It’s always a good bike ride when you come across views like these:

I’ll leave picking order of niceness among the photos above to you, but all also perfectly fit in yesterday’s geographically and socio-economically wide-ranging slow ride stretching from the bourgeois 60s privileged comfort of Four Hills Country Club to the beauty amid the proletarian struggles along Trumbull SE.

Gist of the ride looks like this:

Given the long straight stretches on Trumbull (downhill) and Southern (uphill), the streets ridden in tell-tale slow cycling crookedness are hard to make out.

Some highlights among that crookedness:

• The bollard signposts to paths connecting the disconnected streets east of Singing Arrow in neighborhoods with names like “Mirabella.”

• The generally rideable trails in the Tijeras Arroyo Open Space below/west of Four Hills and the “Hidden Valley” neighborhoods.

• The view from the frankly strange and expensive “Juan Tabo Hills Park,” overlooking Open Space and the newish neighborhoods growing in the area.

• Excellent low stress streets with horse racing names (Man O War St. SE, Gallant Fox Rd. SE) and those along the concertina wire and fencing separating Base/Lab from civilization, such as Rio Arriba Ave. SE and Pocono Rd. SE. Somewhere in this stretch we came across this beautiful ’67 Mustang and talked with the owner who bought the car from its first owner, his dad, and did all the restoration work. I wanna say he paid his dad $500 for the car, but I can’t remember the actual, very low price.

Coming back downhill from west of Four Hills, I stopped at the library at San Pedro and Trumbull and got to watch the artist at work on the mural adjacent to the library.

The ride on Trumbull Ave. SE all the way from Eubank to west of San Mateo at Valverde has got to be one of the most diversely informative excusions in town. Leaving the overly large houses with overly large garages that still aren’t big enough for overly large pickup trucks east of Eubank, one navigates through a veritable history lesson in house sizes over eras, effects of redlining and other discriminatory housing policies, perseverance and care taken by many homeowners on houses/property built post-WWII, today’s homelessness issues and related lack of affordable housing and any semblance of a mental health system.

By the time one has ridden this long stretch of history downhill from Four Hills, it’s remarkable to think you were stymied by the locked gates at Four Hills Country Club only a few miles ago.

The City is currently exploring the idea of making Trumbull SE a “bike boulevard” as part of its next iteration of the Bikeways & Trail Plan. From its fresh, new paving and low stress rideability to its historical richness and connection to so much, it’s a natural choice. If you haven’t already, get off the far more cycling popular Southern Blvd. and give paralleling Trumbull SE a try.