Long Beach to Portland

[Gone in 60]

Nope. Won't be crossing the 6th Street Bridge. I went to see it a few weeks ago on its opening weekend, and was hoping to ride my CB across it and get some cool GoPro footage.

The downtown side of the bridge is in the New-ish Arts District, and a short walk from the new Bike Shed. As I got closer, the streets were jammed. I wasn't sure why, but parked at Bike Shed, grabbed an iced coffee and walked to the bridge. The surrounding streets were jammed with Angelinos excited to drive and walk across the new bridge. It was cool, as there was a sense of pride about it - people were happy to experience the new bridge. Yes, there were a few spray paint tags and skid marks on it already, but that was about to change.

Jumping on my bike and riding home, the freeway headed in the direction of the bridge was being blocked by LAPD and several squad cars were racing toward the bridge. The mayhem was just beginning. The day after I checked out the bridge, I was headed to Michigan to staff one of our company's races, which featured a Chrysler Hemi class, and the latest news about the bridge was a Dodge Hellcat that lost control while doing donuts, hit two cars, then the bridge. Of course, everyone was showing me the video, and saying "Had to be a Mopar guy."

Now, the bridge is a joke, covered in spray paint, donut skid marks, the wreckage of cars that have slammed into it.

It's proof that we can't have nice things.