Today’s ride was out to San Dimas to have a bagel at the Bagelry there.
It was a perfect day. The sun was shining at 8:00 in the morning when we set out. The ride out there is pretty straightforward. It’s just straight east. Across Arcadia and Temple City. Then through the Irwindale gravel pits. Straight across the auto-shop ghettos in Azusa and the endless shopping centers in Covina.
The only real excitement of the ride out there was when we discovered an error in Gene’s route slip. Several of us took a wrong turn and ended up going a few extra miles. Darn.
When we got to the Bagelry, we sat down and had bagels. The bagels there are pretty good, and they taste especially good after riding twenty-something miles to get there.
After the bagel break, I was talking with the couple on the tandem (I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your names. If you read this, mail me and refresh my memory.) and I saw how they do their navigation. She clips the route slip to his back pocket and reads it while they are riding. It reminded me of reading about the Long March where the soldiers would pin little inspirational notes from Mao on the cap of the soldier in front of them so they could march and be indoctrinated at the same time. (Not that I’m comparing Gene’s route slips with Communist propaganda or anything. I just thought it was a funny mental image.)
When we got back on the road, for some inexplicable reason everyone started riding really fast. These rides usually move along at a pretty good pace, but this was beyond our usual speed. In fact, we were going so fast that I almost had to break down and shift to a higher gear. My bike has 18 gears, and I use all one of them. I go on 50 and 60 mile rides up and down mountains, and I never shift. It’s kind of silly, but it’s a holdover from my racing days. In the East Coast racing culture, the theory of training was to ride everywhere in one gear, usually a 42×18 or equivalent. The idea was that riding that gear up hills will make you strong, and riding it fast on flat land or downhill will teach you to spin the pedals smoothly. So it’s been 25 years since I last raced, but I grew so used to just riding everywhere in one gear that I still do it to this day.
The rest of the ride back was pretty uneventful. We came back across Azusa, Duarte and Monrovia. Then we went up Highland Oaks in Arcadia to Grand View. We took Grand View across Sierra Madre. This was our hill for the day. As usual, Matt was first to the top.
When we got back to the park, it was only 11:00, so Vikki, Matt, and I decided to do a little après-ride up across Altadena. We went up Altadena Drive, and then took some little residential streets across the upper part of Altadena. We passed the big landslide on the Mt Wilson Toll Road, and also passed the Mt Lowe Railway historical marker at the bottom of Rubio Canyon. Then we came out at the top of Lake Avenue. We took Loma Alta down the hill to Lincoln Ave, and then went past JPL on Windsor Road. From there, Vikki headed off for home, and Matt and I came back on Woodbury Road. It was a very pleasant ride.
54 miles.
cycling
