Jake Gyllenhaal rides around L.A.

In the April cover story in Men's Journal, actor Jake Gyllenhaal (graduate of Harvard-Westlake) is called The Fittest Guy in Hollywood. He leads the writer on a bike ride into Griffith Park and beyond, before they lunch — another day — on Swedish meatballs at the Ikea store in Burbank. Excerpt:

Jake Gyllenhaal proves to be a man of his word, unfortunately. Yesterday he promised me a “really fucking hard climb,” and that’s what he’s engineering now, up and down Garbage Hill in Griffith Park, 
then over to the Hollywood Hills for a second round 
of ascents to Mulholland Drive. It starts out easy enough. As we zip over the flats along the 5 Freeway, portions of the ride spool by in bike-geek chitchat. I ask about his velodrome-style Look frame. “I’m not really a gearhead. With biking, the spirit of it is — whatever you can find. To be honest, I know nothing about my bikes. I know how to change a tire; I know how to fix my bike if need be. I just know none of the names.”

Then he leans left, veering off the park’s perimeter road, at the base of our climb. “From here on, there’s not much traffic,” he yells back, as if I’d been secretly longing to let it rip.

Also in the issue: San Luis Obispo is only place west of Flagstaff, AZ deemed worthy of being listed among the 18 towns "perfecting the art of living well."