okay, so i’d like to say first off that i fully believe in stereotypes to a large degree. i do not however think that in any way, shape, or form that stereotypes are 100% correct or fair or should be taken as true in every situation.

so, that being said, the super amped up asian guy on a super $$$ de rosa king that blew past me about 15 miles from the end of my ride, who was bopping his head around to the music in his ear phones and literally looked back at me and played air guitar was a terrible driver of his bicycle.

yes, he made it in and out of traffic without getting hit, but because he was swerving all over the place the xtra speed was wasted and i kept up with him just fine. then at an intersection he cut over to split the lanes on glendale blvd to avoid having to slow down for a person making a right turn with peds in the x-walk. which would be fine but then he cut right back over violently (yes violently) which made the lady turning slam on her brakes instead of just slow down which made me almost smash into her bumper as i attempted to go around as well. 2 feet feels really close sometimes.

okay, since i’m being super stereotypical anyway, i want to apologize to the little old asian lady that stepped out into the x-walk by griffith park. yes you had the right of way and i should have slowed down more but seriously, you were facing away from the street leaning against the light post for a full 3 seconds after the light changed. i assumed you were not crossing and decided it was safe to make a right on red. i was wrong. i’m sorry if i startled you. now that you’re 70+, do somethings that make sense.

back to the beginning. olympic is always nice on the way downtown. just rolling hills and normal bad drivers.

past downtown it was even nicer. i’d never taken it before so i was pleasantly surprised.

i got on the rio hondo on the wrong side and rode down the steep ass steep bank and then noticed three giant garage type doors that appeared to be some kind of dam. there was zero water and it really didn’t appear that there ever was any so i’m not sure whose idea it was to build the thing but it looks really cool and if i was smart i’d have a camera other than the one in my phone so i could share with you. but i’m not smart so…

the rio hondo heading north ends pretty quickly and a quick cut to the east gets you onto the san gabriel path in the area known as the “whittier narrows” where there’s stuff like water and wild life. just amazing. who knew there would be water in a river bed?

san gabriel trail takes you up to the santa fe dam and the bike path goes all the way up to the top and then follows it around until it heads up into the mountains and connects with the azuza river trail. now, again, “dam” would make you think of water,and though there was some was very very little compared to what the massive wall would make you think of being on the other side. and the azuza river is a bunch of trees and rocks.

i got to the end of the trail and met a nice older fellow named joe who had a brand new look 956 which is just about as awesome as and light and expensive as you would imagine. we chatted briefly. he pointed me in the best direction to get to pasadena cuz he new the “royal oaks secret” as he called it and i was on my way.

after staring up lake st and knowing that the sight of that never ending incline will haunt me until i die, the rest of the ride was pleasant. pasadena and foothill blvd are like a giant strip mall. nice residential areas but the seem like over flow for the most part. what do i know.

before i go, wilshire heading west in the far right lane (the #1 lane?) is by far the worst street i’ve ever ridden on and should be completely closed down. it’s like someone left the back of the asphalt truck open and shit just fell out as they drove down the already incredibly bumpy street. i have shaken baby syndrome now.

that about sums it up. 85 miles closer to something.

chirp,

hillary

sitting around the house working on a website about riding my bike is just silly when it’s 400 degrees outside and i could be riding up to the observatory again. and again.

i finally figgered out how to get the dumb ol’ g-map to actually mark up griffith park but i have to start in the park which is annoying. so the map says a started and ended at the observatory which is not true. it was the half way point. twice.

see i got to the top and then rode down and then for no reason other than that i heard someone say once that people train by riding up and down the same hill multiple times, i rode back up to he top. by the time i got there i was plumb out of water since a) it’s 7,000 degrees kelvin in this stupid hole of a city and b) i somehow lost my other flippity schnippity water bottle and thusly when reaching the bottom again i just rode home instead of killing myself one more time.

starting around hollywood blvd it’s like 300 ft of elevation gain per mile and so then it’s like 3 miles of climbing and when going up those 3 miles it feels like getting clubbed with one of those clubs they use on baby seals and then coming down is over in the blink of an eye but when you get to the bottom you’ve already forgotten how much you hated riding up so doing it again doesn’t seem all that bad.

when it cools off i’m going to go back and really see what i’m made of and see how many times i can ride up and down in 2 hours! yeah! just like a spinning class!

not that i’ve ever been.

chirp,

hillary

ps bike doc website should be “done” soon!

after such a long absence where does one start?

right here! i’ll say first that this is the story of two very separate and different rides. i’ll just go all chronological on you to make it easier on me.

on saturday the 19th i met up with another louisvillian that happens to be out here sunning in so-cal who goes by the name of zach @ about 7am. we tromped on down to the beach and sat sipping coffee @ peet’s talking about really awesome stuff until my other buddy dan met us. then we talked about more awesome stuff.

