Matthew’s ALC8 Blog

Just wanted to thank everyone who has donated.  Today I just reached the minimum required for riding (and a bit past too).  Don’t let it stop you from donating if you haven’t already, more is better for the cause, but now I have reached the amount needed to get on my bicycle and do this ride.

The ride is almost here, I’m leaving for San Francisco with my parents tomorrow (Thursday, May 28), and after a short visit in the area, orientation is on Saturday, and ride out is on Sunday, after which I will be riding back to Los Angeles.  If you want to see the route this year, you can view it here.

Also, I plan on Twittering during the ride, assuming it goes as planned, you can view my Twitter updates here.

I’m excited, it’s almost here… 🙂

This was a nasty, not inherently from the distance or the amount of climbing, but from the heat…  More on that later, but first, the ride.

The ride started in the usual Santa Monica Bike Attack starting point, although instead of riding out to the starting point from home, I had to drive over.  There was a planned power outage due to fire system testing, and while I likely wouldn’t have to (and didn’t) go in, I might have had to at the last minute, so I needed the car nearby.  So after parking on 5th St and heading over, the ride went out down Neilson to Ocean Ave and down to Pacific Coast Highway, where we continued into Malibu and to the Cross Creek Shopping Center in Malibu.  From there we took off a few more miles and turned onto Latigo Canyon.

Latigo Canyon is basically a 10 mile climb…  There was a short break on the way from about mile 25-26 (which was indeed nice), where immediately afterwards I had to climb that distance again, and then some.  About 5-6 miles into the climb, I really, really didn’t like Latigo Canyon (wondering both why anyone thought it was a good idea to put a street there, and why anyone thought it was a good idea to bicycle on it).  There was also a section of Latigo the support for the road had collapsed, and it is only one lane…  In hindsight (with comments from someone who has done Latigo before), I realize it may have had as much to do with the weather as it did the climb itself.

Now about the weather – along the coast it was nice, a bit on the cool side and overcast, at least in the morning, which wasn’t the problem.  Once we got about a mile or two inland, the temperature quickly started warming, and was in the 90s for quite a bit  (ie basically all of the time spent in the mountains) of the ride.  That heat plus that much continuous climbing basically exhausted me.  I could tell that my muscles weren’t all that tired, but that my energy had basically been zapped.

So now I have reached the top of Latigo, and I had two choices – continue along the route map turning right onto Kanan, then Mulholland (with a stop for lunch), and the continuing to Old Topanga Canyon, the Topanga Canyon, and back to the coast to return to Santa Monica, or turn left on Kanan to return to PCH and ride back to Santa Monica, which I was highly tempted to do, and in hindsight should have (and would’ve been able to finish just fine).  Instead I decided to continue on the route map and went over to lunch in Agoura Hills, where I had a nice pulled pork sandwich.

On top of the heat and climbing, I discovered that one other item was making the ride a bit harder…  My rear wheel was out of true (which I actually didn’t know the term before), which basically means that the rear wheel wasn’t straight, so as it rolled it was hitting the brake on alternate sides while I was rolling, adding that much more resistance to an already difficult ride.

After lunch was rolling hills on Mulholland, which is when I realized just how exhausted the combination of heat and that much climbing was getting to me.  I did continue, but taking frequent breaks to rest, deciding to keep going until the SAG car caught up to me.  When it didn’t, I didn’t feel so bad about needing it as the SAG driver was a ride leader, and two of the other three ride leaders were in the car.  I then rode in the car to Topanga Canyon (skipping the rest of the hills, and getting closer to the coast where it was cooler), and then got back on my bike.

From there I finished the ride down Topanga Canyon, and back onto PCH to finish the ride into Santa Monica, making good time on the return part of the trip.

One good thing that I’ve learned on the last couple of training rides: There is nothing like these climbs on the actual ride, although it is good to train with these kinds of climbs in order to be prepared for the length of the ride.

Just to note: On Monday (May 18), I got my bike tuned up at i.Martin, and now the rear wheel is fixed, and the brakes are new.

 

Latigo Canyon (click to view detail)

For the day before Mother’s Day (which I can’t ride on since both my mother and my grandmother live in the Los Angeles area and there wouldn’t be enough time to do a serious training ride and visit with family), I did a ride called Climb Every Canyon, which involved riding up one canyon, and then two climbs up to Mulholland.

