Alleys for a Safe Ride

Yesterday I needed to ride down to my photography processor...day-off chores. When I ride my bike, generally to the other side of Long Beach, I use it as my cardio workout. I pump my legs hard for half an hour and move. Yesterday when I started out I could still feel the effects of that bug I caught at Disneyland.

I pumped my legs for about three seconds when I realized that that wasn't going to happen. I was done. I definitely didn't have the energy for that adventure--the beach path fast track. I was headed back to the apartment when I noticed one of the many Long Beach alleys, the alley between 1st and 2nd.

1 1/2 Street, I guess.

I turned my bike into the alley and slowly meandered east. The ride, slow and safe, was quite a nice change. The beach is beautiful, not like the North Coast, or even Montanya de Oro, but quickly gliding a two wheeler along the very edge of the continent is an experience that I always cherish.

The images I got in my brain as I cruised down First-and-a-half Street, shielded from the blasting sun that usually hits a person as they jam down the shore, shielded from the unusually high winds that were present on the day, were a strange mix of Old Europe.

I was a horse-mounted member of a village cruising through a nearly deserted thoroughfare. Which the alley was: deserted. I saw a car off in the distance, but it was gone before I got too close. Also, when I had to cross streets, which was a large number of times, I was lucky to be travelling between 1st and 2nd, an area that doesn't get random traffic. My crossings were all as safe and as deserted as the alleys themselves.

The ride went from Alamitos, the same street that has our laundromat, all the way to Bixby Park. At each of those crossings, I could look out over the bluffs and catch glimpses of the ocean. A quick ride through Bixby Park got the ride back to the alley, and off again for a while all the way to Euclid. From there it was just a few short blocks to Belmont Shore and eventually Fromex, my processors.

The way back was pretty much the same; me doing my slow pied-piper act down the street, acting Quixote and spouting 'hellos' at terraces that smelled like pot smoke. Missing out on the beach's headwind was the best part of this meander home.

On the way to Belmont Shore, the sun blasts your face, and on the way home, the wind is the drastic force you fight with. At least if you start from the west side of Long Beach.

Really, this trip also acted like a dry run on a bigger bike adventure I have been working out the details of for a while.

Slow riding...something I don't take advantage of enough...the experience, I mean. Slowing down and smelling the flowers, or alleys, anyway.