then something weird happened, we actually rode our bikes around. it was tres leisurely compared to what i would normally do because zach-er-ino has a fixed gear. i know, i know, but it’s not wat you’re thinking. zack has ridden across the country and up and down the western coast and is, according to him, just experimenting. he’s like a scientist seeing what all the fuss is about.

anyway, we rode around the marina and around the beach and stuff and then went home. IN THE END, it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

sunday september 20th was different as all get out!

you see, i found out i was working on sunday @ about 737pm. the bummer is that i was going to be working in calabassas @ 5am. a 2 hour ride means i’d have to be up and out of the house by 3am. whoo hoo!

i did it. i got up and pedaled off into the soooper foggy morning @ 307am. i got to work in 1 hour and 48 min and found that as usual i was the first person to show up. luckily i got to sit around well past 5am since apparently no one takes time seriously but me.

blah blah blah. work schmerk. i was supposed to be finished by 10am. that’s what i was told on several occasions. so at 1130am i got on my bicycle and began to pedal home. i had decided that i was no chicken and i was going to go down malibu canyon. then i decided that i wasn’t chicken but i wanted to get home to my wife and movies and food as fast as possible and so malibu canyon was out. chicken again.

but then something funny happened as i was kicking myself for not trying something new and using twisted logic and reason to justify it. i pulled out my phone and got a map of the area up and noticed that mullholland highway goes in the same direction as ventura blvd and meets up with topanga canyon and would be an adventure of unknown proportions and wouldn’t add any real time to my ride. the wheels started turning and the wheels started turning.

all i can say about mullholland highway is that i will definitely ride it again. stunning in all sorts of ways. mostly in the way it kicked my ass. long hills in every direction and enough short steep ones to keep me panting.

i got to the end of the mull-hi where it intersects topanga and without a second thought hung a hard right at the light to climb the hill that heads to the beach. home schmome. from where i hit topanga it’s not a very long climb. it’s not exactly fun but…

i may never figure out that decent. i got up to 42 mph at one point but the wind, oh the wind! i got hammered in the spots where i’ve normally gone the fastest. i stopped at topanga creek cycles where they rent bmc bicycles to foreign tourists who can’t bring a bike with them for cruising the beach. for some reason all their bikes were on sale. it’s not “some reason”. the bikes they rent are a year or more old and it’s getting close to the end of the racing season over here and it’s typically when people clear out their stock of last year’s crap to make way for next year’s awesome. i stopped. i’d have bought one in frog’s heart beat if i’d had the 885 on me. boring…

i crushed the rest of the hill getting belittled by the wind the whole way. hitting the beach the wind became my friend and i decided i’d already blown it in the time department and took venice to round out the mile count. 72 lil’ buggers in all. the map doesn’t include my trip to starbucks. go figger if that s-b in calabadass doesn’t open @ 430 am.

yippee skippee!

chirp,

hillary

first things first. i want to say i am very sorry for forgetting to mention that on my ride home form work the other night i saw a guy getting arrested by the police. this man was on the side of western ave and he was completely naked. he dropped something as the cop spun him around and the cop decided to kick it out of the way and it happened to be a tube of lube. so there take that criminals. ha!

today was on the schedule to be weird and strange fun. i met a guy the other night while on my ride home from work while he was riding as well. we chatted mostly about his bike cuz it was shiny and new and i thought it was cool. but so he asked if i was open to new opportunities and of course i said yes knowing full well that it had to be some strange pyramid type scheme or code for homosexual activity. he asked for my number i gave it to him cuz any way you cut it he seemed harmless and i then got on my way. he didn’t call when he said he would which i chalked up into the “just as well” category cuz somehow i’ve managed to stay pretty busy…point is that he calls on monday and is all about meeting up today (wednesday the 16th of september) so i commit since the only other thing i’ve got going on is a meeting about the bike documentary i’m making but it happens to be right around the corner from where he wants to meet.

long story short he wasn’t gay. the guy was very nice and wanted me to be just like him right now so he could move up to being the him he wants to be in the future and even though the company seems to have a good business model i just can’t see myself being a middle man for a telecommunications company. even if they are the leader in videophones.

the bike doc meeting went well. there are some really good ideas about which direction to to take (not physically but concept-wise). we just need to lock it down and focus in on one (okay maybe two) and then get the money ball rolling.

on my ride home i was being super boring and coming back essentially the same way i always do even though i’ve got all day to do whatever i want. i got to the west end of griffith and decided that i’d quit being a sissy and head up and see where exactly it went. well, i’d forgotten that it goes to the observatory.