This ride started in Santa Monica at Bike Attack, which I rode out to for the start.  From there we went up over to San Vicente and Ocean, and then headed over to 26th, then over to Sunset, and headed up a street called Mandeville Canyon.  If the name is at all familiar to you, it’s probably due to a somewhat highly publicized event where a driver was pissed at some bicyclist and caused them to crash into his car…

Anyways, we did the 5 miles up Mandeville Canyon, which has a short steep climb at the top but if otherwise reasonably gradual, followed by a quick rest and a  fast trip back down.  After getting to the bottom we went back to San Vicente and over to Montana for the usual rest stop at Noah’s/Jamba.  From there we followed the same route over through the VA and over to Brentwood/UCLA, where there was two cars who had gotten into an accident, blocking the right lane of Sunset, and neither of them had their 4-way blinkers on… After waiting for the light to change in our favor, we continued into Bel Air, following the same route to Stradella as last week.  We did the same route up to Mulholland, over to Beverly Glen, and finally to the Starbucks.  Fortunately we did the easier back to Mulholland (back up Beverly Glen), and continued over to Benedict Canyon, heading down to Santa Monica Blvd.

From there we continued along Santa Monica Blvd into West Hollywood, going right by my condo.  Some of my instincts were telling me to veer right to go home, but I continued on the route to Laurel Ave, up to Franklin, and then to Gennessee.  The route then took me up Gennessee up past Hollywood Blvd, and onto the final major climb of the day, Nichols Canyon.  Nichols Canyon was a fairly nice (albeit hot) trip up most of the way Mulholland, followed by a nasty little grind up Woodrow Wilson Drive to actually reach Mulholland.  Once back on Mulholland, I went back over to Beverly Glen, during which a couple of other riders joined me along the way to our final pit stop at the Starbucks, again…

After taking a break there, everyone was pretty much deciding the best way to get back to where they started, and since 2 of us came from home (me in West Hollywood and the other guy in Korea town), we went down Beverly Glen to Santa Monica Blvd, and traveled through Beverly Hills on South Santa Monica Blvd, and then took a little detour.  The other person I was riding with was going to head to i.Martin on Beverly Blvd to pick up some biking gear, and I rode with him over to the Beverly Center before veering left at La Cienega to head back home.

This was a nice ride with a lot of climbing.  From what most people have been saying, the climbing I have been doing in my training far exceeds anything on the actual ride, which makes me feel better about my readiness for the actual ride.  It’s coming down the line to the actual ride (one more weekend of serious training, one weekend of light riding, and finally the actual ride), and I’m excited about the final approach.  I’m also looking forward to getting my weekends back after I finish 😉 …

Climb Every Canyon (click to see detail)

Yesterday was the Otis Fashion Show, an event that I volunteer at every year (and generally the only time of the year that I wear a tuxedo), which made riding before the show impractical.  So after working a good part of the day, and seeing the show, I went and did a nasty 80 mile ride called Tour of the Lakes…  One interesting thing about this ride is that it combined a lot of rides that I have done as training rides or independently (including Toluca Lake well before), although this is the first time it has been all at once.

This ride started in West Hollywood, which made for a nice quick ride from home to the start point at West Hollywood Park.  The idea behind this ride is passing by a bunch of water features, all while staying in the Los Angeles area.  We rode out with 26 people, initially heading down to Culver City and then heading west on Culver Blvd, until we reached Tanner’s Coffee in Playa Del Rey, passing by Playa Vista area wetland preserve.  From Playa Del Rey we headed north by the Del Rey lagoon and up through Marina Del Rey (including of course the Marina area), then heading up Washington Blvd and down Dell Ave to pass through the Venice Canals.  From there we headed up through Santa Monica and we were supposed to head up to San Vicente and Ocean, but there was an Walk/Run event, so we instead turned early but later went over to San Vicente, and made our way over to the 2nd pitstop at San Vicente/Montana, a Noah’s/Jamba Juice/other.

From there we continued over to Brentwood/UCLA, and headed up into the Bel Air area, and up to a street called Stradella (which includes a view of the Stone Canyon Reservoir).  It was good to finally do Stradella, since last time I was supposed to do it, a couple of people and I ended up going on Rosscomore instead, and now that I have done both, I prefer Stradella as the steep sections are shorter, and it rolls more.  Finally we worked our way up to Mulholland and over to Beverly Glen for a pit stop at a Starbucks in that area (a common stop while up on Mulholland).  That was followed by a trip back to Mulholland the hard way (up a steeper hill to a higher height), and the continued on Mulholland all the way east to the 101 freeway.

