RAWR FRIDAY!

(via ebay)

i heart rogues gallery. they need to make more girl stuffs though.

off to mammoth mountain for a week of pain and suffering in the biting wind & freezing snow, with my efforts culminating in rock hard thighs, snowboard-dented shins, and tender purple buttocks.

like, OMG, to the valley & back

a camera with more megapixel power would've weighed too much, and derailed my plans to climb 8 miles of sepulveda blvd. hence the crappy camera phone shot @ whole foods seen above...

the chilly saturday morning ride started off @ 8am @ bike attack, the temp hovering in the low 50s but almost no wind. amy, one of our ride leaders, gave us the lowdown on the route - through westwood via sepulveda, then up and over the hump into the valley. you've probably driven this route if you've gone north on the 405 toward sherman oaks. yup that's a slow steep climb, even in a car. and yup, we conquered that shiz on our bikes! after we dropped into the valley, we would make a pit stop at a whole foods, then back over sepulveda, through culver city to head west on the ballona creek bike path, which runs alongside the glorious LA river (er, barely wet concrete basin).

erin performed an invigorating bike safety RAP (an amazing sight & sound to behold, truly), led us in a few stretches, and then we were off!

we exited santa monica via ocean ave and hit nearly all the lights. that "come to a complete stop and touch your toe to the ground" policy can be tiring and annoying, but it's best to play it safe when two-ton cars are a potentially life-threatening hazard. also, you can get kicked off the ALC if you don't do the full stop-touch at stop signs on the ride in june! they're watching youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

i tried sepulveda a few months earlier on a midnight ridazz cubcamp ride. that attempt was at night. in 30 degree temps. and after a full day of work. so i only made it halfway up sepulveda that night, before turning around with numb fingers and toes.

this time i focused my attention on the spinning wheel of the rider directly in front of me and pedaled until i felt the ground level out. daylight helped. temps in the upper 50s helped too. but i do feel stronger than i did on the cubcamp crap-out. after the sepulveda grind, ride leader heather led nguyen, steve, sandy, tony and i back to the beach via the ballona creek bike path at a chill pace, and we were back at bike attack before i knew it.

total riding time: 4 hours
total distance: 38.7 miles

time for a parturiency nascency party

Pisces: February 19 - March 20

The vast tomes of history will soon bear your name, which would be flattering, if it didn't come up every time the black plague was mentioned.

Prepare yourself for a year of incredible achievement and success. Do this by ignoring the first 11 months, three weeks, and four days.

rich people to wardrobe...stat!

(via nytimes)

i can't wait till wall street forgets about wearing those silly monkey suits and adopts the jumpsuit as its accepted uniform (standing guy on the left, $1395). very affordable for that tax bracket. good for biking too, no risk of muffin-top or plumber's crack.

the bright turquoise tie, however, will need some time to overcome the traditional tiny golfers and tiny boats.

1/2 white, 1/2 pink

(via nymag)

i don't especially love his design work, but i dig his philosophy about identity:

"do what turns you on."

holla westsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!

(via nytimes)

there's an informative article on my new hometown in today's new york times...here are some highlights:

+the ferris wheel @ the pier is out of commission from may 5th to may 22nd. plan your saccharine-sweet marriage proposals accordingly.

+the galley, a surf&turf "restaurant with a heart" on main street, opened in 1934 and is santa monica's oldest restaurant. have not been. yelpers gave it 3.5 stars out of 5.

+lots of frank gehry work in SM. when you come drop dollars @ the pier, take a detour eastward to 22nd & washington to check out his quirky symbiotic steel-glass-greenery-wood pad.

+adelaide drive in northern SM is another hot spot for touristing architects.

some insider tips from me:

+if you're looking for late night grub, your best non-dennys-ihop option is swingers. great chai, tasty choco-banana milkshake, loaded vegan blue corn nachos (don't forget to add soy chorizo).

+the beach path that starts in SM goes all the way down to hermosa beach, great for a couple miles of running on the sand or swerving your bike around roller-bladers. you'll pass through venice (spur of the moment tattoos!), el segundo beach (stinky + trailers + fire pits), redondo beach (volleyball nets!), & manhattan beach (surfer boys).

+the SM public library is a gorgeous building that loans out cds and dvds (5/week!), hosts family-friendly movie screenings, and has a peaceful enclosed open-air courtyard where you can snag a quick sandwich or espresso. if you've got zilch vacation time left to come out west, their image archives also offer up some amazing photos (see below) from 1875 to present day.

