This morning I detoured a little from my planned Sunday ride to try the climb to the new Baldwin Hills Overlook, just off Jefferson Boulevard. The day seemd clear enough for some good photos, and the climb looked like a wlecome challenge after a week of easy local rides.

Well, it was more of a challenge that I’d thought, at least on a fixie, especially when one is feeling a touch of flu. I made it about two-thirds of the way up before getting off to walk, then finished up the last fifty yards or so a-saddle. It would have been doable on a geared bike, and I figure I have a fifty-fifty chance of cleaning it on my fixie when feeling well. When I got home, I checked the elevations on Veloroutes, and I saw that the road begins with a modest 7% climb, which changes to about 24% (!) about halfway up, and further steepens to 29% (!!) just before the top.

I didn’t really realize how steep it was till I prepared to descend, and felt as though I were at the top of a roller coaster.

The view, when I got there, was both spectacular and disappointing, as you can see below:

Yes, smog…. Thirty-five years after emissions controls, on an autumn day swept by Santa Ana winds, there was still smog, blown over (in this case) from the Inland Empire and other points east.

Of course, it’s been worse. My father used to work in an office building downtown, around the corner from Clifton’s, and remembered days so smoggy that he couldn’t see the building across the street from his window!

Fortunately, things aren’t that bad now. But they’re still not good enough.

The real challenge is in making it both possible and attractive for people to travel without their cars. Bikes and transit are the immediate answers, followed by intensive infill development that makes bikes and transit more effective than they are now.

We are getting ahead, little by little, as readers of my various blogs, and my good-news-mostly cycling Twitter feed, know.

But there’s always a reactionary element, be it knee-jerk NIMBYs who fear any change, even if it would make their neighborhoods better for them as it makes them friendlier to bicycles, or neanderthal legislators who relentlessly attack bike and transit infrastructure that would actually reduce tax burdens on cities while making properties more valuable.

So you see we have a tough climb ahead of us. I think we can clean it, but like any climb it’ll take some sweat and a lot of commitment. Your commitment. Get involved.
 

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This Monday night!!

Beats staying at home handing out candy any day.
Happy Halloween everyone!