On a much needed trip back to the mother ship, I decided to ride down with my buddy Sri from Santa Barbara to Ventura, a little over 40 km to the south and east, meet up with some friends, and then ride back. I’ve done this ride in the reverse direction before, once with Sri when we rode up from even farther, Chatsworth, to Santa Barbara, and once with a student Sam. But no amount of having ridden before could leave one jaded: it is an intensely beautiful ride all along the Pacific coast.
There is a bicycle path that runs all the way from Sri’s house near Milpas Street to downtown Ventura. A portion of this path used to run on the 101 freeway, but in the intervening years, they have built a new dedicated path that runs between the freeway and the ocean. It makes for gorgeous riding.
In fact, cycling infrastructure in California’s towns has improved by leaps and bounds from when I knew it five years ago. Passing through small towns along the drive to Santa Barbara from San Francisco, I saw bicycle lanes along all major downtown roads, often set apart from automobile lanes by separator strips or marked in bright green. These are pleasing steps in urban planning.
We met up with Carmen and Roy in Ventura. Carmen is a very dear friend from many years before, she was Prabha’s mentor in legal aid. She is currently on the board of supervisors of Ventura County, being a force for good as always. Roy and Sri go back a ways too. A gentle green giant, given to sustainable cities and designing electric bikes.
It was another blissful sunny pleasant coastal California day. I leave you with more pictures.
Vonfriday by Bharath Sethuraman 