Spending the Night in the Los Angeles Airport (LAX)

This is the first installment from a new series that we will continue to write throughout the year; Tips for the Touring Cyclist.

Article #1 - Spending the Night in the Los Angeles Airport, LAX

If you are cycling the west coast of the United States, at some point you will need to get through the massive urban sprawl that we all call Los Angeles. It becomes impossible to make it between the State Parks north and south of the city - at some point you will need to sleep in LA. If you're a touring cyclist, we can already assume that you travel as cheaply as possible, where free nights of camping are the norm and hotel stays are not an option. You may have even looked at a map of Los Angeles and realized that LAX is almost half way through the city, making it an ideal place to sleep? Of course it is! Here are our tips for getting to the airport, and making your stay as comfortable as possible.

Getting to the airport - despite the rumour (that we may have started) there is no bike path leading to the airport. You will find yourself on a bike path along the ocean, and will probably see planes taking off to your left. You are getting close. Keep going along the bike path until you see a parking lot full of RVs - cut through here and up the hill making your way against the arrows on the pavement. Avoid the spike strips set up to keep vehicles from using the entrance (don't worry - you're a bicycle, you can go anywhere.) Cross the street and follow the cracked and broken bicycle lane along the Imperial Highway. Although you will see a sign saying "Bike Lane Ends", don't worry, a sidewalk will soon appear that makes for a fun ride. Keep following this until a confusing juncture of over and underpasses. Take a sharp left across 6 lanes during a lull in traffic, get onto the other sidewalk, bike underneath an overpass and come to an intersection. You may think it will be easy enough to try another manuover cutting straight across these 6 lanes, however, in the end it will be quicker and easier to make a circular pattern following the green lights, leading you eventually to the spot across the street.

Now that you're across this street, you will find that there isn't exactly a sidewalk nor room for your bike on the road. This isn't a big problem - just ride on the gravel section, dodging the lightpoles and cement pillars. This will lead to the entrance of a long dark tunnel underneath the runway. You're almost there! If you have a rear LED light you'll want to turn it on now, and then jump the curb, avoiding the cars flying beside you and quickly cut off all the cars waiting to merge onto your road. You'll now need to jump up onto another curb, and concentrate hard. You'll find yourself on a skinny curb beside the busy roadway in the dark. If you're worried that bicycles are prohibited where you are - don't fret - there's no sign that said that anywhere! You're still safe and sound. Follow this curb in the dark, dodging the hubcabs laying across it and practice distorting your body by bending to avoid hitting the water pipes sticking out of the wall. Keep following this, past 3 emergency turn-in lanes where you stay on your skinny curb. You may hear a rocket flying up behind you, but don't worry, this is just a plane taking off above you. Eventually you'll emerge victorious, but before getting too cocky you'll have to cut across two more lanes of traffic to find a "shoulder" which you can follow along until you reach Terminal 1.

Finding a place to go - Looking into Terminal 1 you may start to get worried. The lack of benches and abundance of security personnel may leave you eyeing up the parking lot as a Plan B. However, keep riding. Soon you'll reach Terminal 2, which is exactly where you want to be. Quickly dismount, grab a luggage cart and get all your luggage off your bike as soon as possible to avoid arousing suspicion. You can just lock up your bikes beside the entrance - they should be secure judging from the heavy police presence. As soon as you enter the terminal you will likely be the recipient of a lot of stares - keep your head down and keep walking to a bathroom where you can change out of your spandex attire. This will help to blend in. Once you're changed, you're free to find a place to relax!

Eating at the airport - You may get a little excited when you see that there's a McDonald's at the airport. By this point on your trip you may have indulged in the Dollar Value Menu once or twice. Don't get too excited though - this McDonald's does not have the renowned value menu, and charges about 30% more for their meals than other McDonald's that you may have come across. You are best to bring your own food. Nobody will mind you pulling out a bag of bagels and jar of peanut butter. Just make sure you've changed out of your spandex first.

Finding a place to sleep - The upper level of the departure's floor has many tables and chairs. If you go to the south end of the level the lights are kept dimmer than on the north - this is the prime sleeping area. Along the wall are a series of poles with ideal length sleeping areas between them. You may notice at your usual bedtime that everybody is still awake and moving around. You will likely have to stay up past 8 pm for this night. Eventually the area will die down, and by 10 you should feel free to stretch out on the floor with your pillow. You may notice that nobody else is laying down around you - don't let this discourage you - be a trend setter! By the time you wake up you will find that you have indeed started quite the trend.

Leaving the airport - In the morning you will want to make a pretty fast getaway. You probably have a full day of cycling ahead of you trying to get out of LA, and you just won't want to hang around and have people start asking you too many questions. Change back into your spandex, grab your luggage cart and go back to your bikes. As you're packing them up you may start to be questioned by a police officer. He may ask where you're coming from and where you're going, and if you brought your bikes on the plane with you. This will become a little awkard since your bikes have been there all night, but in this case it's best to follow our lead, and get lucky. Somebody else may come and distract the police officer, having him forget his line of questions. He will then simply wish you a safe ride, and leave. To get back to the bicycle path, simply reverse all the instructions for getting to the airport. Simple!

And there you have it, a cheap and easy way to spend the night in LA for the touring cyclist. Follow these instructions, and you are almost guaranteed to have a great, comfortable sleep in the city!