A view of the LA Basin looking south from Griffith Observatory. Downtown is to the left, and the Palos Verde peninsula peeks through the smog on the right.
Los Angeles is a big place. Big enough that the numbers of specific measures fail to capture the magnitude in a way that one can properly understand. To state them anyways, in the city proper they come out to roughly 500 square miles, with around 7500 linear miles of streets and thoroughfares snaking their way through the hills and valleys and plains and mountains which make up the region. What exactly this means can be better intuited from a view while flying into LAX, or from one of the scenic overlooks on Mulholland Dr, or from the peaks of Griffith Park, where on a clear day you can see a seemingly never ending expanse of continuously developed land in whichever direction you look, be it to north to The Valley or south to the LA Basin or the Foothills to the east of the LA River, with the only places bare being those where it would be impossible to build. One can live their whole life here and only have a personal understanding of a small pocket of the city. It seems beyond the ability for any one person to experience it all.
Looking east across the San Fernando Valley (i.e. “The Valley”) from an airplane
Map of the Neighborhoods of the City of LA, to give an idea of the scope and reference for when I mention places (source: LA Times Mapping LA Project)
So, why is this relevant? “Los Angeles is a big place” is a response, accompanied with a gaze of merited incredulity, I remember from a friend of a friend when I was explaining to him a project I was and still am undergoing. Stating it as plainly as possible: To bike every mile of every street in the City of Los Angeles. Yes, I explained to him. I’m serious, and I mean it. Literally. But, I understood the reaction. And the wide range of other reactions I receive when I explain this to people (running the gamut of “crazy”, “amazing”, “deranged”, “so cool”, “sick in the head”, “impressive”, “demented”, “wild”). Because LA isn’t just, as stated before, a large geographical expanse, but from the stereotyped perspective LA is a place famous for and made for cars, with the continued conclusion that it is a place nobody would ever want to ride a bike.
On the Sidewalk of Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica (not City of LA).
To populate the latter of this solid impression with what I have personally lived and seen, I’ve experienced traffic clogged arterials, drivers blasting at seeming freeway speeds down residential roads, potholes riddled steep climbs that may not have been repaved since the last Bush administration, endless cul-de-sacs following no discernable pattern and requiring constant twists and u-turns, unleashed dogs chasing after me in the direction of aforementioned culs, supposed “gang riddled” neighborhood where one must be wary of being asked “where are you from?”, absolute strangers to whom I have done no wrong yelling slurs at me starting with letters ranging from f to n to r, bike lanes filled with trash or flaming mattresses or wheelless cars or broken glass. I could go on listing the negatives and the metaphorical troughs of experience, but I believe this is sufficient to illustrate that even doing this project by car would be a task. But by bike? The already impossible seems to be many multitudes more so. And I admit that the above doesn’t paint a picture of something remotely enjoyable. Yet, I’ve continue on, and after over a year of concerted effort I somehow have found myself at a point which boggles my mind whenever I pause and view it objectively: over 50% of the way done. Literally most of the way there.
My progress in the city of Los Angeles as of 1/16/26 via wandrer.earth
My progress in Los Angeles County as of 1/16/26
A focused view of Central LA, including some of the Westside and NELA.
Blue represents what I have ridden, while red represented yet to be ridden.
If the above is all true, with much of it being an uncomfortable, dangerous, and unpleasant slog, then why would I subject myself to this? Well, I want to highlight that the above implied syllogism is not quite airtight (i.e. If LA is famous for cars then nobody would want to bike there). Because LA, in my opinion, has the potential to be the best city in the world for biking. That is a strong statement, and requires you to shift your perspective away from nullifying the space between A and B. In that perspective the distance is seen as simply an obstacle in the way, as something to endure, limiting you from getting to your destination. But, there is a whole world to see in that space which by most is circumvented by the use of tall walled or trenched freeways in which you are doubly insulated from the surrounding world. When you take the surface streets, wend through the grid of the subdivisions, or snake a course along the spaghetti of the foothills, you can begin to appreciate the intricacies that exist between, in all their beauty and all their ugliness, and directly experience the uniquely odd emotion of when the two intersect.
Terminal Island, looking northwest to the port of LA, San Pedro, and the promontory point of the Palos Verdes peninsula
A “free” couch, somewhere in Northridge
Sylmar, looking east to the Hanson Dam and the Verdugo mountain range
A view of downtown from Rose Hill in Lincoln Heights
The world famous Venice Canals (LA edition)
To counteract that experience of traffic clogged arterials, when slipping into the adjacent neighborhoods you are left with an unexpected peace and serenity just a few seconds ride away. Oftentimes it is just me, Waymos, USPS trucks, and amazon delivery vans navigating around the grids between the major roads. And in the bumpier neighborhoods, at the top of the steepest and most beat up streets are peaks giving outlooks over beautiful scenes of rolling hills, mountains, and on clear days the expanse all the way out to the sea. Some are off-the-beaten-path roads which aren’t traveled for good reason: because they take longer, or they’re ridiculously steep, or they lead right to dead ends, but you are sometimes rewarded with views you would never get otherwise. And you can chase the sunset into the ocean, and bike along the beach, taking in the fresh sea breeze. Choosing the scenic route with the pure intention of seeing the scenery, partaking in that ever human impulse to stop and smell the jacaranda blossoms, being actively present in the world around you.
