations, I walked out of the shop with the gift of several Clif Bars. 

In late afternoon, I headed over to a small take-out on tony Beverly Blvd, with its fancy restaurants and shops. An exception is China Kitchen, just east of the massive Beverly Center and Beverly Connection shopping malls; it isn't fancy. There's enough room for the counter, two small tables and four chairs. The order phone seems to constantly ring off the hook, and the invisible kitchen is always noisy with confabulations in Cantonese. 

Long ago, my parents had sponsored the emigration of the owners of the China Kitchen, whom they met on a trip to Hong Kong. Their friends eventually settled in Los Angeles. I have no idea how the two couples met. I do know that my parents were never forgotten by the owners of China Kitchen. For years, they supplied my parents with food for our family's Christmas Eve dinner. 

Since my parents came from different religious backgrounds, we'd celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, with a Christmas tree in a corner of the living room, a menorah atop on the baby grand piano. That wonderful Chinese dinner each year was a perfect compliment to our diverse festivities.

My parents departed the scene some time ago. The tradition of Christmas Eve lives on, though, as my wife and I have always decorated our own home with a tree and a menorah. We enjoy Chinese food for dinner, too. As it happens, China Kitchen isn't far from my own home, and so it's easy to visit my parents' old friends on Christmas Eve. My parents' old friends are always are glad to see me, as I am to see them. We are the links to each others' pasts. 

There were hellos and hugs. We caught up on what was happening with our families. Ordering took a while, though, because the phone kept ringing off the proverbial hook.  

This year, I fibbed a little, telling my parent's friends that I needed a couple of dishes, and some brown rice, for my wife and myself. I didn't mention that my younger daughter was busy at my home, preparing a six-person feast, for Kathy and me, for my daughter Rebecca and my son-in-law Lee, and Nora's boyfriend, Kevin. Of course, as the proxy for my parents, I wasn't allowed to pay for what I ordered.

The plan hatched at home was to give the food I picked up to any homeless person or persons I spotted on the short drive back from China Kitchen. Failing that, Kathy and I and Rebecca and Lee would share the shrimp and lo mein dishes for lunch on Christmas Day. 

On the way home, a man I often see sprawled on the sidewalk on Beverly Blvd., who I knew was a likely candidate, was missing. I didn't spot anyone else who looked like they needed food. I brought the three cartons home. 

The food was still hot, so I left the cartons on a kitchen counter. While the kids worked and talked in the kitchen, Kathy and I sat in the living room. When I walked into the kitchen a little later, the shrimp had gone missing, along with most of the beef and chicken from the lo mein carton. I was completely irritated. There went my next day's lunch! 

Then I thought about those homeless people I hadn't found. I thought about the wonderful Christmas Eve dinner we'd be sharing in another hour or so. I thought about my parents, who wouldn't be with us, of how generous they had been in their lives, giving much of what they had (despite my mom's hoarding proclivities) to others. Soon I wasn't annoyed.

We did have a wonderful dinner that night. My family and I had a terrific Christmas morning, too, exchanging gifts. After we'd cleaned up the house, making it ready for the arrival of my brother and his family for another holiday dinner, I had time to hop on my bike for an afternoon ride. The day was warm in the sun, and cool in the shade as I headed up into the little canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains north of our home. Pedaling along Beverly Blvd., I saw the homeless man asleep on the sidewalk. 

Before returning home, I cycled up a thousand feet, looking out over the city on a day when the temperature reached the mid-70s, and I could look out to downtown one way, and out to the Pacific Ocean the other, it's waters glinting in the afternoon light.

That evening, my parents weren't with us, of course. Yet I did feel linked to them again, through another wonderful Christmas dinner – prime rib, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes – that  Kathy and Rebecca and Nora prepared. Susan, my sister-in-la, made kugal, a kind of noodle pudding, to which I think I'm addicted. Not many people out of all the people in the world ate as well as we did.

When it came time to exchange gifts, my brother opened his. From me came the card telling him about his magazine subscription, and then his three pairs of socks. 


Then I opened the two packages Dan had for me. One was a book about Los Angeles then and now. It was filled with photographs of places as they appeared in the late 1800s and the early years of the 20th century, and as they appear in the 21st century. 


The other package I opened contained three pairs of bike socks. Proving, I suppose, either great minds think alike or that we don't have a lot of creativity to share between us. 


