Finds from the Grind - Caltech to Descanso

Scenes from my ride around Pasadena, the river trails, and Glendale on 2/10/2018.

I took a fun detour, I can't really call it a shortcut, through the Caltech campus on my way down to South Pasadena to get on the Arroyo Seco. Usually, I would take California all the way across, but since I'm living in the slow muck right now, I decided to do some exploring on San Pasqual. Nice, quiet, newly paved and dumps you right into Caltech!

So, I can't call going across a college campus a shortcut because they usually have speed limits on bikes, 15 or 10 mph, and sometimes they even make you walk it in certain areas. I didn't see any posted signs at Caltech, but I slowed down from my preferred 20 mph. What a treat to be able to go all the way across the campus on almost an exact straight line. It's like there used to be road there, or something...

The river trails were fine, since I had already seen them going the other way from two weeks prior, but my main concern was how to get back up the hills while I'm out of shape. My usual route is climbing back up Chevy Chase, but the less steep way is taking Verdugo all the way up to Montrose. I hadn't done that in a couple of years and it seemed somehow shorter even though I took longer to go up it. I'm fat and slow, remember?

I included one little scene of another reason why I hate bike lanes. They put bikes in the blind spots of cars at intersections. That's in addition to taking out a portion of the road that cars can use, counting the gutter as part of the bike lane, and where all the potholes seem to find themselves. Instead of some stupid paint making a cyclist stay in the worst part of the road where cars can't see them, how about repaving that road more often and actually sweep the street every one or two weeks? Car drivers would like that too, you know.