[sic]

As expected, I reached my 6,000th mile on my way home last night, entering it roughly in the Melrose Hill vicinity of Western Avenue and Hobart and exiting it on approach to Santa Monica Boulevard on Heliotrope. In the midst of it I stopped at no better place to commemorate the achievement than  where my cycling enthusiasm got restoked way back in the summer of 2005:  the Bicycle Square/Quadrant/District/Zone/Land/Arena at Heliotrope and Melrose… pretty much the ground-zero of the city’s bike culture:

Of course I timelapsed the whole 15-mile ride home, but for the sake of expediency I’ve extracted the momentous (and at times gridlocked and gloriously lane-splitted) mile and saved it as a Quicktime file — albeit about a 15-meg’er what with me slowing the frames down a bit — that can be viewed here.

Today could be a truly pivotal day for bicycling in the city of Los Angeles what with the City Council’s special bike-themed Transportation Committee meeting taking place at City Hall.

I spent the week mulling ways in which I could take the day off and attend, but it’s just not going to happen, dammit.

So instead I’ll have to settle for being there in spirit between being in the saddle to and from work.

In other news I’m but 28 away from pedaling past my 6,000th mile for the year, which means I should arrive at that milestone this evening somewhere around the Bicycle Kitchen, appropriately.

Nearing the end of last week I knew that if I didn’t get a bit of weekend riding in, I’d end up on the last day of the month about 11 miles short of breaking the 682-mile record I set for the month of May. I could lie and say that didn’t matter, and while it didn’t matter enough to get me in the saddle Saturday or Sunday, it mattered enough yesterday to think about taking a long way home from work so that at the end of the day I’d have a new all-time-high mark.

Initially I had plans of heading to Marina Del Rey and then up through Venice and into Santa Monica to come back along San Vicente through Brentwood and West LA to West Hollywood and across the rest of the town via Fountain Avenue.

But in the end I opted for a slightly extended homeward route that brought me up through Los Feliz Village and over to the north side of the Silver Lake reservoir where I then in total and gratuitous mileage-junkiedom chugged out three laps around the perimeter and ended up at home with 684 miles for the month.

Please make a note of it: 584 of those miles were commute related, which translates into 29 gallons of gas not consumed, which (@ $4.60 per gallon) equals $134 not spent.

Another record achieved during June is one that required nothing to be sheepishly tacked on. For the first time I biked every available commute day in a month: 21. Only about a year ago I would amaze myself if I strung together five in a row.

Been a bit dormant here the last couple days. Sorry ’bout that. I’m happy to report that my “Ride of a Lifetime” ended up being a 70-mile affair and when I got home pretty much the only thing I did was play catch with the dog, drink a couple tall Pabstsesses and watch the clock drawing to the time when I had to get cleaned up, suited and over to Granada Hills High School for my daughter’s graduation yesterday evening.

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Both the outrageous birthday bike trek and my Katie’s awesome achievement have left me in a bit of a proud and contemplative state of solitude, but yesterday in between beers I did manage to upload a buncha photos of the pedaling portion of the day here on Flickr, with links to photos of the specific places on the list:

1. Good Samaritan Hospital, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles (May 29, 1964)
2. S. McCarty Drive, Beverly Hills ( - 1966?)
3. Westminster Avenue, Los Angeles (1966? - 1970?)
4. S. Hamilton Drive, Beverly Hills (1970? - 1972)
5. S. Tower Drive, Beverly Hills (1972 - 1974)
6. Holly Drive, Hollywood (1974 - 1977)
7. S. Wilton Place, Hollywood (1977 - 1979)
8. S. Hamilton Drive, Beverly Hills (1979 - 1983)
9. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys (1983 - 1984)
10. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (1984 - 1986)
11. Fulton Avenue, Van Nuys (1986 - 1988)
12. W. Tujunga Avenue, Burbank (1988 - 1990)
13. Verdugo Avenue, Glassell Park (1990 - 1990)
14. E. Palmer Avenue, Glendale (1990 - 1991)
15. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys (1991 - 1991)
16. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (1991 - 1994)
17. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys, (1994 - 1994)
18. Seabury Lane, Beverly Glen (1994 - 1995)
19. Burbank Boulevard, Encino (1995 - 2001)
20. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (2001 - 2003)
21. Del Mar Avenue, Silver Lake (2003 - 2004)
22. N. Occidental Boulevard, Silver Lake (2004 - )

And this morning I got around to building a rough-n-ready composite of the narrative video clips I captured at various points along the bike route the way and foisted it onto YouTube:

There are two ways you can read that headline: 1) As coming from someone whose patience is waning, or 2) As coming from someone answering “What’s this about?”