Of course, Dan and I hadn't sacrificed anything, yet we were reminded a little of the classic O'Henry Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi, with our sock story the reverse of the original. 


I know it's difficult to act as saintly as possible all year, to sacrifice all year, and not just during the holiday season. We can't give everything we have away, we can't go barefoot all the time, we have to balance what we need with that which we can afford to give. 

This coming new year, every time I pull on a pair of bike socks, every time I munch a Clif Bar, or eat Chinese food, I'm going to think about giving back some of what I've been blessed to receive in my own life. And in so doing, perhaps I will – like riding my bike – find the balance.

An Alternate Yosemite

Note: click on any image if you wish to view a larger version.

The catch, as proposed by my friend, Chuck Nadeau, was simple: We would conduct a trip to Yosemite, and the people on the trip would set aside the seemingly ubiquitous digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras favored by most advanced photographers.

Film, digicam, pinhole, Polaroid, iPhone, medium format cameras, etc., were fair. Whatever we brought, we would have to learn – or relearn – how to find camera controls. We would have to learn to see in new ways; we would see an alternate Yosemite. And for those of us using film, some pleasure would have to be deferred, since we weren't likely to see the finished photographs for a week or two after our trip ended.

Our group of photographers would travel to Yosemite as autumn, the season of turning, slowly gave way to winter. The Merced River would drain the last of the melted snowfall from the high country, even as clouds would sweep into Yosemite Valley on rising currents of cool air. Daylight at this time of year would be in short supply, and, especially on the always-shaded south side of the Valley, the air would be cold.

The poignantly transient nature of life would be on display, as the last colors of autumn grudgingly morphed into the bare branches of aspens, black cottonwoods, and maples.

There were ultimately eight of us who traveled to Yosemite. Tom Turmen was from Tennessee, Ted Taylor, from Southern California, Robert Kidd from Rhode Island, Stjepan Gardilcic from Ohio, Richard Nolthenius, from Santa Cruz, California, the aforementioned Chuck (from Chico, California), mythic Ken Rockwell, who has always carried a soft spot for film cameras, and myself.

Winter was definitely coming to Yosemite. Yet I was struck by the amount of color still to be found in and around Yosemite Valley. Pacific Dogwood was bright red in places, so were some imported red maples.

The photo above, and the one below, show a little maple that looked like it was on fire, and which sat just across the road from our accommodations at the comfortable Cedar Lodge.

For me, this was a good trip to document the transient nature of life, if only because I ran a couple of rolls of black and white film through my 1954 Rolleiflex. The old Rollei, a camera which I think epitomizes the pinnacle of the Machine Age, belonged to my mom for many years. One day, when her eyes were no longer able to look down into the magnificent mirrored viewfinder to see what was there, my mom insisted I take the camera. (I'll try to post some of the Rollei images I made on the trip in another post, after my film comes back from the processor).

Most of the time, though, I used a little Panasonic LX5, a digicam with a wide and fast and sharp lens. I also made many photographs with my iPhone, using the iPhone's native camera app, as well as the wonderful Hipstamatic app, which gives photos the look of film.

Richard brought along his ancient Minolta A1 digicam. When it snowed, on our last day, Richard discovered that while the camera itself still worked, the battery had a difficult time staying warm enough to function for more than a few minutes. It would revive for a short time after he warmed it in his pocket.

Robert brought along the fantastic Nikon F6, Nikon's last pro film camera. Like me, he spent a lot of time with his iPhone, too. I had fun photographing Robert on various reflective surfaces, like car windows and, above, on the back of a driver's side view mirror.

Chuck chose to only use his iPhones; yes, he has two of them, a 4 and a new 4S. He also brought along a special tripod just for his iPhone.

Tom brought along a beautiful Leica rangefinder, with a few lenses. For aesthetics, I think Tom's camera was easily the match of my Rolleiflex.

Ted brought a variety of cameras, too, including his muscular Pentax medium format camera. And Stjepan switched between his film camera and a little Canon S95. The more he worked with the S95, the more he came to appreciate its worth as an artistic instrument.

Ken chose his own Leica rangefinder, as well as his own Canon S95.

Besides views of the soaring, granite cliffs, and the patches of autumn color, there were some spectacular reflections in the Merced River. Above: morning light on El Capitan is reflected in the Merced River.