The hills of Studio City, overlooking the San Fernando Valley
A pleasant house and car combo found in North Hollywood
Pink trumpet tree in bloom in Highland Park (because I don’t have a Jacaranda picture I like as much)
Still, some will say, isn’t this all a bit pointless? Meaningless? A persistent “why?” will poke at the back of their minds. And I don’t blame them, because it is completely arbitrary, effectively choosing bounds (a city’s limits) which are in every respect made up. The street network is, for the most part, an abstraction that has been projected onto the world and taken temporary permeance by concrete and asphalt. Then, codified onto paper and then eventually into code. And for proof I’ve actually done as I say, satellites flying above us follow the trace of my path, via gps unit, as I ride. For tracking progress those collections of data points are compared to what I have ridden before and what is unique is then subtracted from what I have yet to ride. When put into its simplest terms it is just a game with as much meaning as any other.
Example of one of my rides. just shy of 60 miles through Central LA
(primarily Beverly Grove and Fairfax). Yielding roughly 47.6 new miles.
There is some respect to which the gamification of the physical world plays a role in motivating this. It is fun to do a ride, see the miles ridden tick up, and the grid slowly fill in. The completionist satisfaction in creating a neat looking route that others may marvel at. The playfulness of capturing pictures of my bikes with murals, neon signage, funky storefronts, or oddball things I’ve seen illegally dumped on street corners. The respect it garners when I show people what I’ve done, as it is right at the confluence of something unthinkable, physically impressive, and presently not yet done before. The latter is, as far as I can tell, accurate. I searched far and wide and I couldn’t find anyone who had biked all of LA (though I have stories to share of others I found who have made attempts). Once I determined that nobody has ever done this, the following question popped right out at me: How often in life is one presented with the opportunity to act in a manner that is wholly unique? To do something truly for the first time? The truth is that sometimes it is not even once in a lifetime. So, when the chance grants itself, why not at least travel down that path for a while?
One of Many murals I found in the Arts District downtown.
I’ve found that Boyle Heights and East LA are the epicenter for murals in the city though.
The neon signs of mediums never disappoint. This one here is in Pico-Robertson.
But, there is still more to biking every street than it just being an weirdly enjoyable hobby with a chance at a very niche immorality. The experience of it changes you and expands your model of the world surrounding you. One of my friends framed it well when asking what inspired me, saying “it is both nothing, but it’s also everything.” And the dual truth of that stuck with me. Because, yes, on a surface level it is nothing. It is just the act of moving along lines in different locations as defined by a map. But, in the other sense, it is everything because we can’t help but exist in the world. And our day to day is often defined by our movement through it. Every individual I see, be them driving, bussing, railing, walking, or riding a bike too, has aims defined by the sub-pockets of the grander expanse that they exist within. And moving outside of my own sub-pockets, going to places within Los Angeles which had previously been a mystery to me, has truthfully expanded and shifted how I see the city. Because until you see some place for yourself, all you can have are the descriptions or depictions of others. Such as how it has been represented in film, television, commentary, jokes, and anecdotes. Second-hand perspective and stereotype come to rule, with the image of a place becoming the primary mode by which one interacts with these locations beyond one’s knowledge. To what respect are those representations true though? With this in mind, my goal is to try understand the city as best as I can, to try dispel the gaps between the city as it is and the city as is thought, and try convey that to others (try try try, because there is no guarantee of success here). Cycling every street just happens to be one way to do that.
A normal intersection at the northeastern end of Watts.
But, I don’t want to just limit this exploration to only biking the miles. I truly want to pay attention to my surroundings, take it in, recognize my impressions, and convey to others as much of that collected grounding as possible. I want to read about how the city was founded. Who were the characters the neighborhoods were named after? What is the sources of weird signs and street names? How can such a place exist within a desert? How has it been depicted and understood over the years (in novels, film, and television)? How much of that matches (or not) onto reality? And how has all of that worked to shape the place into what it is today? But also, I’ve found people curious about how I go about planning the rides I do for this project, so I also want to discuss that how. The logistics, the navigation techniques for finding a most efficient routes, the equipment. How I deal with the quirks (such as the weird cul-de-sac gates of the Valley, the unpaved trails of North East LA which for some reason count on the map, the LAX horseshoe, and more).
Studio City hills and the Valley again.
There is so much I have wanted to talk related to this, so, the intent here is to have a space where all those thoughts can be put with a semblance of order and focus, while still having a greater goal to it all at the end. The challenge is capturing it in a way that someone without the experience I’ve had can understand it, but also to have that understanding add something unique that isn’t available in the innumerable other representations of the city. To walk the thin edge between the comprehendible and the unwieldy. Executing that perfectly is impossible, and in this specific case the problem is only amplified. Because, as stated at the beginning, LA is a big place, an ugly place, a beautiful place, a contradictory complex place. To do it justice is a task. But, I want to as best as I possibly can to engage the city as it is and experience it in its totality. The scope of what can be discussed about it could take up the entirety of one’s life. And if that’s the case. I better start.
Me with my trusty treasure troved Trek outside of Vidiots in Eagle Rock.