It's Always Sunny in LA: #41: Bike the South Bay Trail

When I first moved to LA, I worked in Venice Beach. Every Monday, a friend and I would meet up on the Venice Beach boardwalk, get sandwiches, and eat on the beach. Even in the middle of winter, the boardwalk would be crowded with bicyclists, rollerbladers, skateboarders, all mixed in with a very eclectic mix of people walking around. And I could never figure out... who are all these people crowding the boardwalk at noon on a Monday in the middle of December? As I was on my all-too-brief lunch break, I was very envious of these people and their apparently laid back life-style that could afford them a boardwalk bike ride on a Monday.

Four years later, I have learned that everywhere in this city is crowded in the middle of every day, because millions upon millions of people don't actually have traditional jobs, or any job at all. Plus, the Venice Beach Boardwalk (and the bike path, locally known as "the Strand") in particular are very popular tourist destinations. Well ok, I was still super envious of all those seemingly laid-back people biking along the beach, and vowed to eventually set aside a day to take a beach cruiser ride along the boardwalk for myself.

With a little research, I learned that the Strand is actually called the South Bay Trail, and runs all the way from Will Rogers State Beach in Malibu down to Torrance County Beach. The entire trail is 22 miles long, which is entirely too long for a leisurely day ride. Plus, like I really want to ride my bike to Torrance, come on. So I decided to focus on the best beach areas - Dockweiler State Beach to the Santa Monica Pier, which clocked in at just under 10 miles each way.

My friend Marsha, who is always up for relaxing adventures (not an oxy-moron as one may think) and I headed out to rent some beach cruisers on a perfect Sunday afternoon. We rented our bikes from Fisherman's Village in Marina del Rey, and once we got fitted with our sweet bikes (Marsha with a seafoam green beauty, me with baby blue) we set off on the Strand north towards Santa Monica.

The first 20 minutes of the ride consisted of going around the Marina, through all the boat docks and then down Washington Blvd towards the ocean. Along the ride, I learned that Marsha had never been to the Venice Beach Boardwalk, so when we arrived at the beach, we decided to walk our bikes along the main thoroughfare so she could soak in all the unique, quirky, and frankly amazing people-watching Venice has to offer. We walked past the Venice Art Walls, which are a group of walls that graffiti artists are allowed to paint over any way they'd like. We passed dozens of booths selling locally-made wares, the Venice Beach Freak Show (home to several 2-headed turtles, amongst much more!), groups of rollerbladers performing choreographed dances, and even talked to the World's Greatest Wino. After getting lost for a few (20) minutes, we parked our bikes outside Zelda's Deli, one of the best sandwich shops I have ever eaten at. We feasted on amazing panninis, bottled Coca-Cola, and fresh-made mini donuts. This is one of my most favorite meals in all of Los Angeles.

After the Venice Boardwalk, we continued north, with the beach on our left and awesome people-watching on our right. We passed the Venice Farmers Market, the Santa Monica Traveling Rings, several amazing kite fliers, and eventually made it up to the Santa Monica Pier. It was literally a perfect Sunday weather-wise, so the pier was full of people. We decided we didn't want to carry our bikes up 2 flights of stairs just to walk them along the pier (Marsha and I both have already experienced the pier several times) so we instead opted to take the tunnel under the pier and kept on riding.

After a few more minutes, we decided to turn around because we realized our butts were getting sore from the bike seats, and we still had 10 more miles to ride. We cruised back through Santa Monica and Venice, and stopped at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants on Washington Blvd for a margarita break. Two delicious peach and mango margaritas later, we hopped back on our bikes and continued down to Marina del Rey. We kept heading south past Fisherman's Village, down to the Ballona Creek trail (where the LMU rowers practice) and all the way down to Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey. Many people may not know Dockweiler by name, but if you've ever taken off in a plane from LAX, you have flown over Dockwieler.

After we had gotten our fill of the late afternoon breeze and the loud jets taking off overhead, we turned around and headed back to Fisherman's Village to return our bikes. Our all-day rental came with a free scoop of ice cream (a business after my own heart) which we enjoyed while watching the seals and pelicans play around in the water.

Overall, we had a blast. It was the perfect, laid-back, slow-paced touristy day I had always wanted. Though I am so, so happy that I eventually moved away from the Westside and now only visit occasionally, it was great to experience everything again, but this time from a beach cruiser.