Riding the Route - Ciclavia the Valley 3/22/15

Another batch from last week's Ciclavia in the Valley. These are from my 35mm Holga and are mostly just bits of people biking along the route from Lankershim down to Ventura and Coldwater! It's been weird seeing these same streets post Ciclavia this week... Sometimes pretty empty. Sometimes just filled with traffic, speeding cars and people running red lights. Other times, just annoying when trying to deal with non-responsive & sometimes oddly timed lights, especially from a bicyclist's perspective. I enjoyed them better closed to cars....

Oddly enough, the next Ciclavia route for Pasadena was announced this week. On one hand, it's nice to have it in in a new location. On the other, the route is a bit short (this seems to be the theme as the Ciclavias have become more frequent :/ ) and generally reflects the same streets that are closed down for a variety of events in Pasadena including the Rose Parade and the Make Music Pasadena Festival (which is the week after Ciclavia).

And secondly oddly enough, while the Valley Ciclavia was right outside of my home, this next Pasadena Ciclavia is right outside of my work. Ciclavia's stalking my LIFE!! If only those same places would become permanent Open Streets... or at least get some protected bike lanes? Each Ciclavia proves to me, once again, that if you create safe places for people to move around actively in Los Angeles, they come!

 Jerry's & Pinz bowling on Ventura

I enjoy how often random people talk to each other at moments like this at Ciclavia. That kinda of friendliness generally isn't seen while in cars...

I bike this intersection nearly every day... and many days the cars just blow straight through the red lights, (yes, straight, not even a left turn!) It's so weird to have actually seen what it could be like without the dangers of cars in the same spaces...

 NoHo hub near Red Line Station

So many dogs love Ciclavia too!!!!!

People of Ciclavia in the Valley

The Ciclavia this past Sunday March 22 was an ultra special Ciclavia for me. Not only was it the first Ciclavia in the San Fernando Valley, but it was literally right outside my apartment building door!!!!!! I was a little unsure about it based on the kinds of pre-event feedback I was getting from people throughout the community, but the turnout seemed great and everyone I interacted with seemed like they were having fun. I was doing things pretty much from 8:30am-4:20pm with little breaks in my apartment throughout the day. I ended up riding (nearly) the whole route 2 times, ate my breakfast while wandering around the Ciclavia route, had some nice conversations with a friend, handed out some decorations for bikes & met some nice people, and shot photos. Such an awesome, perfect day, for me at least.

This first batch of photos are actually the last I shot of the day, but I was super excited to post them. Towards the end of the event I wandered around the Universal hub and just asked random people to shoot their photos in addition to my normal thing. This is a huge, difficult thing for me, but everyone I spoke to with was very kind and allowed me to shoot their photos with my Yashica Mat (which was catching a lot of eyes throughout the event... from time to time I'd hear someone yell out "Medium format!" and "whoa look at that camera!") Thank you to everyone that stopped and let me shoot your photos and for being patient with me with my old manual camera!

although this isn't the best photo (old camera with manual everything), this guy first caught my eye because he was biking with crutches, then I realized he didn't have a right foot! How awesome that a bike lets him still get around!

I loved this woman's dress and her smile that matched her bike!!!!

the Ciclavia game I play in my mind of "spot the Burner bikes"!

...and of course, there are many more photos to come! Thanks to Rocket Photo Lab in Studio City for getting my photos developed so quickly!

neighborly

A few bits of my surrounding neighborhood from the end of December 2014

Toluca Lake Hollywood Methodist Church (WHERE AM I?)

Burbank Media District office building

...before this I did not know streets could go on vacation.... In other news, I hate this intersection because it eats human teeth.

Things you shoot at night, marathoic edition

As a promotional/awareness/birthday thing (thing? thing.) for the LA Marathon this year, spot lights were set up along the whole route for about 2 hours tonight. Now the intended result was supposed to be columns of light at every mile marker and maybe that was more of the case closer to the lights, but because of light pollution, I mostly saw the columns only with longer photo exposures or by the light projecting onto the clouds. I think I was likely seeing the lights in the Hollywood/ West Hollywood areas (which is only about 3.5 miles away by sight from where I was.) Regardless, it was still an excuse to wander around and take photos at night.

 Yay! One of the interesting things about having Ciclavia in my neighborhood is seeing what sorts of outreach is happening. I've seen various flyers (mostly on the street), emails from neighborhood groups, a booth at the farmers market and now signs appearing at the Metro Red Line station parking lot (which I think the parking lot itself is part of the route which is kinda weird/expected because Universal is a horrible neighbor.) Also, QA brain thinks the bottom comment was maybe supposed to say "March 21", not the 22.

tabebuia tree

..and finally, the LA Marathon light (pollution)

Animal friends

Some of the animal friends around my home recently.....

 Awwwwww... my sweet little rat friend who turns 2 this week! Look at his tiny hand and my giant hand! And his giant ears! And crazy whiskers! He's such a sweet little friend who's been showing his age a bit. Sometimes he'll actually sit still for a couple of minutes now to get scratched a bit on his neck, head and back.

 This little guy appeared right outside of my living room window a few weeks ago. That weekend he kept coming back over and over again, sometimes just hanging out in this tree. I'm not sure if it's the same one or not, but this evening a little humming bird was back, hanging out in the same spot. I'm always keeping my ears open for their little "chirp chirp" sound now!

If I had a yard, I would so enjoy watching the wildlife come by! Maybe one day.....