Listeners Recall Childhood Bike Rides Across Southern California as the Ultimate Freedom

Many Angelenos first learned the layout of greater Los Angeles from a bicycle seat, long before they ever sat behind a steering wheel. Listeners of AirTalk recently looked back on those rides, describing a sense of independence that has stayed with them into adulthood.

Juanita, who now lives in Diamond Bar, grew up in East L.A. and spent her childhood riding through alleyways with her brother. They would climb Garrity Hills in the heights and race back down. "Sometimes I'd have my brother on the handlebar and come back as fast as we could," she said. "Sometimes we didn't make the turn and we just slammed into the wall."

Jamie, of Culver City, recalled riding with friends down Sunset Boulevard to the UCLA campus to play in the inverted fountain. They picked their route carefully, she said, getting on around Barrington and heading down Manning, "which was a marvelous hill."

Some of the trips were surprisingly long. Chris, now in Hermosa Beach, often rode from her mother's house in Huntington Beach to her father's in Los Alamitos, a two-and-a-half hour journey along the Pacific Coast Highway. "Nobody knew what I was up to, so all I had was my Walkman and my Thompson Twins cassette tape," she said. Sometimes no one was home when she arrived, and she had to turn around and ride back.

For John, now in Granada Hills, a new 1968 Schwinn Stingray Blue opened up the city when he was growing up in Los Feliz. He rode it from his home to Ninth and Hill and the Coast Federal Savings Building. "After that ride, I felt that there were no limits anymore," he said.

Juan, from Hawthorne, described riding from Inglewood all the way to Venice Beach. "As long as we showed up for dinner, my parents had no clue where we were all day. It was just complete freedom," he said.

Steve, of Huntington Beach, said he used to choose a new direction each day and see how far he could get. Starting from his home in Cypress, he once ended up in Long Beach and another time near Disneyland. "I still remember that sense of adventure, of discovering things and seeing things," he said. He tried to pass that spirit to his own children by having them ride to school, a choice he said other families found surprising.

For adults who want to get back on a bike, or help a younger generation discover riding, Paul of Boyle Heights suggested CicLAvia, a nonprofit that hosts bike riding events throughout L.A. "I grew to love biking as a kid, but I love it even more as an adult," he said. "The love doesn't have to go away."