Every summer, a group of bicyclists meets...

Every summer, a group of bicyclists meets by the reflecting pools of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building, where they fill up test tubes that they later empty into Mono Lake, 350 miles to the north.

It’s an event with “good visuals” for the media. But the symbolic protest against the DWP’s drainage of Mono--now at its lowest level in years--isn’t dear to the heart of the DWP.

Funny thing, though. The 10th edition of the event, called the Los Angeles-to-Mono Lake Bike-a-Thon, won’t be making its usual splash when it kicks off Monday morning.

The DWP has drained the pools for what it terms scheduled repairs. “There is no tie-in,” a DWP spokeswoman said.

The 100 or so bicyclists are bringing their test tubes anyway.

“Maybe we’ll go inside and fill up from bathroom taps,” said their leader, Martha Davis.

A 29-year-old Los Angeles man arrested in Minneapolis won’t be a candidate for Father of the Year. He was allegedly found carrying two kilograms of cocaine stuffed in a teddy bear.

Was Rose Spraggins’ Pepsi-Cola bottle cap worth $18,000?

She says it was--and that’s why she’s suing the soft drink company as well as a local Pontiac dealership.

Spraggins alleges in her Superior Court lawsuit that she bought a Pepsi, whose cap said, “Instant Winner, Car Prix SE.”

She says that when she took the cap to Majestic Pontiac in Los Angeles, she was told that she had won an $18,000 Pontiac Gran Prix, the top prize in a contest co-sponsored by Pepsi and the Pontiac Dealers of Southern California.

But, then, her suit says, an employee took the cap away. And he brought her back a different cap “and informed her that she did not win a car, but a car sun-shade.”

Majestic owner Steve May said he hasn’t seen the lawsuit but asserted that Spraggins’ story “doesn’t make any sense. We’d have loved to have her win and have the media down here to take a photo of her.”

So begins Spraggins’ Pepsi/Pontiac challenge.

Take a hike, Dan.

Vice President Dan Quayle did just that, pausing on his way to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to take a snap from center during a brief scrimmage with La Canada High’s football team. Like Voyager’s success with Neptune, Quayle completed the only pass he attempted.

Another reason those Medflies deserve a good swat. Judging for a San Fernando Valley newspaper’s “Megaplant Contest” of giant fruits and vegetables had to be scrubbed this weekend because of the quarantine.