i rode up that lil’ bit o’ steepness and my relaxing ride day turned into awesome breathlessness rather quickly. i got to “the top” where the observatory is only to find out that that isn’t the top and there is a rode that keeps going. that road intersects the road up to the observatory and where they meet there is a gate all the way across the road, which seems like a death trap since the road is sooper steep and if you rode up it and then came back down you’d have to brake extremely hard to not hit the gate… i didn’t bother with that. there is also a rode that goes in a different direction through a tunnel, but i didn’t bother with that either. i didn’t even bother with the awesome view of downtown or anything even though it’s one of the clearest days in more than a month.

what i did bother with was turning right around and crushing the shit out of the hill that i just came up. there are several tight curves that i basically thought i was going to slide through cuz i had to lean so far over but with just a tiny amount of breaking and occasionally not pedaling i made it to the bottom safe and sound. it was not nearly as far down as it was up. which is almost always the case and kinda breaks my heart but it was worth it and i think i’ll do it again sometime soon. like tomorrow maybe.

one thing that sucks is that ye ol’ gmap refuses to recognize the roads in griffith park as actual roads so the whole jaunt up the hill got left out of the equation of the mapping. suckers.

chirp,

hillary

so for like the 9th time (and this will be the last time i type about it), i got smoked out of the gate at a stop light. i was doing usual not too fast not too slow approach to a red light a a funky lil’ intersection on riverside where the road curves all haywire and there is an on/off ramp to the 101 and lights been red for a while and so i know it’s gonna split and then some guy on a colnago (pronounced “really expensive snooty italian bike that people only buy to let everyone know how much they spent”) just blasts me really close on my left.

okay, so the weird/not so weird part is that he brushed his hand on my arm when he passed. it’s weird cuz no one has ever done it to me before. it’s not weird cuz in the cycling world people touch each other all the time to let everyone know exactly where people are. cuz when you’re in traffic and sucking wind and more often than not have headphones on it’s safer/polite to let someone know you are there. this guy i think did it just to be prick-ish.

he blew past and i decided to not go out like a bitch even though i’m sure i’d already ridden twice as far as him got up at 5am and spent the last 10 hours moving furniture (yes that is what my job consisted of today and it was oddly quite fun).

i caught him before the next light, which was red and he just ran it, which was sorta okay cuz it was clear but kinda janky cuz there was no way to tell it was clear until you were in the intersection.

i slowed a tad to be “safe” in the intersection and then caught him again and i got right up on him and put my hand on his elbow right as i said “boo.”. i think he shit his pants. i mean didn’t hear or smell anything but he looked over and by the look on his face he definitely thought he left me in the dust.

i hit my brakes just enough to fall in behind him and then i put the presh on and stayed right on his tail. he pumped it up and the one glance i took we were doing 31 mph.

we got to the next stoplight, which was red, and instead of looking forward and left and right he looked back. i can’t say i was stunned but it seemed really dumb to look back when entering an intersection. i hit my brakes cuz there was no way to see. he trucked on.

he got a good 20 yards ahead and i tried to catch up but by that point i’d burned myself out for the moment and decided to coast it out.

he “got away” but i had eyes on him for the next mile or so until i had to skip off to into griffith park and he had to go off to hell or somewhere.

i decided to see how hard it was to blow past someone at a stoplight so i wouldn’t feel like a total pussy. the only problem was that even though i saw like fifty million bikers around griffith park they were all going the wrong way. and then i never saw another. so i decided to just use cars.

i found a toyota matrix that looked just like my wifey’s and decided that it was on like a mug yo. so at every light down beverly i just hung back until the light turned green and then blasted ass as hard as i could until the next light.

one result was that i passed the matrix every time and then it caught me and we rode/drove side by side until we both had to stop.

another result was that i was/am dead tired now after racing a car down beverly for miles on end.

one other thing is that it reminds me of an article i read about a guy that put a bike mileage counter on his car in los angeles for 15 years and found out that he averaged 17 mph over that time…heart warming.

chirp,

hillary

so when i sold my car a month ago i cleaned it out and found some interesting stuff. mostly just dumb shit that made me think about stuff i hadn’t thought of in a while.

the only thing of importance to any of this was a poster from a rock n’ roll show that i went to with my good friend carr schilling like 4 years ago. he took me out for a night on the town shortly after i moved here from louisville and we ended up at the echo/echoplex over on sunset blvd watching silversun pickups do a massively long show as their last los angeles performance before they went on a full blown tour for thier 1st full length album which if memory serves came out in ‘06 so 4 years doesn’t seem right…

the short and dull is that carr and i are not evil theives, we are merry hearted pranksters, so when we stole the flyer for the show off the front door on our way out and it pissed off the door guy, he was totally in the wrong. we were just making life fun for everyone involved and he was being “soooooper serious door guy”.

