Beach Cruisers

You begin noticing them before you reach the beach: The opalescent baby blue cruiser with pink rims and white walls in front of the yoga studio on Main Street, its flip-flop-wearing owner removing her mat from its wicker basket. The matte black and solid chrome cruisers, draped with young men in mesh-back caps clustered outside the local dive on Washington Boulevard. At Windward Avenue an art grrl in thrift-store couture pedals past, a Paul Frank monkey mugging from her bike’s shiny red frame. These days is seems beach cruisers catch your eye everywhere you go in Venice, even at the beach.

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Burning Man

Half pickup truck, half pig, the glowing blue roadhog turns left onto the bustling esplanade, its bemused expression as hard to decipher as its owner’s intentions. Kandy-kolored glowstick bicycles veer to avoid it, as do a half-dozen pedal-powered muffins and cupcakes. A convertible Cadillac spacecraft idles at the side of the bustling ring road, its passengers haranguing passersby from atop its beer-keg booster rockets.

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