Living in the inner suburbs of Southern California, I don’t think I’ve really appreciated how close I live to the ocean. I’m always daydreaming about someday living on some preppy beach property, and extinguishing any whims to drive to the beach because of traffic, laziness, or gas money. Riding to the beach with friends puts into perspective how close fun in the sun can be.
The morning of our ride started out rather slow. We all decided to meet at the crack of 10 a.m. and go from Troll’s house in La Mirada. I was all ready to go by 9:30 when I went down to my car only to find out that my battery’s dead, my power locks don’t work, and my car won’t start. I had left my dome light on all night. D’oh! I called the Auto Club and they fixed me up, but I didn’t get to Troll’s until about 11.
Aaron, looking tired but ready to go.
Once we got going, we had a really horrible start. We hadn’t even left Troll’s neighborhood and I owned myself in the first five minutes. My shoelaces got caught in my pedal and I hit the pavement. Double d’oh. After tucking in my laces securely into my shoes, we got going and finally got to an entrance to the reservoir. Troll had GoogleEarthed this trail and was sure that it would get us to where we were going, but we kept running into locked gates! We went under one and hopped another, and after tiring of this, Aaron decided to be Red Leader and guide us to charted territory, to the known reservoir entrance. Besides seeing these makeshift beds and sort-of human nests along the way (but there were never any actual homeless people in them), everything was pretty much smooth sailing from there. We finally got to the beach….four and a half hours after our designated departure time.
We parked our bikes, pretended to lock a couple of them, and ate at Ruby’s Diner at the end of the pier. We didn’t get any time to play at the beach after that, because Aaron was paranoid about bridge hobos attacking us in the dark. We all got home safe and sound, with two hours of daylight still left. After five hours of total riding and 32 miles, what did we have to show for it? Sore bums and this photograph.
We made it!
Sigh. At least I learned a few lessons:
1) Always wear laceless shoes when biking.
2) Stop being a penny pincher and buy some padded shorts already.
3) Apparently, the homeless only come out at night and chase people around with chain whips.
We should totally do it again, guys! =D
