I finally found a park with bike trails in west Los Angeles!!

[unitool]

So I finally found a park near me that has trails to ride on. All I need to do now is figure out a way to get there that won't get me killed.

Will Rogers State Park is about 5 miles from my place. I rode over today after I rode to Temescal Canyon Park and was told by a really snooty Park Ranger that even if the trails were not closed due to fire danger, they don't allow bikes anyway!

"Well, screw you and the city of LA", is what I thought to myself, but I'd already ridden all the way down the beach and then up the hill to get there, so I figured I might as well stop to look at the maps. After looking at the map for a while, I saw that Will Rogers park was just down Sunset a couple death-defying miles and it has a bike trail!

So I rode over and checked it out and what do you know? It's a fire trail that they have generously decided to let people ride their bikes on! What awesome people they must be in the recs and park dept here! How generous of them to set aside a tiny park and a 1.5 mile loop of dirt road inside the concrete jungle so we can pretend that we're mountain biking in the city!!

Even tho it's just 1.5 miles, the loop at the park was ok - plenty of places to get going fast enough to hurt yourself, and lots of places where you could fly off the edge and never be seen again. Still....the park is pretty big, but only a tiny area is open to bikes. BS. It's also in a rotten spot that mikes riding a bike to the canyon a very unappealing idea. I have to ride along Sunset, no matter what, and that's just no fun...no shoulders, people speeding like maniacs, and lots of traffic. Yes, it's as great as it sounds!

Lets see....here's the view of LA from the trail. As you can see, the trail elevation puts you right in the thick of the smog cloud. Thats gotta be really good for you as you're breathing hard to climb those hills.



Here is the trail, lil bit...



Here is a sweet Google Earth image that shows the same basic view as the second image, but FROM SPACE!! You can see how the trail runs along the edge of a nice drop. That is what I was thinking of when I mentioned falling off the side on this thing.



My camera has a thing it does where it'll combine multiple smaller images into a panorama. I'm still trying to get good results from it, but this is not too bad...

Small version...



Full size version - 3600x600 or something like that...

http://toolcrib.gotdoofed.com/images...Canyon_PS1.jpg

I guess the search for a real park or some real trails continues for now...this place will be ok for an occasional trip, but the ride along Sunset to get to it really kills the deal for me.

Hope you like the pictures - Google Earth is the greatest free software since the browser. Try it today!