After heading up a few more hills, and then down, we ended up at the next water feature, Lake Hollywood.  After Lake Hollywood, we went down to Franklin, and continued east over into Silverlake.  Unfortunately along the way, I got a bit of a cramp in my right leg, but I was able to stretch it out on some downhills.  Being out drinking the night before with a lot of work, then combined with a heavy bicycle ride, and running out of electrolyte tabs (Nuun), is a bad combination.  Next we had our Lunch stop at Say Cheese/Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods, where I had a nice sandwich and cheese samples from Say Cheese.  After finishing that up, it was time for a trip over to the actual lake in Silverlake as well as the Ivanhoe Reservoir, which we basically completely circled.  After leaving that water feature, the 2 other people I was riding with (for the rest of the ride) and I mis-read the directions, and had our first extra loop.  After realizing that and correcting the path we headed up to Griffith Park, over the hill that is Griffith Park Drive, and headed into the San Fernando Valley.

As we got over to the Warner Brothers Studios, we missed out second turn.  In this case we missed that the small sign for turning left said the street name, but the big name on the street sign said a different name, combined with 2 of us being used to continuing a loop around the studios.  After a bit of extra riding into Burbank, we went back and continued to the area near the next water feature, Toluca Lake.  Unfortunately, you can’t actually see Toluca Lake, as all of the land around it is privately owned (so unless you know someone on the lake or have access to that country club, too bad).  From there we went over to Vineland, across Ventura, over to Cahuenga, and up to a street called Multi View.  At this point, we had already done a ton of climbing, and I just wasn’t up to another climb to Mulholland at that point.  Fortunately we did have a SAG vehicle, so I took that up the hill, and then joined the two other back along Mulholland.

Now back on Mulholland the three of us continued over to Franklin Canyon, which had our final water feature of the day, the Franklin Canyon Reservoir.  We took Franklin Canyon down into Beverly Hills, which I gained a nice final wind along that part of the ride.  We made good time down into Beverly Hills and back along Sunset into West Hollywood and then onto San Vicente for the final and nice downhill to West Hollywood Park.

After getting to the end, we found out that only about half actually managed to complete the ride.  It was a nice ride, although a very difficult one with a lot of hills.

Tour of the Lakes (click to view full detail)

This was my longest ride ever.  It started with being in Santa Monica at 6am in the morning, in a parking lot next to Helen’s Cycles, and free parking at the Yahoo center.  Breakfast was provided, with cereal, oatmeal, coffee, bagels, bananas, and various other items.  Baggage service was also provided from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara.  I was nervous about this ride, being my longest one ever, but also excited at the same time.

The rideout was at 7:30am.  We took off down Broadway to 7th St, and heading north and then down to Pacific Coast Highway.  I would be along PCH at the coast for quite a while.  My first stop was at the Cross Creek shopping center, for the purpose of a quick bathroom stop.  I then continued on to How’s Supermarket for the first official pitstop, where I had a couple pieces of banana, and had them make me a jelly sandwich (they were doing peanut butter and jelly, but since I can’t eat peanut butter they were nice enough to use a seperate knife and make me a full sandwich with jelly).

After How’s, I continued down PCH through the rest of Malibu and into Port Hueneme.  The winds were nasty, basically spending most of the ride up PCH against the wind, appreciating any little bits of resbit from the winds, going about 6-10 mph.  Finally I made it over to the Point Mugu Naval Base area, where PCH switch from a road to a freeway, where I had a nice stint going 16-20 mph since I didn’t have the wind against me.  After a break at Pit Stop #2, the route then continued down Hueneme Road, once again straight against the wind for about 7 miles.  Fortunately this was the end of the really nasty wind riding, it came up a few more times, but only for much shorter distance, and I was very happy about that.

After a quick stop at a Wendy’s in Port Hueneme at the intersection of Ventura Rd and Huemene Rd, we went south on Ventura Rd.  This is where I missed my first turn.  The route said to turn left at West Channel Islands Rd.  I didn’t have a mileage point for that turn, and completely missed that turn along with 2 others.  The 3 of us continued down Ventura Rd to a point where it doesn’t even exist on the map yet, and I decided to stop and check the map on Google Maps, which is when we realized we were about 6 miles past the last turn.  We then turned around, and went back along Ventura Rd to West Channel Islands Rd, which was actually also a mistake.  If we had realized where we were going, a turn at Gonzales Rd would have put us back on track much faster, with only about 4 extra miles instead of 12 miles, but since we didn’t know the area or exactly where we were going to, we did the full 12 extra miles (on what was already 92 miles).

