Biking: Hollywood to Manhattan Beach

Sunday, May 29, 2005, at 12:00PM

By Eric Richardson

I started off yesterday pretty lazy, just working on some stuff on the computer. I felt like I wanted to go for a ride, but didn't really have a destination until I found out a friend's birthday party was happening in Manhattan Beach. I needed to go to Hollywood first, though, to check in with Hollywood Pro Bicycles. So I decided I would take the subway over to Hollywood, and then ride to MB from there. Kathy would be meeting me at the beach, so I'd stick the bike in her car and only have to ride one-way.

The ride took me the length of the Ballona Creek Bike Path and then from the airport down to Manhattan on the beach bike path, so of the 20 miles I would put close to two-thirds on bike paths. That makes for a nice trip. I think it took me an hour and fifteen minutes, including hitting seemingly every red light on La Brea and riding into a headwind approaching the ocean. My ride was slightly different than that shown in the map -- instead of starting out by going east over to Vine only to come back west later I just went straight down La Brea to Jefferson. That worked fine (other than the lights).

The bike shop's going to order a tribar (vaguely like these, but differently shaped) for me to try out, which I'm looking forward to. I really want a grip position that'll keep me low and leaned forward for speed and power.