Matthew’s ALC8 Blog

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)