Finally back on track, we made it to the lunch stop, now 72 miles into our ride (instead of the 60 miles it was supposed to be).  Because of our delay, we made it in after the sweep riders (the training ride leaders who stay with the back of the riders), which they were surprised when they made it in with 3 riders missing…  Fortunately we were making good time on the 12 extra miles, so we weren’t too far behind, but behind nonetheless.  After hearing about going 12 miles out of the way, they offered a ride to compensate for the distance, but the 3 of us opted to do the whole ride.  I then scarfed down lunch (two 6″ subway turkey subs, along with some potato salad and chips).  After finishing lunch, I took off with the earlier of the last 2 groups, and continued down the route.  We followed along the coastal bike path, including meeting up with the train route that the Pacific Surfliner uses.  We continued along the bike path until the separated path/path along streets ends, where we hit Pit Stop #4, at which point I was at mile 85.

At this point we actually enter the freeway.  Since there are no paved pathways along this part of the 101/PCH, the bike path is actually along the freeway.  A group of 5 of us started it at the same time, and we waited for eachother at each exit.  We got off at the next exit, and then immediately back on, continuing to the next exit when we got off the freeway and the path continues along streets once again.  Not long after that exit we hit the final Pit Stop at a Starbucks, now at about mile 92 for me (which was supposed to be the final distance).

After a fairly short stop to hit the bathroom and refill on water, a group of us continued on down the route.  Since I was planning on taking the train up, and needed to be at the train before 7pm, I ended up separating from the group I was with for a bit to get back as quickly as I could.  I also skipped one optional hill called Ortega Hill, and started the final approach into Santa Barbara.  Unfortunately I did make one small mistake (another mile) in Santa Barbara, but then made the final approach to the final meeting point at El Prado Inn in Santa Barbara, at about 6:40p.

When I arrived, we were cheered, and handed a Corona :).  I then checked in, and picked up my bag.  One note that I hadn’t mentioned is that my decision to do this ride was last minute.  Unfortunately I didn’t know about the ride until after the combined ride/hotel reservation options had closed (and booking a hotel separately was considerably more expensive), and my mom mentioned the option of taking the train back.  After checking that out, I decided to do the ride one way and take the train home.  After initially checking if I could get a ride to the train station (I wasn’t particularly interested in riding for another 1.5 miles to the station at that point), I ended up riding to the station.  Fortunately it ended up being basically all downhill, and I think it was a good thing I did it by bicycle, as I was actually going faster that traffic was allowing the cars to go along State St.

I made it into the Amtrak station at about 7pm.  Fortunately the train was running a few minutes late and hadn’t left yet.  After getting into the station, I talked to one of the conductors, and he told me to get on the train and he would sell me a ticket on the train, and it left about a minute after I boarded.  There was another passenger being a bit nasty to the conductor (over something he had no control over), but he took care of me well.  I had to stay with my bike for the first part of the ride, as the rack was full.  On the way to the next station I bought my ticket (a business class ticket for $33), and when we reached the next station he took me over to the next car, and had me put my bike into a compartment that is only used when the train is full, that is on the lower level, and then I headed over to the Business Class car.

I then had a nice trip back to Los Angeles, with some fun pictures, and seeing some of the route that I used to get up to Santa Barbara (that I took some pictures of).  In case you’re curious why I picked business class, it includes a free small bottle of wine (about 1 glass), a snack pack (crackers, cheese, dried fruit, chips and salsa, a mint, amongst other things), coffee (plus continental breakfast in the morning), newspapers, larger seats, AC outlet at every seat, easy to obtain tables for groups in a dedicated business class car (that is between the engine and the cafe car), and when you’re actually there on time, a separate line for boarding.  After a nice relaxing ride down to Union Station, I jumped on the Red Line to Santa Monica/Vermont, and then a bus most of the way home, with a short (really easy) bike ride back home.

This was a great ride, pushing myself further than I ever have before, and making me feel more confident about the actual ride.  Even pushing myself futher than before, with nasty winds, and an extra 14 miles beyond the actual training ride, I still finished and wasn’t completely dead afterwards.  I even did another 8 miles the next day (since I had to pick up the car in Santa Monica, and decided to do it by bike).  I actually was a bit more comfortable doing the bike ride on Sunday than I am just standing up and bending my legs…

To the pictures I took during the ride, click here.  Since I was running late towards the end of the ride, unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures in Santa Barbara, but I did take some pictures on the way up, and on the train ride back.

