Long Beach, CA Oilfields riders?

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In 1980 I bought a 1979 XT500, my first true dual sport.
One of my favorite local places to ride was Rancho Palos Verdes, back then you could sneak around the hills and canyons. I dont think you could get into much dirt today, I was checking it out on Google, the Radar site at the top of the hill is surrounded by high dollar homes now. Alot happens in 32 years. I wish I still had that 500, sold it in 1985......

so there are no areas like this anymore?

-the trails near the railroad tracks
-the woods behind the industrial/shopping center
-the "no-man's land" gravel/grassy area adjacent to the freeway
-the big field with nobody living nearby

I'd buy a small plated dirt bike if I can sneak into a couple places like this near long beach

I've looked at the area south of Willow and west of the 605, seems to be a pretty good piece of dirt down to the 405, accessible by a tunnel under Willow just east of El Dorado Park...

Also, southeast of the 710/405 junction...

Yessir!along the 710 fwy and beyond. 70s for me

Yup, rode there alot in the 70's, we called it "the flood", took the LA river bed from Artesia down to that spot @ the 405/710 jct.
We had a couple of Z50s and my older brother had a Bultaco Pursang 250.

I was in the area of Ascot park in the mid 60's and several friends and I would ride on the corner of 182nd and Vermont where we would hold circle track races everyday with our Yamaha 80's. We would also ride our bikes over to Dominguez which is now Cal State Dominguez. It was a great time for sure. My friend Tom, his dad used to call the Friday night flat track races at Ascot park.

73 xr 75 with stock stealthy exhaust

hmm, I've actually thought about this area every time I drove by it, but haven't explored it enough to find anything

I feel like that's what I'm looking for - no man's land. People don't live there, and you can ride to it and away from it without anyone knowing (unless CHP was viewing from the freeway)

I also drove up the 710 and exited at the 405 just to see - is that the area south of the 405 or is it along the river/channel up the 710?

I saw an entrance/gravel road for it already

North of the 405 east of the 710, it was access able from the LA river gates back then....There were horse trails and stables along the river and also a bike/jogging path at the top of the river bank. When there were no horses in sight the horse trail was fair game. The concrete river channel was a fun riding too, we would carve up and down the steep banks.

man o man, good times. Riding motorcycles in sixth grade with neighborhood kids. In Garden Grove we drag raced our Hodaka's, Indians and SL70'S on an Edison easement that ran the length of my grade school on Chapman just west of Magnolia.

Not too long after that I lived in a house in the middle of several acres of open field at Bolsa Chica & Heil in HB. We rode our stingrays right out on to the runway at Meadowlark airport. I'd ride my little Indian all over that open field, once getting chased by an HB PD I didn't notice til he went all lights & siren on me. Just me at home that day, getting pulled over in front of my house with no parents anywhere around. Imagine that happening today.

6th grade me and my bike in the living room of that HB house in 74.

Meadowlark Airport? We were up in Long Beach on the Mini-Trail but years later, maybe '77, working on a construction crew building a project off Algonquin we would have lunch at Meadowlark Airport and the waitresses,

ps Nice bike, we were lusting after the Trail 70 and couldn't dream of something that nice...

so cool!!

There's loads of places where you could just blast off the pavement and do a quick lap through some dirt/gravel all over the greater LB area but I'm not sure a LEO is going to be as forgiving as they were to a couple of kids on mini-bikes back in the day. That being said, west of the 605, north of the 405, east of the river, south of Willow, there is a decent sized area that can be accessed by dropping down a steep embankment from Willow just east of Eldo then passing through a short tunnel under the street...

Ok you "oldies", these showed up at the car show here in Seal yesterday...

Go inland from there a little bit and do a hot lap through Gum Grove

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I'm game, but i'm not picturing your directions. The bike lane along the power plant is there, and also this sounds like the area behind Leisure World. I'll go snooping around when I get a chance.

Not me, the risk-reward ratio is upside down IMO. I think a late night banzai run down the Pacific Electric right-of-way near 4th and Park (L.B.) has better possibilities...

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