Bay Area to LA bike speed run whatever
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 7:59 pm
It is painful to write these on my iPad, which is my primary thing for lookin and doin, so bear with me. Also this
results in no pics, so it didn’t need happen. Oh, and the iPad inserted the word ‘need’ in that last sentence. A truly glorious future awaits us biologicals.
I work and have family in the Bay Area. I love riding bikes. I ride the coast route once or more per year. Thus, I have wanted to see how little time it would take me to ride between there and here. I started on Monday July 22at 0535 in San Jose and finished in Santa Monica at the metro station/pier on Wednesday July 24 at 0540. Elapsed time 48hrs 5min, with Strava giving me the figures of 35hrs 44min riding time over 417mi (let’s say 420 for fun) with 20,600ft gain.
On Monday, I rode from southern central San Jose through the coastal range on some roads including old Santa Cruz hwy or something named like that to Santa Cruz. The navigation was easy from 5ere, as you just go down the 1 nearly the whole way to LA. Santa Cruz was one of the only spots I haven’t ridden on the west coast, so I could turn off navigation once I got there. Bought an energy drink and so,e choggobars, and went south. Rode past my special hidden bivy in northern Big Sur, and stopped in the Spencer’s Market parking lot in Morro Bay sometime in the dark, 199miles. Very tired, I got a black trash bag (left tyvek ground sheet at home) and cut it roughly down the sides to make it a long ground sheet. I got in my Chinese amazon dot com $80 40* down bag, covered myself inadequately with my six moons design tarp poncho thing I can never remember the name of, and slept poorly for several hours, waiting for Spencer’s to open so I could buy my 99c fried chicken I always get here. It’s a tradition. They don’t always do that, I just get lucky. Got up in the morning and got 3 of em. Last day of the sale! Lucky indeed. I then rode down the coast to Santa Monica, where I finished my strava upload.
Got on the blue or expo whatever line to LA. In typical metro fashion, the train stopped prematurely, and I had to ride through downtown, a supremely depressing place. Got on the gold line in Little Tokyo and took it to Azusa, where I rode another 8mi south to home. It was hot and humid around 9am at that point. Welcome home, bitch. This place is hot and full of tweekers and bums. I cannot fathom how anyone who has lived here for 30 some odd years like I have can honestly say they love LA. There are many things I love about the people, culture, food, car culture, mtns, and so forth, but LA as a package delivered to your doorstep is terrible. The homeless problem has grown to insane proportions. I have been in fights with bums lately, washed their piss off my front door at work, and had some crazy person stab an old Chinese man to death on the gold line train I was riding to work not long ago. Good thing I can’t legally carry a handgun for self defense. In LA, it is more right to be stabbed to death with the bad guy walking away than it is to defend yourself and remove a bad person from the oxygen cue. I will never understand this.
Anyway, I digress. Next time I will pack as lightly as possible, and ride my (borrowed long term from Sam) road bike. I took my work/fun daily driver all steel 650b tubeless yadda yadda bike this time. Also brought my tiny inflatable mattress which I didn’t use, and some other stuff, such as spare socks and underpants. Good training.
Hope you’re all getting out there. Keep on not geotagging places so that we can keep our collective mean racist white supremacist/privilege/whatever nonsense the idiots stealing oxygen say going as long as possible. I realize we aren’t all ‘white’ here, but uhhhh if you don’t geotag then you’re automatically part of the big bad club with me so hail satan. Also go ride bikes. Also go eat a lot. Eating is awesome.
Love, Taco
PS: hi guys
PPS: the cursor doesn’t blink for some reason. I apologize for autocorrect errors and other such weirdness. This barely runs on my iPad so I haven’t the patience to make things perfect.
results in no pics, so it didn’t need happen. Oh, and the iPad inserted the word ‘need’ in that last sentence. A truly glorious future awaits us biologicals.
I work and have family in the Bay Area. I love riding bikes. I ride the coast route once or more per year. Thus, I have wanted to see how little time it would take me to ride between there and here. I started on Monday July 22at 0535 in San Jose and finished in Santa Monica at the metro station/pier on Wednesday July 24 at 0540. Elapsed time 48hrs 5min, with Strava giving me the figures of 35hrs 44min riding time over 417mi (let’s say 420 for fun) with 20,600ft gain.
On Monday, I rode from southern central San Jose through the coastal range on some roads including old Santa Cruz hwy or something named like that to Santa Cruz. The navigation was easy from 5ere, as you just go down the 1 nearly the whole way to LA. Santa Cruz was one of the only spots I haven’t ridden on the west coast, so I could turn off navigation once I got there. Bought an energy drink and so,e choggobars, and went south. Rode past my special hidden bivy in northern Big Sur, and stopped in the Spencer’s Market parking lot in Morro Bay sometime in the dark, 199miles. Very tired, I got a black trash bag (left tyvek ground sheet at home) and cut it roughly down the sides to make it a long ground sheet. I got in my Chinese amazon dot com $80 40* down bag, covered myself inadequately with my six moons design tarp poncho thing I can never remember the name of, and slept poorly for several hours, waiting for Spencer’s to open so I could buy my 99c fried chicken I always get here. It’s a tradition. They don’t always do that, I just get lucky. Got up in the morning and got 3 of em. Last day of the sale! Lucky indeed. I then rode down the coast to Santa Monica, where I finished my strava upload.
Got on the blue or expo whatever line to LA. In typical metro fashion, the train stopped prematurely, and I had to ride through downtown, a supremely depressing place. Got on the gold line in Little Tokyo and took it to Azusa, where I rode another 8mi south to home. It was hot and humid around 9am at that point. Welcome home, bitch. This place is hot and full of tweekers and bums. I cannot fathom how anyone who has lived here for 30 some odd years like I have can honestly say they love LA. There are many things I love about the people, culture, food, car culture, mtns, and so forth, but LA as a package delivered to your doorstep is terrible. The homeless problem has grown to insane proportions. I have been in fights with bums lately, washed their piss off my front door at work, and had some crazy person stab an old Chinese man to death on the gold line train I was riding to work not long ago. Good thing I can’t legally carry a handgun for self defense. In LA, it is more right to be stabbed to death with the bad guy walking away than it is to defend yourself and remove a bad person from the oxygen cue. I will never understand this.
Anyway, I digress. Next time I will pack as lightly as possible, and ride my (borrowed long term from Sam) road bike. I took my work/fun daily driver all steel 650b tubeless yadda yadda bike this time. Also brought my tiny inflatable mattress which I didn’t use, and some other stuff, such as spare socks and underpants. Good training.
Hope you’re all getting out there. Keep on not geotagging places so that we can keep our collective mean racist white supremacist/privilege/whatever nonsense the idiots stealing oxygen say going as long as possible. I realize we aren’t all ‘white’ here, but uhhhh if you don’t geotag then you’re automatically part of the big bad club with me so hail satan. Also go ride bikes. Also go eat a lot. Eating is awesome.
Love, Taco
PS: hi guys
PPS: the cursor doesn’t blink for some reason. I apologize for autocorrect errors and other such weirdness. This barely runs on my iPad so I haven’t the patience to make things perfect.