Route from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara (click for more detail)

On April 18, 2009 I did a training ride from Santa Monica to San Pedro via Palos Verdes.  The ride is called Day on the Ride, and is designed to simulate what a Day on the Ride will be like, including starting early (6:30a arrival), and over 350 riders.  We started at Bike Attack in Santa Monica, rode down to the top of Palos Verdes, then into San Pedro for lunch, back through Palos Verdes, and back.  Part of it was having staff/stocked rest stops at the 18, 24 (top of Palos Verdes), 36 (lunch at Point Fermin Park), and 46 mile points.

This was an interesting route, it’s the first time I’ve used this particular route to Palos Verdes (mainly in the section through the Beach cities), and had some very good views.  I also realized that I need to make a point of taking pictures at various point, the album is here with comments.

Route to San Pedro, click to View the Full Route on Gmaps Pedometer

On Easter, April 13, 2009, I had a nice jaunt up the coast into Malibu.  My schedule was tight that day due to Easter, so I had to opt for the short version of the route that morning, but added the trip to and from Santa Monica to keep my miles up.

This was my first time bicycling on this part of PCH (Santa Monica to Cross Creek in Malibu), and it went smoothly.  It made for a good start to the day before heading off to Easter dinner (although my Easter plans changed completely, but it was good).

WeHo to Santa Monica to Cross Creek and Back (click to view full route)

This ride was a short (but with a couple of nasty climbs) starting out at the Victory Trailhead in Upper Virgenes Canyon Park (somewhat recently doubled in size) in support of the Baby Dragon Fund (which goes to support the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center).  After parking up near the trailhead, we went down the hill and did a loop in the Calasbasas area, including passing right by the Grantparents’ house of a good friend of mine (which was strange, as I’ve always found it a pain to drive there, and now I’ve bicycled it…).

After the ride and lunch, there was a ceremony to dedicate the Hunter Allen trail.  The ceremony was very nice and well done, followed by a ~2 mile trek down the trail, which was quite beautiful.

One of the two nasty climbs was on Mulholland Hwy, and was deceptively steep.  I only realized just how steep it was when I took a short break and realized how fast my heart was pumping.  The other climb was up Victory Blvd at the end, which I was originally hoping I wasn’t going to have to do when I drove up it, but did it anyways.  We also encountered some other kind of official event that shared part of our route, and it was a nice peaceful ride.

Baby Dragon Fund Training Ride (click to view detail)

For this ride we met up on Sunset near Holloway in West Hollywood (which I bicycled to, which meant an immediate climb for the first 3/4 of a mile or so).  We met in front of a restaurant, and then rode off down Sunset and climbed up to Mulholland via Franklin Canyon (with some very steep sections).  After reaching Mulholland we had a beautiful ride along rollers along Mulholland over to the Skirball Center/Sepulveda Blvd, where we decended down back into the Westside, through the VA, before taking a break over near the VA.  Following a short break, we started climbing back up Sepulveda (which was a lot more fun going down), back along Mulholland to Benedict Canyon (which I was VERY happy to see), with a nice decent back down to Sunset and over into West Hollywood.

This was a challenging but fun ride (especially after a 77 mile ride to PV yesterday), with some great views both into the Valley and the Westside.  At the end point lunch was eaten, and a bunch of people got tattoos (not me though), for which the labor time was being donated to ALC.  After resting for a bit, I had a nice decent back home. 🙂

Day of PRIX (click to view detail)

I started this trip from home to the start of the training ride in Santa Monica, followed by a trip along the beach down into Palos Verdes, then a loop around the Palos Verdes Drives.  There are four Palos Verdes Drives that form a loop, being named Palos Verdes Dr N(orth), Palos Verdes Dr E, Palos Verdes Dr S, and Palos Verdes Dr W.  After the ride into Palos Verdes along the beach (which I have memorized at this point) and a pitstop at Malaga Cove, we travelled up and around.  There was a lot of climbing, but all fairly gradual.  We made our lunch pit stop over at the bottom of Hawthorne, and then finished the loop and continued back to Santa Monica.  Finally I rode back home into West Hollywood.

There were definately some great views along this ride, and despite the amount of climbing, it was a fairly easy ride (just long).  It’s also to be feeling confident enough to add to my training rides to make them even longer.

Tour de Peninsula (click to view details and mile markers)