Los Angeles overwhelmed me.
It’s a city that goes on and on: freeways twist together and apart, communities blend into each other, and palm trees sway in the ever-present sunshine. It has the perfect climate for a walkable city, and yet it seems almost fully dependent on cars. At first glance, it’s nothing much to look at – your inclination might even be to look away – but the beating heart of the city finds its way through the sprawl.
My friend Dale picked me up in Santa Monica. I met Dale in 2017 when I biked around Taiwan, and at the time I got the sense that Dale is a person who knows what’s cool. Upon reuniting with Dale in LA, it seemed my first impression was correct. As we drove through the city (strange to be in a car after all that time), Dale debated where we should go. He ultimately settled on Spoke, a bike shop/restaurant/cultural hub combo located along the Los Angeles River bike path.
Apparently, Spoke started out as a bike shop and at some point started selling snacks out their window to passing cyclists. Eventually, they expanded into a full-scale cafe… and the bike shop is still there too! It was great inspiration for my future dreams of owning a bike shop/coffee shop/art gallery/community space. We even ran into one of Dale’s friends – proving that even somewhere as big as LA, you can have the small town experience of seeing a pal unexpectedly.
My time in LA featured a reunion, but also a parting. Suzanne would not be continuing with me to San Diego and the Mexican border, as she was flying home from Los Angeles. We enjoyed a few more lattes together, and reminisced on what an incredible experience the last few weeks had been.
It is hard to put into words how happy I am to have met Suzanne. It was amazing to have someone to share so many parts of this experience with, and at the same time both of us still valued our independence. We only actually biked together a handful of times, but we camped together almost every night after we met. This combination of socializing but still having our own unique and individual experiences turned out to be the perfect mix for both of us.
It was also great to have another woman out on the road – almost everyone else we met was male. Most of the guys were cool and amazing too, but there is something about female camaraderie that always seems special to me. And of course we could relate to each other about people constantly asking us “are you safe???”, which is a question I don’t think men get quite as often.
I said a sad goodbye to Suzanne and a regular sort of goodbye to Santa Monica, and then there I was – heading down the road again, but this time with the end in sight.
Riding out of Santa Monica was fine – there was a lovely bike path that went down the beach for miles and miles. But once I left the bike path, the situation deteriorated quickly.
The official route shot me through Torrance and Carson on roads that mostly lacked bike lanes, and there didn’t seem to be any good alternatives. I put on my game face and activated my nerves of steel, but it’s safe to say that I didn’t have very much fun. And then I crashed.
As I was coming through an intersection in what I believe was Carson (the two cities kind of blend together), someone turned from the oncoming traffic lane. They were turning into a parking lot and it actually would have been fine, except for some reason they stopped halfway in and halfway out of the parking lot to let their passenger out – directly in my path. I swerved to avoid the car and ended up hitting the curb. My bike and I crashed to the ground with an astounding lack of grace, and one of my rear panniers came off the frame.
Luckily, my bike and I were both fine. I escaped with nothing but a scrape on my ankle. It only bled a little. But I was shaken up, and pushed my bike for a few blocks until I built up the nerve to ride back out into traffic.
Soon after getting acquainted with the asphalt, I found myself biking along the LA River in Long Beach. Throughout my trip, I had been noticing the social disparity present in American society, but here it was more obvious than ever. All along the river were shelters made of tarps. People waded in knee-deep brown water, scavenging bits of garbage. My mind flashed back to the mansions of Malibu, really just a few miles up the road. The LA River shantytown was not what I had imagined when I pictured California in my mind, but here it was, every bit as real as Big Sur and the Golden Gate Bridge and the Santa Monica Pier.
When I finally reached Huntington Beach, I couldn’t wait to get to my Warm Showers host’s house. The day had been overwhelming, and my head was swimming with everything I had taken in. The house was a sight for sore eyes. I camped beside a swimming pool in a yard designed to look like a tropical paradise, and I got to pet yet another cute dog. But I still couldn’t shake the Los Angeles River from my mind.