Above: a duck conveniently swims into El Capitan and the sky's reflection, turning the scene into a piece of abstract art.

We also spent time photographing at Fern Spring, "Yosemite's Smallest Waterfall." A slow shutter speed blurred the water, while the leaves and moss held still for me.

Perhaps my favorite photograph came at the end of the second full day of the trip, at the Wawona Pioneer Village, an enclave of historic architecture, miles west of Yosemite Valley.

We all found ourselves photographing the lovely old covered bridge. I spent some time thinking about how to convey the sense of that old bridge with my little digicam, and ultimately I decided to make a more restricted view. Trying to show it all – the bridge, the water, the sky, the adjacent building and forest – just took in too of the view much for my taste. This time, I decided, less would be more.

As I made my photographs in the crisp air, I experienced a sense nostalgia. It was the sense of roads taken, of wonderful places I have been and people I've met over the course of my life. Where did that nostalgia come from? Maybe it came from the creativity that went into making those photographs at the covered bridge. Maybe that creativity let me live in the moment as well as connect on a deep level with my own history.

And if that's true, it's as good a reason as any, at the turning time of the year, to spend a few days with a camera and a few friends in a place like Yosemite.

Note: click on any photo to view larger sized images.

Above: Autumn Color in Idaho

Note: click on a photo to view a larger-sized image

After the Fall

- Warning - A Post That's Not for the Squeamish

If you don't have a strong stomach, or you are about to have a meal, or you just had a meal, move along, there's nothing to see here.

Since early October, I've piled on the miles, not not much on my bike, but in cars and trucks and vans and planes and on my feet, as I've conducted almost too many photo trips (and one camping trip) to recall. I barely seem to have been home since the beginning of autumn. My journeys are almost over for the year, and I'll finally be home after next weekend, next year.

Autumn is the time of change. On one of my recent trips, I could say that the sense of change was palpable, after an incident in Yosemite. In fact, there was for me a distinct whiff of mortality that accompanied the autumn chill.

Before that happened, I enjoyed a couple of terrific outings. I've already blogged a little about the first, my trip to Yellowstone Country, when, in the company of a fine group of photographers, we photographed buffalo and geysers and grand landscapes, as we traveled through portions of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming (and where I learned about the death of Steve Jobs, which I wrote about a few posts back.

In Yellowstone, we had plenty of opportunities to photograph some of the spectacular thermal areas, like Canary Hot Springs, above, on the north side of the park.

Above: At Black Sand Basin

And we had a few chances to photograph Old Faithful, viewed above, one day in sunlight and day under cloudy skies after a night of snowfall.

There was no lack of wildlife, from bears to elk, bison to pronghorn antelope (pictured above).

We also found a herd of sheep in Wyoming, as we motored toward Jackson Hole, with a Great Pyrenees guard dog that was having some apparent difficulty serving as leader of the pack.

On my next trip, which was conducted on behalf of Harvey Mudd College, there was more wildlife. For this trip, we camped at a beautiful campground just south of the little resort town of Pismo Beach, along the central coast of California. My "official" duties were to help Irene Shibata, our gourmet chef, prepare meals for the group, although I also helped organize a trip to Montana de Oro State Park, where the Coast Range Mountains come right down to the sea.

By the way, if you, reader, have a group and you'd like to have someone – i.e. me - conduct a camping trip for you, let me know.

Above: kelp at one of the tide pools at Montana de Oro State Park.

Above: Sea Anemone

On our way over a backroad to Montana de Oro, we passed a multitude of bike riders as the made their over the mountains. Who were these intrepid riders, where were they going? We finally asked one of them, as he slowly pedaled his way upward, what the ride was about. It was the Solvang Double Century, a 200 mile ride that cyclists were trying to finish within one day.

I half wanted to be with those cyclists, as I hadn't had a challenging ride like that in over a year. In fact, I'd broughtmy bike with me on the trip, in the vain hope I'd have a little time to ride it along the coast. Irene made sure that didn't happen. I still planned to ride my bike, at some point, on my next trip. Little did I know that next trip might have ended my cycling career.

I said goodbye to the alumni group from Harvey Mudd College, and to co-hosts Irene and Hal Grant (who also likes camping and photography). I drove over the Coast Range Mountains into the Central Valley of California, and then on into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, to a rendezvous with Ken Rockwell. We were going to spend the next few days conducting a photography outing for the Yosemite Conservancy (for whom I also conducted a couple of family camping trips this past summer).

