So yesterday morning’s 37 miler — from Silver Lake down to Watts Towers and back up to Boyle Heights, across the 6th Street Bridge, and down under the bridge to the LA River bed before heading up to the top of downtown an cutting across to MacArthur Park, and coming back past historic Alvarado Terrace with tacos at the excellent El Parian on Pico before rolling the remainder slowly home — was awesome, if I do say so myself.
To my surprise Manny and I were joined by Tim who found my post on the Midnight Ridazz ride board and pedaled/Metro’d it from Chatsworth to be a part of it. That’s bad ass.
Besides the asshat driver of MTA articulated bus No. 9254 committing a flagrant cut-off foul at Pico and Vermont, followed by a rear flat Manny got at 46th and Central, the only other downside to the ride was that my camera got all glitchy as we left the Watts Towers, so our arrival there is where the following timelapse vid ends:
And that’s a shame, because after the three of us came back up the Alameda Corridor and into Boyle Heights and across the 6th Street Bridge, we ventured underneath that viaduct to find the tunnel leading to the river bed to find it not only swept clean of switchblades and hypodermix, but also free of any potential crackhead zombies. The descent into the pitchblack portal would’ve made for some cool footage, but alas it was not to be. So instead here are some pix from the ride including that stop at my Flickr photoset.
At the end because of time and an unwillingness to endure whatever line might be waiting for us at our original breakfast destination of The Pantry, we opted to grub at a Mexican place on Pico called El Parian that I first learned about from Michael Schneider over at Franklin Avenue prior to their Great LA Walk of Pico Boulevard in 2007. I opted to walk by it that day without trying their reported excellence (it is one of the LA Weekly’s Jonathan Gold’s “99 Essential LA Restaurants”) and have been longing to get some ever since.
Well, good things come to those who wait, because their tacos de birria are so good I already want to go back for more (and try their famed carne asada) — but if I bike there I’ll just be sure not to order three like I did yesterday thinking they were taco truck-sized. They’re not. They’re big, wrapped in a two-ply of thick handmade tortillas. Feast your eyes upon them below, then go get some of your own (1528 W. Pico Blvd., open daily 8 a.m. – 9:30 p.m., cash only).
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