late
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2016
- Messages
- 4,583
- Reaction score
- 1,261
- Location
- Southern Maine
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
Man, does that ever look retro! That bikecould have been in the rack at my elementary school!I just wanted a cruiser. I didn't know yet that it was called a cruiser but turns out that's what it was. I was given the impression that I wouldn't be able to get one because of pandemic buying.
Yet though the shelves were nearly bare wherever I went, at the Walmart this one bike was waiting for me. Very happy. Foot brake was a little tricky to relearn to use -- a trip to the urgent care clinic happened and I still have a big brown mark from the bone bruise -- but very happy.
The last one was in the early 70s. It started in Europe, anything with wheels was flying out the door. Now it's happening here.
I am a cyclist. Bikes today are amazing. I have an electric bike with a 1/3 hp engine. It's not much, but at 69, it helps my old bod get up those hills.
Every summer I can get out on the bike, my weight drops, my BP drops, my blood sugar drops, and my Doc smiles.
When you're on a bike, you interact with your world differently. A lot of places you'd just drive by, you'll stop, just because. Actually, I arrange bike rides to we can take a break at a bakery or a coffee shop. We'll stop, and split a coffee and a goodie. We might go to the European Bakery manana. Coffee is nothing special, but they make very nice goodies. The other thing about cycling, you can have your cake and work it off. That's what I call a win/win.
I know it can be quite intimidating, expensive bikes, scary traffic, aches and pains where you haven't had them in quite a while. But it's given me my life back. I can't put a price tag on that.
I have two Cannondales - the one I have in Los Angeles is a mountain bike, but I don't ride it as much as I should - I use my elliptical machine instead. In Palm Springs, my bike is more of a street bike, but it still has 27 gears. At this stage in my life, it is uncomfortable to ride hunched over the front of the bikes. I only ride in the winter in Palm Springs, as it is too hot in the summer, but in Los Angeles, I ride year round. I used to live in Venice, close to the Venice and Marina Del Rey bike paths, but I got annoyed with those, due to overcrowding, shortly before I moved to Westchester, which is a much quieter neighborhood. I'm now three miles from the beach and rarely go there anymore.
I miss the Venice of old, not that I could even dream of being able to afford living there anymore.
The last two places I had were an edit studio in the basement of The Morrison at Speedway and Westminster and an old bungalow at the corner of Rialto and Abbott Kinney. Studio rent was $160 a month and the Abbott Kinney place was $750 a month rent to own.
An evil roommate screwed us all out of the Abbot Kinney place, pocketing the money when he should have been paying it to the landlord, ahhh the mistakes of youth, and the Morrison changed ownership and my studio rental was an informal agreement with the former manager.
The Abbot Kinney home converted to a business and the house sold for FOUR MILLION (!!!) and the rent on that basement in The Morrison would be almost $2500 a month today. I pay that much for a 4BR 2500 SF home in Whittier.
But I sure do miss biking along Ocean Front Walk, not for exercise, but just for fun!
My father still has an old newspaper advertisement from the 1970s of a small run-down bungalow on Malibu Beach selling for $15,000.00. He always jokes that since he still has the advert, he thinks about calling the number and taking the owner up on the offer.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?