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)

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)

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)

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)