the Santa Monica lifestyle - ain't it grand?

My roommate and I bought the most adorable cruisers from Nicole at Chubby's Cruisers - mine is the color of vanilla custard and has a wicker basket up front. Really, a wicker basket. It's ridiculously cute. I have to wear a white flowy dress and a sun hat when biking or I might end up being pulled over for not being as cute as my bike.

And so off we went last week, biking down the strand by the beach, weaving down to the Santa Monica pier, past Shutters and Casa del Mar, passing runners and rollerbladers, being passed quite speedily by helmeted bikers on sleek fast contraptions (my bike is cute, but it in no way belongs to the same genus as those 32 speed, aerodynamically engineered machines), and generally having a splendid time. We made our way down to the very end of the strand, finally stopping at the edge of Marina del Rey, looking across the water at the beginning of Playa del Rey, before turning around to head back to Santa Monica.

And yesterday morning, it was on the bikes and off to the gym. How amazing is that? I didn't have to get in my car, and go 6 levels underground to park - instead I hopped on my cruiser, sped off down Montana Avenue and cabled my vanilla custard beauty outside the gym for an hour or so. It was quite the feeling to walk out the doors of the gym - onto the sidewalk, mind you - rather than get into the elevator to descend into the bowels of the building after working out. Back on the bike, up 2nd Street, the wind against my face - really, could there be anything better?

And today, or maybe tomorrow, my big life plan is to cruise on down to the ice cream store and park my wicker basket out front while I mow down an enormous ice cream cone. Because how guilty can you feel, when you biked your own self to and from the store? Not very.