{"id":1190,"date":"2011-11-25T11:17:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T11:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2012-01-09T16:49:53","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T16:49:53","slug":"los-angeles-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/?p=1190","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles, May 1997"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The first ever New Labour government had just been elected in England.\u00a0 On my TV, a Richard Branson impersonator with a gurning grin and a wife with a mouth like a letterbox were glad-handing the peasants near the entrance to Downing Street.\u00a0 The scene cut back to a weasely-looking man blowing kisses to the crowd and a fat man trying desperately to look like he could move in time to music.\u00a0 For the time being, I was better off here in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away, in the New World …<\/p>\n

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Los Angeles is the most car-mad city in the world.\u00a0 There are twice as many cars here as people; its freeway system handles more than twelve million cars a day and lucky residents spend an estimated four days of each year stuck in traffic.\u00a0 So, Los Angeles isn\u2019t the first place that would spring to mind as the ideal place to own a bicycle.<\/p>\n

But the City of Angels isn\u2019t all<\/em> freeways, smog and neon.\u00a0 There are several canyons that climb up to the ridge line of Mulholland Drive, where you can ride west all the way to the glittering ocean. \u00a0At the ocean, you can continue along\u00a0the concrete ribbon that snakes the length of the beach …\u00a0and follow a rollerblading nymphet with long, roasted limbs and a silicone valley of cleavage.\u00a0 But today I wanted to clear my head.\u00a0 I went to\u00a0the garage and took out my bike.\u00a0\u00a0Today I wasn\u2019t planning to ride to the ocean …\u00a0I would be heading inland, towards the mountains \u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only early morning and the temperature\u2019s already touching 60\u00b0F.\u00a0 The sky is a metallic pastel blue and the air has that faintly acidic \u2018old car battery\u2019 tang\u00a0to it.\u00a0 I\u2019m riding my bike through Beverly Hills, where sprinklers are playing on the grassy banks of luxury homes, each trying to be more out-standing than its neighbours \u2014 Mother Goose cottage, Regency manor, Tudor mansion, Tuscan villa, Connecticut colonial, Spanish mission \u2014 all flanked by the giant green feathers of waving palms, edged by a lush tangle of bougainvillea and hibiscus, and fronted by lawns where white chairs sit patiently at white tables as, indoors, coffee bags sigh as their vacuum seals are released.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through Beverly Hills \u2026 now I\u2019m standing over my bike, waiting patiently for a break in the traffic, so I can make a left turn.\u00a0 My bike is a \u2018hardtail\u2019 mountain bike with off-road tyres fat enough to deal with the pot holes (because most of the roads here are uneven and broken) but with\u00a0tread slick enough not to\u00a0drag.<\/p>\n

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Soon after I make my turn I hit an unavoidable stretch where the traffic is wide, loud and unkind\u00a0… where drivers keep up a steady fifty as they switch lanes and vie for position.\u00a0 A Mercedes convertible pulls briefly alongside me, its stereo-system cranking out the soundtrack of the moment \u2026\u2018all I wanna do is have some fun \u2026 and watch the sun come up over the Santa Monica Boulevard.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em>The buildings around me \u2014 an ungodly jumble of banks, realtors, hamburger huts, copy shops and nail emporiums \u2014 sit in the new sunlight, casting their square black shadows.\u00a0 For a few miles it\u2019s neither fun, nor pretty.\u00a0 I pass a bus stop where a bench advertises a law firm\u2019s specialities: \u2018Divorce and Bankruptcy\u2019\u00a0… something that can often be achieved in quick succession.<\/p>\n

Before long I\u2019m into the hills, where short driveways spur off the road at impossible angles \u2014 towards homes where Hockney once splashed his canvasses … and where actors and rock stars perch their top-dollar nests and try not to think of the Big One.\u00a0 Only a few days ago there\u2019d been an earthquake \u2014 not the Big One …\u00a0just one that left a light dusting of plaster as aquariums slopped over and Oscars and Grammys tumbled from shelves.\u00a0 The gaps between the houses reveal a near-vertical dirt hillside with deeply-eroded grooves.\u00a0 When there\u2019s a flash flood here, the rain washes down the roads so rapidly that cats and dogs go missing and pick-up trucks loaded with lawn mowers and leaf blowers get completely turned around.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m heading east now, over the rump of Griffith Park and Silver Lake, dropping down into Eagle Rock and on towards Pasadena.\u00a0 Every few blocks there\u2019s an invisible boundary \u2014 like the one where Mexican oom-pah music gives way to the smell of Kosher food.\u00a0 Then, through another invisible boundary, long before I\u2019ve reached the mountains, I reach the \u2018air-quality line\u2019 where I realize how much worse it was an hour ago \u2026 and how much better it is now.\u00a0 The visible<\/em> boundary is where the green sprinkled lawns begin to give way to chaparral and rock outcroppings.<\/p>\n