Color isn't a primary feature of Yosemite; the granite cliffs and pine forests are the dominant visual features. Even so, there isn't any particular difficulty finding color in the park.

Above: Giant Sequoia (aka a redwood)

Above: Yosemite Valley with a Rainbow in Bridalveil Fall

Above: Big Leaf Maple at Fern Spring

As most photographers know, it's not easy to photograph people. There's always the element of rejection when we ask directly to make a photograph. And yet, for me, that's the best way. I do like to establish a rapport with people. However, time is often in short supply. That's when I'll say, as I did to the couple above, "Hey, you two look great. Could I make your photograph?" They had been walking away from Glacier Point, with it's view of Yosemite Valley and beyond, toward their car.

The couple, who were from France, were very obliging, as I asked them to pose for our little group of photographers in front of iconic Half Dome. Perhaps they were so willing because they had been married a few days earlier, in Las Vegas.

That night, not done with photography, a few of us walked over to the base of Yosemite Falls. There was a significant amount of water in the falls, and with the help of some flashlights, we lit the lower fall and photographed it. This was a group experiment, something I had not done before, and a learning experience for all of us, as we played with f/stops and exposures and the flashlights (my little headlamp had a far-too puny light to make any effect, although it did let me see where I was going, at least when I had it on).

We also made some exposures pines and a granite cliff silhouetted against the night sky, with the Milky Way clearly visible.

And then it happened. I had turned off my headlamp, so as not to blind anyone or wreck an exposure, and stepped forward in the pitch black, towards one of our group who was shining a flashlight at the water. I thought he might want me to relieve him. A couple of steps past our tripods, I managed to trip over a five-foot long, half-foot high rock that sat quietly waiting for me on the otherwise flat, open viewing area below the fall. I went down hard and fast, stinging my knees, my right wrist, and my right elbow.

Rarely have I experienced such sharp pain, and as I tried to stand, I thought I might vomit. I stretched out next to the rock, as my companions asked if I needed them to call 911.

"Do NOT call 911," I pleaded, with pain so awful, and my bone-headed misstep so ridiculous, that I started to laugh out loud at myself. When I finally did stand, I discovered I could barely take a step with my right leg.

"I might need some help getting back to the room," I admitted.

"We'll call 911!" came the reply.

"Do NOT call 911," I answered.

Eventually, after everyone made their photographs, I was able to hobble on my own back to my room. I was able to walk the next morning, with some difficulty. Because of the medication I'm on that thins my blood, I expected to see quite a bruise on my thigh. There was nothing. I considered myself lucky not to have broken a kneecap or two, or my arm, or my femur, or my skull.

The next day, I was off with Ken on another trip, this time to the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The pain continued, making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for me to sit on the ground or lay flat, which I like to do to make a photograph. I had to pull my right leg up with my hands into the car in which I was riding.

On the way home from the Sierra east side trip (I'll post some photos here soon), I drove through Yosemite again. I pulled my bike out of the back of my little truck, painfully threw a leg over the handlebars and the top tube, and settled myself on the narrow saddle. Each revolution of the pedals made my thigh ache a little. Maybe it was the flywheel effect, but whatever the reason, the pain was far less than what I felt when I walked.

So I made a leisurely 20 mile loop around the Valley, then rode slowly up to the wonderful Tunnel View, to take another look at the rainbow that formed within Bridal Veil Fall, which happens each day in mid to late October. Again, despite the pain, I felt lucky that I hadn't done more serious damage to myself.

Then it was time to head home for just a few days, before my next trip.

Two days earlier, in my room at the cute Bridgeport Inn, I noticed little islands of purple had formed on my thigh. Bit by bit, those islands merged over the next several days to form a super-continent of purple that covered most of my right thigh, and continued over my knee and part way down the right side of my lower leg.

The photo below, made a day or so after I returned home, came a few days before the bruise stopped spreading, and a day before my wife, Kathy, commanded me not to show her my leg again.

I'm still hurting a little, 26 days after my epic fall. The remnants of that bruise still decorate my thigh. And I'm still thinking I'm as lucky as I was unlucky to still be here on this good earth, in autumn, under the sun and the stars.

Note: click on a photo to view a larger-sized image (OK, maybe not the last photo)