The Wednesday evening ride in Griffith Park was likely the first group ride I participated in on a regular basis. The ride set a very high standard by which other, subsequent, rides would be judged. In the late 1980s, after finishing school at UCSB, I moved to Burbank, and like a lot of people who lived in that area, found myself riding at Griffith Park, a lot. I quickly discovered that on Wednesday evenings there was a training race that took place. Hooked immediately, I became a weekly fixture. Like most of your weekday evening rides, the Park ride only ran during daylight savings time. At the end of the season, one lap would be cut off the ride each week, until the time change at the end of October. The Griffith Park ride had been around since at least the 1970s, and, unless my memory fails me, was organized, literally organized, by the North Hollywood Wheelmen. I emphasize organized because the ride was like no other regularly run ride I have participated in since. Riders would pay $1.00 per night and sign a standard USCF release form. We were given a number to pin to our jersey showing that we had paid for the night; since most riders tended to keep their numbers, different colored stickers started to be given out and affixed to the number, identifying the paid riders. There was a motorcycle lead, and course marshals with stop signs at either end of the course to stop traffic as the peloton swept into view. The course was a simple elongated loop starting at the Los Angeles Zoo parking lot; the finish was at the Los Feliz exit / entrance to the park. While not going up into the hills, the loop did take in a stretch of rollers which usually served as a launching platform for attacks.
The ride would generally start with a parade until swinging 180º at the turn-around just before Los Feliz. It would start in earnest at that point, circle around the zoo lot (remember, this was when there was a one way road circling the parking lot, as opposed to the current two-way configuration along the east side) and head back to Los Feliz to complete the circuit. Being held on a Wednesday, the Griffith Park ride was sandwiched between the Tuesday / Thursday Rose Bowl training races, and many people, myself included, would do all three training days during mid-week. In many ways they were complimentary - the Rose Bowl was/is a pure speed workout, where the speed might often be higher than in actual races. Griffith Park seemed more relaxed and social. The Rose Bowl has long been a draw to many of the regions local pros and professional teams, so it could usually be counted on to be fast; the Park ride, on the other hand, seemed to draw predominantly from catagory 3 and 4 riders, with perhaps a smaller number of 1 and 2 riders. That does not mean that people would not try for the win at the close of the evening, or try to stretch things out on the rollers, but with the more prestigious Bowl ride at the fore and aft, I think riders on the Park ride were content to take things a little easy. Easy being a relative term of course; it was during this ride that I saw my first fist fight in the peloton, not pulled off to the side mind you, but smack in the middle of the group, arms and fists swinging, people yelling, but the ride continuing on as usual. I guess I was new enough to the sport to be impressed by their bike handling skills, even if their choice of location left something to be desired.
Unfortunately, in the City of Angels, where transitory is like a motto, and good things all too often come to an abrupt end, the Griffith Park ride faced a losing battle. The city Parks Department, who at least tentatively, favored the ride at first, or at least tolerated it, (remember we were paying a fee each night for the privilege) abruptly changed course. The roads in Griffith Park, especially the section along the golf course have always been rather narrow, and the large peloton racing along these roads heightened drivers' sense of inconvenience, the Park withdrew their support and the ride was shut down. What irked me then, and still does when you get right down to it, is that city parks exist to provide recreational space to a city's residents and visitors. Here we were, using the park for just such a purpose. Many, if not most, of the drivers passing through the park I am convinced were there simply to avoid congestion on the 5 and 134 freeways.
The year 1993 was the final year of the Griffith Park ride in this form. On the very first night of the year, April 7 the police were out in the park and using their radios to suggest that we would be stopping at all stop signs; a bit of muffled laughter rolled through the group, and no one stopped. A week later there were more warnings with no effect. Ominously, the park superintendent paid us a visit in the zoo lot following the ride. In my log I wrote that "he seemed cooperative, but said he would have to shut us down if we didn't start stopping at intersections." I further noted that the city's bicycle coordinator was there as well, saying that he "wants to make the ride legal again." What this meant was that though the peloton continued to gather and train as always, the ride was no longer sanctioned - that 1992 was probably the last year of North Hollywood Wheelmen organizing, the last year that we paid a fee for the privilege of riding.
One more week passed before I noted: "Well it happened - the Park ride has been suspended for a couple weeks. The city bicycle coordinator showed up with the chief ranger and the director of Parks and Rec. and talked some before the ride. The coordinator expects his plan to be approved soon, but then the ride will have to be organized, and who knows how long that will take." The next week, April 28, the outlook had turned completely around: "The bike coordinator was there again with the latest news. Apparently the city has approved the plans and we now await a USCF training race permit. Explorer Scouts have been found to serve as course marshals and N. Hollywood Wheelmen will again run the show." Such are the politics of riding in L.A. however. On May 26 I wrote: "The Wed. nite ride seems to be in its death knells. For the second week in a row the police were out giving tickets to cyclists while letting cars speed along." People continued to ride on Wednesday nights, sometimes in groups of over 30 riders who continued to hope that the organized ride would be revived. It did not happen that year, nor in subsequent years. Skip forward one more year; we still gathered and rode as a group, though I do not think that anyone expected to see the old ride again. Then on June 1, "the hand of big brother is heavy and tonight it came down on us cyclists again. The ride was really fun while it lasted... I kept myself at the front taking several more pulls until a lap later those bastards pulled us over and warned us about stopping. I guess parks aren't for recreation anymore, the speeders sure are never persecuted for using it as an alternate to the freeway." Finally, on June 23 I noted, "lots of pairs and trios and soloists out but gone are the days of the mighty peloton."
While the Wednesday evening ride had come to a final and lingering end, it was of course, not the end of riding at Griffith Park. Other rides would continue to pass through the park, some use the park as a staging area, a start and finish. Smaller groups of riders would continue to ride at the park on Wednesday nights, taking their chances by doing the same laps as they always had. I continued to ride there as well; Wednesday became a climbing day, where I would head up into the hills, either solo or in the company of small groups. Up in the hills there were fewer cars and even roads that were closed to cars, and we could ride in relative peace.
Ride History I: Bicycle Doctor Shop Ride
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