Matthew’s ALC8 Blog

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)