The next day was better. More bike paths, more scenery, and no crashes. I got to bike through Orange County and imagine that my favourite characters from TV shows I loved in high school were right around the corner. I had an excellent, affordable, and efficiently prepared bagel in Laguna Beach (the bagel place in Seaside, Oregon could learn a thing or two). I was a happy cyclist once again.
I stayed with another Warm Showers host that night in Encinitas. This time, it was a family – Vicky, Kelly, and their two kids. We ate the most delicious tacos and we talked about our adventures. Vicky and Kelly biked from one end of Japan to the other before their kids were born, which is definitely one of my bucket list trips.
Riding to San Diego was hot. H-O-T. I was glad Southern California was only a small part of the overall trip. I’m not sure how long I would survive in heat like that.
I rode through La Jolla, crested a very large hill, and cruised past the airport. I got lost once and ended up in the parking lot of a fancy hotel. I stopped a few times for coffee and baked goods, because I knew that soon I would not be able to eat baked goods with reckless abandon and so I needed to take advantage of the current state of affairs. When I finally sailed into downtown, I was ready for a nap. And a burrito.
And then, just like that, it arrived. The last day of biking. San Diego to the Mexican Border, the last leg in a bike ride the length of America.
I got up early, although not as early as I had intended. I made my way to the Coronado ferry. Unlike the first ferry of my trip, on this ferry I did not damage a single car (it was a foot passenger only ferry, so that probably helped).
On the other side, I followed a bike path for miles and miles, through Coronado and along Silverstrand. I stopped in Imperial Beach for my last mid-ride latte. I stared at the wall of hills in the distance and hoped that I didn’t have to climb them.
The city faded away as I biked south. Soon, I was surrounded by… well, horses, mainly. Turns out there are a lot of horse ranches near the border. I said hello to the horses as I pedalled along, although they generally ignored me.
The pavement turned into gravel. The road went right along the base of the hills I had seen before – in the end, the hills appeared to be a sort of no-man’s land. I was quite certain I was not allowed to climb the hills, even if I wanted to.
I entered a state park where I seemed to be the only guest. The info kiosk was empty, the gate that would have allowed cars shut tight. To the west, the sea shone a brilliant blue. To the south, a black fence loomed. Signs warned me not to approach, and not to swim.
A short but steep incline took me to a deserted picnic area. I could see into Mexico – an entire neighbourhood, with apartment blocks, colourful beach umbrellas, and an arena that my map told me was for bullfighting. I could hear a Mariachi band. On the Mexican side, people were allowed to swim.
But on the American side? Nothing but empty picnic tables, a small monument to mark the border, and signs telling me not to approach the fence. Border security agents clustered around a truck in the no-go zone. One waved at me.
And I wondered – would he wave at me if I was someone else? If I didn’t look the way I do? If I had arrived wearing something different, via a mode of transport other than a relatively expensive bicycle?
I have no way of knowing. But it seemed worth thinking about.
To me, the border was the end of a journey. The journey was undertaken for fun, because it was what I wanted to do for the summer. But to others, the border is something else. A barrier to an imagined better life, a life that to some might be worth dying for. A place of danger, and of dreams. A place where the artificial constructs of nationality pit us against one another. Where someone might say ‘you are from there, and I am from here, and we do not belong on the same side of this line.’ But the line is only real because we made it so.
As I stood on the edge of Mexico, at the end of my adventure, I felt not so much a sense of accomplishment but a sense of love and of sadness. Love for the world, in all its beauty and its infiniteness, for all the kind and generous souls I had met along the road. Sadness, for the way we insist on dividing ourselves, on crushing the world to bits in pursuit of something I still can’t figure out. And perhaps also a sense of wonder, for every time I open my eyes I can’t help but think – what a world.
What a world.
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