2013-03-18 Santa Monica & Venice beaches

Short bike trip along the beach in Santa Monica. I rented a very cheap bike from my hotel, the kind of stuff with only 1 gear and back-pedal brakes. The brakes are almost inefficient but the bike cannot go faster than 15km/h anyway. It's been a very long time that I had to accept the fact that everybody was passing me. Altought it was a weekday the beach was quite busy with people, especially Venice beach. Towards the North I kept cycling on the bike path, parallel to the ocen, a few hundred meters from the shore. The Santa Monica beach is really good with dedicated bike lanes while Will Rogers beach to the North has pedestrian lanes forbidden to bikes, anyway almost nobody goes there. At the end of this beach the seaside path ended and so did my plan to go all the way to Malibu (the only way to continue would have been to cycle on the Pacific Coast Highway, which didn't feel like a good idea considering the poor quality bike I was riding). On my way back South and further to Venice I saw a pelican along with seagulls and other birds which I don't know the name. Venice beach was crowded with lots of different people, there were many bikes, rollers, runners, street shops and bumps. Even people doing pull ups. Similar to Will Rogers beach, when going further South the path becomes forbidden to bikes, which prompted the end of the tour.