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By late morning I\u2019m into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, at La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge, where Angeles Crest Highway goes straight up for a mile like a ski jump in reverse as the urban landscape falls away behind.\u00a0 Soon the road begins snaking upwards for eight miles in a slow-winding climb where every turn increasingly opens out the view. \u00a0<\/em>I pause for a minute and look back over the land I\u2019ve covered.\u00a0 The glass towers of the LA business district and Century City appear as unreal\u00a0the vista in any video game.\u00a0 But, far away to the west, it\u2019s clear enough to make out the great arc of the coastline.<\/p>\n

At Clear Creek the road finally levels off and relaxes briefly and it\u2019s possible to pick up some speed again, before the road rises in a new swell that makes my legs protest all over again.\u00a0 Only another bike rider could know the feeling in my legs \u2014 there\u2019s none quite like it.\u00a0 Greg LeMond was once asked, \u2018At what point does climbing hills become easy?\u2019\u00a0 He replied, \u2018It never gets easier; you just go faster.\u2019 \u00a0In my case, it doesn\u2019t get any easier.\u00a0 And I just go slower.<\/p>\n

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\u2026 I\u2019m passing over the front of the range now, into a wilderness of spiky green cactus where I can hear all the small sounds again and there\u2019s another vital change in the quality of the air. \u00a0It\u2019s all much greener and not so dusty now.\u00a0 The road here is usually closed from Thanksgiving to Easter and has only just reopened.\u00a0 It\u2019s fresh and chill and there are still mounds of old snow at the side of the road even though, just out of sight on the far side of the ridge, the Mojave Desert is baking in brilliant sunlight.\u00a0 Apart from the thin ribbon of tarmac threading its way through the mountains, the only other signs of civilization are over to the right, on top of Mount Wilson \u2014 a few nondescript buildings and a cluster of antennae.<\/p>\n

In the past, I\u2019ve ridden the off-road trails in these mountains.\u00a0 Riding a bike on<\/em> the road involves less\u00a0technical challenge … man and machine, bloke and bike, are simply geared to the rhythm of propelling each other along the road.\u00a0\u00a0Without noticing, you become absorbed in thoughts of the past or future, in memory or imagination, and the bike has somehow become a time machine taking you back to feelings of thirty years ago.\u00a0 And, in the moment of realizing how far away it\u2019s taken you,\u00a0 once again it\u2019s a timeless<\/em> machine that allows you to be present.<\/p>\n

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The switchback finally levels out at something over 5,000 feet, at Newcomb\u2019s Ranch, where there\u2019s an assembly of exotic motor bikes.\u00a0 The place is a favourite with affluent weekend motorcyclists, as much as it is with everyone else, because it\u2019s the only place to stop and eat on Highway 2.\u00a0 Inside, a fire blazes in a stove made from an old oil drum.\u00a0 I order and eat plate of nachos with everything \u2014 refried beans, guacamole, melted cheese \u2014 which tastes like the most righteous thing I\u2019ve ever eaten.<\/p>\n

\u00a0*\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

Back on the road, I\u2019m at the midway point between a bed for the night further along the way, or one back in LA.\u00a0 Soon the long slow descent of the sun will begin to change the lay of the shadows.\u00a0 For a moment it\u2019s quiet and eerie.\u00a0 High overhead and far away, I can just make out a passenger jet.\u00a0 I recall sitting on just such a plane, not so long ago, and looking out of the window at a vast expanse of featureless land where I eventually picked out a thin black ribbon running from \u2026 somewhere to somewhere.\u00a0 I wondered who on earth would ever go along such a road \u2026 or why.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a clich\u00e9 that any journey \u2014 whether by train, plane or automobile \u2026 horseback, bike or bus \u2014 isn\u2019t only the distance travelled through the outer world but is also an inner<\/em> journey through memories, dreams and reflections.\u00a0 If a journey’s begun with that in mind, or later recalled from that point-of-view, it might be seen as a kind of pilgrimage, or search.<\/p>\n

Maybe\u00a0the \u2018search\u2019 is\u00a0all there really is.\u00a0 Like the singer who said he still hadn\u2019t found what he was looking for …\u00a0it may be the only truth we\u2019ll ever find, is the one that keeps us\u00a0looking.\u00a0 But it’s a lot better prospect than being stuck with a conclusion.<\/p>\n

… I pull my gloves back on.\u00a0 Now I’ve a choice to make.\u00a0 I can turn round and enjoy a thrilling freewheeling rush back to world I\u2019ve come from.\u00a0 Or I can push on to Wrightwood.<\/p>\n

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The first ever New Labour government had just been elected in England.\u00a0 On my TV, a Richard Branson impersonator with a gurning grin and a wife with a mouth like a letterbox were glad-handing the peasants near the entrance to Downing Street.\u00a0 The scene cut back to a weasely-looking man blowing kisses to the crowd and a fat man trying desperately to look like he could move in time to music.\u00a0 For the time being, I was better off here … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,15],"tags":[20,24,19,21,22,23,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":102,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}