A Venice Beach, California Day Trip on Wheels

A relentless roadie dressed like a Tour de France contender zips by and sneers at the clickety-clack of a well-worn, oil-hungry derailer. A gaggle of roller-blading newbies swaddled in full body pads then shuffles directly onto the middle of the path, blocking an easy exit on both sides. Rusted brakes clamp down hard, sputtering and screeching like a car in desperate need of new rotors careening downhill, and collision into a group of tattooed punks in chains is narrowly averted.

Rental cycling along the Venice Beach, California Boardwalk is lowbrow biking at its best.

For less than twenty dollars a mountain bike can be rented from one of the four bike and skate shops located along the Venice Beach Boardwalk between Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey. But don't let the appearance of a shiny aluminum frame and twenty-four gears fool you, though-there are typically only two gears on a standard tourist-beaten kickstand cruiser: the really-easy-to-pedal gear and the really-hard-to-pedal gear, which only comes in handy when you need to go farther, faster.

Although the bike rentals are far from top-notch, trading in the helm of motorized wheels for a more energy-efficient set is a great way to breathe in the fresh salt air, enjoy a moderate workout, and take in the Venice Beach subculture scene while basking in the sun. The endless sand and surf to the west extends out to the horizon in sharp contrast to the boardwalk scene, creating an odd juxtaposition between a century of subculture and natural ecology that has existed for billions of years.

Twenty-dollar psychics, tourist T-shirts and buck-fifty pizza parlors line the eastern side of the winding two-mile stretch that is part of a seven-mile course extending from Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades to the Marina del Rey line. Wafts of incense and sporadic puffs of smoke mix with the sea air to form an odor unique to the strip, and the symphony of squawking sea gulls is accented by the electro-humming buzz of tattoo needles and adjacent tourist retailer shops blaring different music genres, competing with one another with amplification.