Thursday, December 15, 2011

Road Riding in LA

My quick little training trip to LA... Sunday I get into town just in time to jump on the bike and catch this view down by the ocean.


Not too bad!

Monday was a long track session, Tuesday was another peaceful road ride/weights/track, and Wednesday... oh, Wednesday is when it all went crazy.

I set out on my 4 hour road ride from Huntington Beach thinking I would head north and do some laps of Palos Verdes to get some climbing in the legs. That's 45-60 minutes up the beach to Long Beach, get around/over Long Beach Port, climb around beautiful Palos Verdes, and reverse my ride to get back home. Sounds easy?

For the record, there is no easy way to ride a bike around that major port. Trains, 18-wheelers, huge highways, interstates, and no bike lanes. My mama would not have been happy with this decision. So, after a couple honks from 18-wheelers, a flat tire, a dirt trail (after the flat tire- read: no spare left), some new grey hair, a couple peaceful Dave Matthews albums, and 4.5+ hours in the saddle, I made it back to the beautiful Huntington Beach. My adrenalin pumped until 11:00 pm that night.

I will not be riding anywhere near Long Beach Port... or any port for that matter. I am thankful I made it out of that situation safely. Now, back to the track where there are no cars or trucks... only bikes with no brakes!

Cheers!

3 comments:

Pedro Barcina said...

Hi!
I'm from Spain. I write in a spanish cycling webpage (www.cobblesandhills.com) and we try to tell people the most important races of women's cycling. Now, our main goal is a transfers chart. But I have quite questions about the riders in Exergy Twenty12, who leaves, who is new, who stay...
1-Theresa Cliff-Ryan, Andrea Dvorak and Pascale Schnider are new riders, aren't they?
2-In this webpage they say the riders of Exergy Twenty12 team:
http://pedalmag.com/?p=147186
Are they right? But you aren´t among them!
3-Maybe you will have two teams for 2012? The UCI-Team and the peanut butter one?
I'm quite lost!
I'd be grateful if you could help me!
Thank you so much, and be careful in LA dangerous rooads!! =)

bfisk's crazy days said...

sounds like my kind of ride! be safe! drive out past malibu and climb in the mtns. you won't regret it.

Cari Higgins said...

Hey Pedro,
I'm on the team... just wasn't listed in that article for some reason. There should have been a team announcement in Cyclingnews since you posted this comment. If not, send me your email address and I will forward you information.
Cari