Shoo Fly Landing built in 1875, destroyed in 1879 - E.G. Morrison


Ocean Avenue and Adelaide Drive, after 1900 - Security First National Bank Collection


Ferris wheel, Pacific Park an amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier opened in 1996. Photographed 2001 by Cynni Murphy

where i go, 4 or 5 bikes follow immediately

(via nytimes)

here's a fun (albeit tad dated) tale of apt hunting in nyc with ethan benton of laek house:

"He spent nearly six years in an East Village apartment shared with three roommates, where his bedroom measured 7 feet by 9 feet. Beneath his loft bed, he crammed several bicycles, assorted bicycle parts, a dresser, a computer and supplies for his business, Laek House (pronounced Lake), which makes reflective clothing for bicyclists."

i've got a titch more living space in LA than i did in NYC, but i should still learn how to build myself a loft bed. nothing like a haggle of velos to keep the monsters at night. my bike stable headtube count is only at 3, but craigslist and her tempting fixer-upper-fixie rock-bottom deals are so irresistible...

+ some of his lovely & reasonably priced work:

school of bunnyfish @ gr2

cruddy camera phone pix...but i couldn't not take a photo of those comical bunnyfish buckteeth; installed at gr2 from 1/19 to 2/13.

see more kozyndan cuddles on flickr...

attackin' the beaches with bike attack

(view from the top of rancho palos verdes, via magic_man)

i rode the "santa monica: climb to the top of palos verdes!" 50 mile trek on saturday morning with the bike attack training crew. breakfast was a "banilla" power smoothie from trader joe's (delicious!) and a peanut butter luna bar. david bain (the ride leader) went over some basic rules of the road, and i got to meet drew (cute cat stickers on her sweet specialized allez - soma everwear tires woot!), deborah, tony (the tiger, this will be his 5th ALC), reuben (ruby!), dave (this will be his 2nd ALC), and nguyen (also his 1st ALC!). david has been involved with ALC for 10 years! truly inspiring. my friend flavio was also on the ride - he always ends the ride with a crazy sprint and this one was no exception. he's also got a goal of riding 150 miles PER WEEK. i've definitely got some work to do on my mileage.

there were at least 20 people that gathered at bike attack that morn, but it soon split into two groups: the sprinters and the sane people. i chose to follow the sprinters and got quite a workout - for the first 20 miles we had an average speed of 17 mph! starting off in santa monica, we headed down main street toward venice, then onto the beach bike path toward el segundo and manhattan beach. the first pit stop was after a steep half-mile hill climb in palos verdes, at malaga cove plaza, a little shopping area where nguyen bought a delicious-looking breakfast burrito loaded with avocado, tomatoes, cheese, and egg. i polished off cran-razberry clif blox i brought along and hoped they would give me enough energy to complete the 2nd half of the ride.

the next 4 miles (and half hour) of the ride involveed a torturous climb up hawthorne boulevard. looking at this twisting winding monster from the bottom, i wondered if maybe i should have stuck with the sane people. fortunately, the guys in my pack maintained a steady and reasonable pace. i kept my eyes glued to flavio's back wheel and concentrated on my pedal strokes. finally we saw valero gas station on the left and swung into the parking lot to get our lungs back.

i was down to "red"-flavored gatorade and water at that point, so when reuben offered up some of his lightly salted kettle chips, i scarfed them right up. with most of the climbing done, was cruised down silver sput and palos verdes boulevard. i almost prefer climbing endlessly to bombing down a huge downhill - too many imagined bike crash situations running through my head. after my dislocated shoulder in january, i've gotten a little speed-shy. there were no technicals or mechanicals on this ride though, amazingly enough, and after we started coming back up to hermosa and manhattan beach, we were in the home stretch.

flavio pulled away right before we hit the beach bike path, and that was the last i saw of him for the day. every red light on main street (or rather, the start/stopping) worked my calves to the max and with all my energy bars burned off from the huge climbs, i started lusting after chocolate sundaes and inch-thick steaks drowning in A1. and finally, we were back at bike attack. our pack had gotten spread out over the last few miles of the ride, so i said ciao to tony & dave (driving back to long beach), and headed back home.

got a hint of a calf cramp on the ride home, and my right knee was acting up a little bit, so i definitely need to bring more food (bananas!) next time, and also get a clipless pedals/ shoes setup. i'm still riding in cages & vans, which isn't all that bad. it actually makes stopping at stop signs and red lights a little easier, but yeah, a clipless setup will transfer my pedal strokes a lot more efficiently. holding my breath till payday...