• DO NOT cycle on the wrong side of the street! Cars don't expect you. Other cyclists don't expect you.
• DO use the little flashing lights! Spend five bucks and get one for the back of your bike, at least. Day or night, it makes a HUGE difference in your visibility. A flashing headlamp doesn't hurt, either.
• DO NOT cycle on the sidewalks and just pedal at full speed across a street. Those driving cars will not see you because you are travelling too fast to be where they're looking for a pedestrian.
• DO NOT make all of the above mistakes after dark! I nearly hit an unlighted cyclist in the sidewalk on the wrong side of the street at 9pm last night. It would have been totally his fault as he was breaking several traffic laws. Neither he nor I would have felt better for that.

And while I'm at it: LAPD, PLEASE start ticketing cyclists operating illegally!!!!

• Original Google Maps "walking" distance from my apartment to my place of business in Pasadena: 15.5 miles.
• Original Google Maps distance from my apartment to the place in Glendale where I gave up: 8.9 miles, or slightly less than 2/3 of the way to Pasadena.
• After adjusting to avoid obstructions that Google didn't know about: 9.1 miles.
• Actual distance I rode (counting backtracking and confusion): 9.9 miles.
• Actual riding time: about 80 minutes.
• Average speed: 7.4 mph.

0720

Bike from my house to North Hollywood Station - .75 miles. Residential streets for the most part, in a bicycle-heavy area of town. Maybe 10 minutes, tops. But I'd better be 15 minutes early, because if ridership is light, the bus can be as many as 10 minutes early, and doesn't wait to keep schedule. The biggest challenge is passing the elementary school, and therefore dealing with the frenzy of parents driving their little ones the 5 blocks to school, and the large numbers of parents/kids walking to school. For some reason, kids don't seem to ride their bikes to school, as I did when I was a girl... (I haven't given this much thought. There's a nostalgic/evil modern times rant in there somewhere.)

0742

Commuter Express Bus (Three freeway legs; limited stops) 15 miles as the crow flies; significantly further as the bus putters. The bike rack on the front of the bus works fine for Lilith; if I were the third bike commuter on the bus I would have to fold her and schlep her on board, but I haven't yet needed to do this. Use this time for journaling, listening to tapes, etc.

0819

Bike to Major HMO HQ: All of a tenth of a mile from the Pasadena bus stop I use. Nonetheless, the heaviest traffic I have to deal with, and the sidewalks are crowded with pedestrians, even at 8:20 am.

0825

Arrive at work.

1730

Reverse the above for the trip home, except that the bus takes about 10 minutes longer to arrive at North Hollywood (retail traffic and a slightly longer route due to the vagaries of freeway off-ramps.) OTOH, pedestrian traffic in Pasadena significantly reduced.

There's also a Plan B: the Commuter Express only operates during Official Rush Hour; it's designed to get you to work before 9 and pick you up no later than 6:30. If I miss the Express, my bike route is almost the same; for three more blocks of pedaling in Pasadena I can get to an MTA Rapid bus route (surface streets only, but limited stops) that will take me to the Red line subway line, which will then get me to North Hollywood station. This leaves me with the same bike ride between home and station that I had before. It's just that with connections and a MUCH longer route, the bus/train combo takes 60-90 minutes. Ugh. If I get in shape, I can probably bike home in that length of time.