From my perspective I’m way more in the No. 2 camp. See, this Thursday it will be 44 years to the day that I came into this world at 7:08 a.m., delivered via C-section at Good Samaritan Hospital, across the street from Pacific Dining Car restaurant. I like to wonder who might have been having their breakfast a baseball steak’s throw away from me when I got hauled into the cold and light.

If you happen to be nothing more than acquainted with me you might roll your eyes when I tell you that I really have no issues with the number. Why not? July 6, 1994, that’s why not. Folks who either know me well enough or those whose visits here have happened to coincide with some sort of exploratory recap of that particular evening might recollect I could have died that night. But since I didn’t — whether it be for the grace of god or a fluke of impact physics, or vertebrae density/resilience/flex, or the fact that I’m a tough sumbitch who can go motorcycle helmet-first into the side of a car at 40mph and stand up right away with a wrecked head and a flood of blood — pretty much every day since has been a gift too precious to get too bogged down worrying about the trivial realities that come with hiking further into middle age. The scars and damage I suffered may still bother me, but the wrinkles and the gray? I’m just glad to be here to have ‘em.

Yeah, but do I hop up out of bed and greet every single day with a whistle and a grin? Hell nah. I’m not some sort of carpe diem freak. It may all be gravy to me these past 14 years but sometimes that gravy is lumpy and cold and gloppy.

But this Thursday the gravy’s gonna be savory — in part because I’ve decided to do something I wouldn’t normally do and take the day off work… so that I can do something I wouldn’t normally do and start eeeeeeeeeearly spending the better part of the day celebrating the milestone by pedaling a 68-mile route around the city that’s been percolating in the cranium for quite some time under the working title of “This Is Your Life” ride.

That might be something of a misnomer, because it isn’t really anchored on specific events of my life so much as all the places I’ve lived during that time. Thus will I be pedaling to each of the 16 addresses I’ve lived at throughout the first semi-nomadic half of my life (assuming I’m indeed somewhere in the middle of it) — and my first stop will be Good Sam Hospital where it all began. I’ve charted the 68.3-miles via Gmaps as follows:

Chronologically speaking, here’s the where and when (any question marks early on indicate approximations and do not take into account a period of my very early childhood spent living with my grandmother in Carbon Hill, Ala.):

1. Good Samaritan Hospital, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles (May 29, 1964)
2. S. McCarty Drive, Beverly Hills ( - 1966?)
3. Westminster Avenue, Los Angeles (1966? - 1970?)
4. S. Hamilton Drive, Beverly Hills (1970? - 1972)
5. S. Tower Drive, Beverly Hills (1972 - 1974)
6. Holly Drive, Hollywood (1974 - 1977)
7. S. Wilton Place, Hollywood (1977 - 1979)
8. S. Hamilton Drive, Beverly Hills (1979 - 1983)
9. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys (1983 - 1984)
10. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (1984 - 1986)
11. Fulton Avenue, Van Nuys (1986 - 1988)
12. W. Tujunga Avenue, Burbank (1988 - 1990)
13. Verdugo Avenue, Glassell Park (1990 - 1990)
14. E. Palmer Avenue, Glendale (1990 - 1991)
15. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys (1991 - 1991)
16. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (1991 - 1994)
17. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys, (1994 - 1994)
18. Seabury Lane, Beverly Glen (1994 - 1995)
19. Burbank Boulevard, Encino (1995 - 2001)
20. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks (2001 - 2003)
21. Del Mar Avenue, Silver Lake (2003 - 2004)
22. N. Occidental Boulevard, Silver Lake (2004 - )

For purposes of the most mileage-efficient route we will not be going in chrono order, instead it will be as follows:

1. Good Samaritan Hospital
2. Del Mar Avenue, Silver Lake
3. S. Wilton Place, Hollywood
4. Holly Drive, Hollywood
5. Westminster Avenue, Los Angeles
6. S. Tower Drive, Beverly Hills
7. S. Hamilton Drive, Beverly Hills
8. S. McCarty Drive, Beverly Hills
9. Seabury Lane, Beverly Glen
10. Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks
11. Burbank Boulevard, Encino
12. Murietta Avenue, Van Nuys
13. Fulton Avenue, Van Nuys
14. S. Tujunga Avenue, Burbank
15. Verdugo Avenue, Glassell Park
16. E. Palmer Avenue, Glendale
17. N. Occidental Boulevard, Silver Lake

If this seems an outlandish thing to do, I’ve done more over-the-top stuff. A couple years ago with the help of Susan and my good friend Rachel Rausch I summited Death Valley’s 11,049-foot Telescope Peak my last day as a 41 year old and for the first morning of my 42nd year bombed the 17-miles and 8,000-feet elevation drop between the Mahogany Flat campground and the Panamint Valley floor.

To me this seems totally tame in comparison.

I pedaled past my 2,000th mile this year with today’s bike commute (that included a trip to the dentist to fill a cavity and seal up a previous root canal retreatment… that’s right: I not only go for bike rides after riding bikes, but I even bike to and from unpleasant things). My annual mileage total now stands at 2,007.

That particular number has significance because it was my overall mileage goal for 2007. Further, I achieved that goal ahead of schedule in September of last year, going on to surpass 3,100 miles by December 31. Further further, I’ve done in less than the first five months of 2008 what it took me more than 9.5 months to do last year. Further further further, should all go well and according to plan I stand a rock solid chance of catching this year’s goal of 3,000 miles by somewhere around the middle of June — at which time, I’ll have to recalibrate to a new year-end number, dare I say… hmmmmm — 5,000?

I dare. But first let’s say hey to 3K.

I’ve rolled past my first thousand miles today, finishing up with this evening’s commute home at 1,005 for the year to date. Only 1,995 more to reach my goal for 2008.

Here’s a moment somewhere around mile 880 during the bike tour March 2; this macro of the cheap thumbnail image courtesy of the first time ever that the MarathonFoto folks have actually staffed the bike tour course:

It’s 52 degrees and calm outside right now at 3:50 a.m. It seems not as socked in as yesterday, but it’s early yet — literally. I’m up this morning this time not because of an tresspassing critters, but instead to get my ass on down to the 14th running of the bicycles known as the Acura L.A. Bike Tour, and ensure a spot near the front of the pack of some 15,000 or so others.

I just realized that with the L.A. Marathon I completed in 1994, and all the bike tours (and three orther marathons) since, this marks my 15th consecutive year of getting up the first Sunday in March.

It’s my least favorite part of the fun to come.

Rolling home from work yesterday I detoured up Fairfax* to Wilshire and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the official lighting of Chris Burden’s “Urban Lights” sculpture in the museum’s courtyard.

Flickr set here.

* Point of order: Passing all the restaurants along Fairfax through the Little Ethiopia district when you’re hungry is a hard thing to do.

I was almost going to take the “one less car” button off my backpack before I left the house this morning, but I realized it still applied: me and my carpooling partner who I was on my way to pick up conspired to keep one less car on the road today.

And the process was surprisingly painless. In checking with the officer manager last week at my new gig in regards to any rideshare/mass transit/alt-commute programs and such, I was directed to the building’s management, which coordinates and oversees such things. In short order I was online at the ridelinks page of their website and completing a short form that asked me where I was commuting from and at what times and what options I was interested in.

After submitting that info I did a search for any people who lived in my area of the city and wouldn’t you know 1.6 miles away from me there was one by the name of Pam. So I emailed her to see if she was game and she emailed back and said heck yeah and the next day I called her office and said howsabout Monday and she said sounds great and I picked her up near Beverly and Normandie at 8 a.m. on the dot and we carpooled across town in about 50 minutes worth of nice get-acquainted conversation.

Sure I’ve carpooled in the sense that friends and/or family are sitting in the passenger seat enabling me to take advantage of a diamond lane on the freeway, but I’ve never done so to work and back with a complete and total stranger.

Definitely nice to have that added option to go to in my alternate commute arsenal.