Matthew’s ALC8 Blog

This started with a nice ride out to Bike Attack in Santa Monica, followed by heading down to Venice Blvd and into Culver City.  Then we turned up towards Beverly Hills, and climbed up to Mulholland.  Unfortunately, the group I was with made a wrong turn (partially because some of the street designers seemed to have named a bunch of the streets the same, and then didn’t sign them all very well).  After we realized the mistake, we decided to keep going over to Sunset, and then try to re-join the path.  Of course we then missed another turn (for a similar reason), and ended up at the bottom of a street called Rosscomore.  The original route would’ve ended up on a street called Stradella which has some major rolling climbs, and ended up back at Rosscomore higher up.  Since getting to the original route from the bottom of Rosscomore would’ve been much longer, we decided to head up Rosscomore.

That was not at all fun.

Rosscomore gets extremely steep on the way up, where I dropped below 4 miles per hour, and eventually ended up walking up the last quarter mile, the first and only time training that I have done so.  After reaching the top, we continued over on Mulholland to Beverly Glen, where we stopped near the top for lunch.  After lunch, a bunch of us decided to head straight down Beverly Glen to have some fun instead of heading back along Mulholland to Sepulveda.  We then worked our way back to Santa Monica mostly along Olympic.  After returning to Bike Attack I arranged to meet with my parents in the Abbot Kinney area for lunch, but since I had some time to kill, I took a fairly casual ride along the bike path in Venice and enjoyed the sights, then heading up Washington Blvd to Abbot Kinney, and heading over to the meeting area.

On the way over, I passed them by car while talking to them on the phone.  I then turned around and caught up to them turning left, and rode with them while they were looking for parking (traffic was quite heavy, so it was easy to keep up).  After not finding parking, we headed over to a restaurant on Washington Blvd, and after enjoying a nice 2nd lunch (I ate over at the top of Mulholland), and a quick stop at a furniture store, I headed back home via Washington Blvd/Washington Pl, then joining my normal commute in Culver City, making for a nice day and ride.  The trip home was also fun because I encountered a car in downtown Culver City, then I then managed to keep the same average speed all the way up La Cienega to at least Olympic.  Gotta love the traffic (when you’re not stuck in it 😉 ).

Climbs of the Rich and Famous (click to view full detail)

After doing my nice little trek into Palos Verdes for a second Saturday in a row, I apparently decided it was a good idea to do a 70 mile ride on a back-to-back weekend.

For this ride we met up in Malibu at the Cross Creek Shopping Center.  From there we rode north along PCH, along the rollers to the HOW’s supermarket (actually to the Starbucks there), after which we continued onto the Oxnard area, specifically the Port Hueneme area.  This was a beautiful ride along the coastline, mirroring much of the final day of riding for the actual event.  It was also strange since I had bicycled to an area that my dad had to drive to regularly for a while for work, and that was a long commute by car…

Most of the ride was a reasonably flat, and made for a very nice first 70 mile ride.  The worst part was the rollers that we had started with, that were now the end of the ride.  I was extremely happy when I realized I had reached the peak of the last hill right by Pepperdine, and did the final stretch into the Cross Creek shopping center.

After the ride I met with my parents for dinner out in Malibu, where enjoying some good seafood before heading home.

Malibu to Oxnard (click for full detail including mile markers)

My 2 favorite things about the Pod Peds rides – they usually go out of West Hollywood, and all are welcome. 🙂

This was one of those rides where the ride to the starting point is very short, which means that I can sleep in as much as possible.

After we met up in West Hollywood Park on San Vicente, we headed down to the Ballona Creek bike path (the same one I use to get to work, but along a different route), and then went out to the beach and down into Palos Verdes.  After going to Malaga Cove, just had a trip back to West Hollywood Park, and then hit a pizza place that I hadn’t eaten at yet with some others, enjoyed some good food, and went home.

This was a good training ride, with a good group of people.

West Hollywood to Malaga Cove (click to view full detail including mile markers)

I took a drive out to Santa Monica and found some free parking over on 5th Street near Bike Attack.  I then went to the starting point for my first ride down to Palos Verdes, and what a ride it was.

We followed the coastline down, using streets most of the time instead of the beach bike path, and headed up into Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes, which has some fairly substantial climbing just to reach that point.  After taking a break there, we continued down on Palos Verdes Dr W, and went to Hawthorne Blvd, where I then tacking the longest steep climb I have ever done.  Hawthorne Blvd is basically about 4-5 miles of continuous climb up to the top of Palos Verdes.  I made it up to the top, albeit slowly, and was very happy when I finally reached the top (especially since it seemed like it was never coming.)  Our next rest stop is a Valero gas station at the top of the hill, that has very nice restrooms, especially for a gas station.

After reaching the summit, we had a fun ride back down the hill and finally back up the coastline to Santa Monica.  This was a fun ride, and I’m really learning what climbing on a bicycle is about…

Santa Monica to Palos Verdes (click to view detail including mile markers)

I’m not entirely sure if this was actually my first half century, but it certainly was the most difficult ride I have done.

For this ride we started out in Calabasas, and then headed out for a long loop that went well past Thousand Oaks, and had quite a bit of climbing.  There were a lot of nice long swaths with minimal traffic, making for a nice ride for the most part.

Unfortunately there were a couple of accidents on this ride, two of which I passed by and happened no more than a half mile apart, which was a really strange coincidence since they weren’t related (one from crowding by some motorcycles, one from slipping on gravel while going too fast.)  There were some other issues for some people, including some people who were prepared and got dehydrated, including one near the end of the ride.

Besides these issues, it was a nice but difficult ride for me, but completing this told me that I could do this if I kept it up.

This ride also happened on my mother’s birthday.  After finishing the ride, I had to run to Best Buy to pick up a last minute present, before getting back home before we went out to dinner.  I was still able to walk up to Sunset including a couple flights of steps, so I felt good about my accomplishment on this ride, and the day ended with a nice birthday dinner for my mom.

First Half Century (click for full detail)

I can’t remember the exact date, but my first official training ride was out of Griffith Park.  We had three choices of rides, and I went for the middle one, since I wasn’t a beginning rider.  For that ride we did a loop out into the Burbank area and back to Griffith Park, then up a fairly steep long hill, and the doing the loop one more time.  This was a good start in training, although I didn’t do many more official training rides for a bit after this one, then I started in earnest.

I don’t remember the route we used for this trip, if I run across the route sheet I’ll put it up, but I just wanted this post for reference.