I did something very unusual last night:My friends, my wife and I biked from the middle of Los Angeles to the beach, and then down to Hermosa Beach (about 10 miles down the coast). At night...in the dark. It was crazy.I always think of LA as a never-ending sea of mini-malls and car-packed streets, and it was so peaceful and bizarre to be biking next to a river (not a river you'd EVER want to set foot in, mind you) with trees and grass on one side, and quiet all around. We went about 35 miles in all (back and forth), and I started fantasizing about creating bike trails where I could go from the beach to downtown and back without breathing a car's exhaust.Oddly, as we get older, my wife and I are finding we're more focused on abandoning our cars as much as possible...in LA, of all places. We regularly walk to dinners now, often a good 2-3 miles away...if it's a nice place, it's always amusing to show up all sweaty and change out of our sneakers in front of a Maitre'd.More information about LA's surprisingly long (and somewhat gnarly) bike paths:http://www.labikepaths.com/