sweet, sweeter, sweetest

SWEET: ryan gosling has officially usurped jake gyllenhaal's throne of best male actor in my book. watch half nelson to see why. (FYI you can borrow it for free from the santa monica public library!) shareeka epps is also excellent and so natural in her role of "drey". it's an honest film with a bittersweet ending that saddens but inspires.



SWEETER: did my first ever midnight ridazz-affiliated ride on thursday evening. heck, my first real long-distance night-time road ride ever! this one was called the cubcamp "week 1" road ride. spook, marcus, franz, dave, carla, carlos, ritchie, steven, eunice, ken, and i were in attendance. i think there were one or two other people i didn't get names for or forgot names of. sorry! we started at 9pm @ bikerowave in santa monica, and ended around midnight with a quick chug of Milwaukee's BEAST, squeezing in some ice cream sandwiches, parking lot structure velodroming, running red lights, and hummer hijacking, into the 20 or so miles of frantic panicky and exhilirating pedal cadence. cubcamp meets on thursday evenings and is a continuous 5-week cycle of road training/sprinting (1st week = 20+ miles, 5th week = 50+ miles) in downtown LA's midnight false-light that preps you for bleeding/riding with WOLFPACK. you don't even want to KNOW how fast and far wolfpack rides.



SWEETEST: today i did the mt pinos/mcgill trail in the los padres national forest with sbmbc and we had a nice tight group riding this trail. luke, stephan, ken, jen, gary, and i, rode the mtn bike singletrack trail up, while marizel and laurie took the equally scenic road ride to the top.

we rode 17.8 miles (jen's computer said 18 cuz she rode the furthest. damn i gotta work on catching up!) and climbed 3600 feet. it's the highest elevation i've climbed to in cali, and the altitude definitely made breathing a bit of a chore. nonetheless, we had a blast on this 3.5 hour ride, as the downhill (coming back down what we had ridden up) was smooth as silk and fast like juiced-up fighter jets. this trail is one of my new favorites.

up to the top!


and down to the cars...

gary


luke


jen


me


THAT was my ONLY fall of the day. can you believe it??? i buckled under the pressure. i'll never be a movie star. *le sigh*

CLICK HERE to see lots more of my pix on flickr...

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directions:
405N --> 5N --> take Exit 205 toward Frazier Park
--> turn left at Frazier Mtn Park Road
--> drive about 12 miles till you hit a Y in the road
--> stay to your left in the Y intersection
--> park in the large unmarked dirt parking lot just behind the Y intersection
--> watch some bluejays and bunny rabbits frolic, then lube up your chain and GO RIDE!

about 1.75 hours from Santa Monica
google maps
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p.s. hit up MIKE'S PIZZA if you do this ride. by far the most devilishly delicious pie i've had since i moved out here (order an x-large "mike's special"!). they have FUNNEL CAKE (!) and the staff ain't too hostile either. =)
p.p.s. "tylergeike"speaks the truth!!!!!
p.p.p.s. marizel uploaded some of her kick-ass pictures. CLICK HERE and check them out!
p.p.p.p.s. make sure you purchase & display an adventure pass if you want to ride mt pinos. they're $5 for a day pass and totally worth it. you can buy them online or at almost any of the small mom & pop stores along Frazier Mtn Park Road.