Well, I’m sure all you faithful readers will be relieved to hear that Scott and I have mended our fences, patched our differences, licked our (own) wounds, and generally are back to being the laughingly contentious pals we’ve been for oh so long. Now that that Rubicon has been crossed… all we have to do is ride the bike for seven days.
We had a great ride last weekend. Seventy-seven miles from Duarte to Seal Beach and back along the weirdest dystopian slice of LA you can get — the San Gabriel River Trail. It basically goes along the 605 freeway, hugging the edges of (0bviously) the San Gabriel River. It passes through ginormous quarry pits that at one point gave up a BILLION tons of gravel and rock to build Los Angeles, through a section of backyard horse stalls loud with roosters, and past nurseries and homeless encampments and industrial plants,. And then there’s the Renaissance Faire parking lot (with people in costume walking up and around the Santa Fe Dam). It basically is one long werd path going downhill to the beach, and the same long weird path going uphill back to the mountains.
Despite its trippiness, the trail is mostly boring, but not without its harrowing moments. There are steep hairpin turns to get on or off a bridge, which are treacherous for a single bike and super tight for a tandem. My favorite thing to stress about is a narrow tunnel that you approach rapidly down a short steep path and exit out of on a short steep climb. In between the two short steep paths is narrow drippy darkness in which two bikes MAY be theoretically be able to pass each other, but that no one ever wants to test out in reality. Instead, we plunge down into it, screaming our heads off (or at least I am) and literally praying that no one is approaching. It’s even more fun when you have glasses that transition to clear after being in the sun, but by the time they actually do that, you’re out of it and back in the light, huffing up the steep egress. I lost some sleep over that this time, but we did it and lived to tell the tale.
We’re at the end of training, for all intents and purposes. Scott will be coming back down here this week to be with his family for his mother-in-law’s 90th birthday. We’ll ride to the observatory on Thursday and take a short ride with our pals on Saturday, followed by the traditional packing clinic and potluck. But that’s it. Next stop, San Francisco for registration on June 1 and riding out of the Cow Palace on June 2.
The hard part is done (or so they say). Hopefully, we have pedaled enough, together and separately, that we’ll have the stamina to do the whole 7 days down the coast. More importantly, we’ve worked through a LOT of shit on the interpersonal level. When you’re staring at someone’s back for 10 hours a day (or hearing someone’s disembodied voice coming at you from behind), you have to work through your interpersonal shit. I now know not to mention my theatre gig, spreadsheets, ’64 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport CLASSIC automobiles, PCs, or Garmins. Scott knows not to mention his opinions about all of the same. We know this, yet we will continue to mention, and we will continue to bicker. But I now have confidence that the bickering will be with laughter and affection, all the way through the strawberry fields and over the mountains, through the towns and by the beaches and back to LA.
It takes a ton of grinta to even attempt a ride like this… but between the two of you, I think there’s even a bit to spare. Good luck and stay safe out there!