anyway, so i found the flyer crammed into the pocket thing of the front passenger side door and decided that carr needed to have it back. i then got lazy and waited and waited and then today i decided i would take a bike ride to carr’s house in marina del ray-ish area via topanga canyon. two birds one stone.

i got yelled at by a guy in a thooper thweet range rover that was all tricked out with go fasters cuz i decided to obey the law and turn left from the turn lane. he was behind me and even though it was clear i couldn’t turn due to all the fucking traffic he kept yelling for me to go but then he just peeled out and went around me and didn’t even turn. i waved for him to come back but he didn’t flip a bitch he just flipped me off.

i’ve decided that people must feel pretty safe in their cars. i’m pretty much over looking to start fights. i mean, i’m not an angry youth with something to prove anymore right? but i’m actually not at all opposed to showing someone exactly how strongly i feel about a subject. and if that means i have to get punched then so be it. if that means i have to wrestle someone in the street then that’s what it means. the thing i find is that people are willing to get inches away from me without a second thought when they are inside their car but none of them are ever willing to come back and get that close to me when they are out of their car. i guess the thing i’m most confused about is why do i feel safer when i’m not in a car? why don’t i feel like everyone else?

so topanga canyon was once again nice and fucking windy thus (how do i feel about using the word “thus” twice (three times) in one post?) was much slower than i always want and expect it to be. i crouched it out and hit 36.8 mph and just pedaled the whole way down. at some point it actually does get fuck off steep and you can’t help but go fast. it just happens to be the same part that is sooper windy (just like windy…how annoying) and there is no real shoulder and so instead of hitting the brakes i glanced back and saw that there was a mercedes 100 yards back and literally said “fuck it” out loud and took the middle of the road and made up my mind to go as fast as possible and who ever was behind me would just have to wait until i got to a place that was safe for me to be off to the side again. mr. mercedes never got close to me. i think he was making sure i had plenty of space. thank you mr. mercedes.

once i got to pch the wind was at least not blowing directly in my face so it was pretty nice. oh, i forgot to mention that it was not 1,000 degrees kelvin today so it actually felt nice the whole time.

i got stopped by a traffic light at the bottom of sunset and once i took off again i got mashed out by a couple of “pros”. i don’t know if they were pros but they had $20,000 worth of bikes between the two of them and were fully kitted with all sorts of shit with sponsorship type names on it so…i dropped down a gear and pedaled my ass off until i caught them and then i just hung out about 10 feet back just to see how long i could keep up. when we got to chautauqua the dood in the back looked over his shoulder and saw me and shook his head. i’m not sure what the head shake gesture is supposed to mean in that situation but he promptly put the hammer down and passed his buddy (and two cars) and cut out into the middle of pch and made a left up west channel. his buddy cut over as well but not quite as quickly. dood was fast but i just chalk it up to not being like 50 miles in. i kept up just fine for the two miles they were in front of me so in my head they suck.

i made it to carr’s house and dropped the flyer/poster off in his mailbox and headed home. yeah, i didn’t even tell him i was there so what? i’m a bad friend. i did text him to check the mail.

now it’s time to look ahead to tomorrow’s ride. hmmm. happy lab day er’ body.

chirp,

hillary

here’s me getting everything i wish for…well, sorta.

work draws me to strange and far away lands. lands like calabassas.

if you’ve never been, it’s colder than los angeles in the morning, and hotter than hell in the afternoon. cuz it’s closer to the sun i think.

the round trip was something like 75 miles but only cuz i took the “safe way” home which means i’m still too much of a puss to merge into traffic that’s doing 40+ when i’m doing 30 coming down cahuenga/highland into hollywood. so i take riverside to silverlake and call it a night.

i did see a baby snake. which is funny on all sorts of levels. mostly cuz “baby snakes” is a sooper funny pet name. especially for a snake.

i’m pretty much over doing the numbers but somewhere out there i bumped up on 41.9 mph which is wierd cuz i almost never break 40 and i didn’t know i did it until i got home and checked the stats.

there were a couple good stretches coming back on ventura blvd where i maintained 25+ mph. it’s really funny/fun to ride faster than all the cars. i mean, yeah it’s 100 degrees and i’m sweating like a sea cucumber and my ass kinda hurts but ha ha ha look at all the dumbies sitting in their cars pumping out all sorts of horrible pollution into the air all while getting passed by a dood breathing all hard…

it’s win win. i feel superior, get exercise, get to ride down steep ass hills and feel free as a bird and sing at the top of my lungs and they get to try to kill me in all sorts of awesome ways.

aw, lil’ baby snake just sitting by the side of the road. you’re so cute. maybe if things go the way they seem to be going not only will i get to do this ride oh say form october 1st all the way through the end of march, but i’ll also get to see you baby snake when you’re all grown up. you little molter you.

chirp,

hillary