Matthew’s ALC8 Blog

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

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)

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)