Thursday November 7th – 7:00am: I was grateful to roll up to the pier and have friends ready to see me off. It felt special and like a home-field advantage, of sorts. I had slept okay the night before. I had woken up in the middle of the night to pull out my puffy and drape it over my bike to be packed in the morning. My fear of being cold is real.
Thursday 7:11 am- Mile 0: Why a 7:11 start? Because Snake Plisken (fictional race director) wanted to pay homage to the reality that a lot of our food for the next few days would be from gas stations. It was a neutral roll-out for the first couple miles along the beach bike-path, before walking under the pedestrian tunnel under PCH to start our first climb up Amalfi Drive towards Sullivan. As we climbed the stairs out of the tunnel we all joked that it was our first hike-a-bike of the route. There was definitely more to come.
Thursday 10:00am - Mile 29: Earlier in the week I had forced myself to sit down with the route pulled up on my laptop and type out every point of interest to come up with some sort of strategy about where to get food and water. I wasn’t fully sold on the idea of “racing,” but I did want to push myself and be efficient. I have a tendency to over-stress about both water and food, so I knew that the better planning I could do, the better chance I’d have to move efficiently. At this point I was still riding with a group of 4-5, but I peeled off to stop at a trailhead that was marked on the route to have bathrooms, water, and a sneaky vending machine. I had packed $5 in ones and 3 quarters, just in case. The machine was out of order but I filled water, ate a couple bites from a microwaveable Trader Joe’s burrito I had packed that morning, and kept rolling.
Thursday 3:41pm- Mile 64: After a long and slower-than-anticipated traverse of the Santa Monica’s via backbone trail, I descended down to hit PCH. The famed Neptune’s Net was just off route here, the only food stop for the first 90ish miles of the route. I had been riding alone for a couple of hours at this point. I turned off PCH into Sycamore Canyon to refill water and eat before once again climbing into the Santa Monica’s towards Thousand Oaks and a 24 hour McDonalds. By 5:30 the sun was already down.
Thursday 8:33pm- Mile 93(ish)- Thousand Oaks: Town is a vortex. I knew that I’d want to linger, so I tried to be mindful of my efficiency as I got into Thousand Oaks, the first spot for a resupply on route so far. I don’t eat meat, so I was banking on the all-day breakfast menu at McDonalds to snag six McGriddles and a handful of hashbrowns. However, all-day breakfast was not a thing here, so I settled for a large fry and a large milkshake. I went next door to a Chevron to buy cookies and candy to get me through the night. My original ‘strategy’ was to try and get to mile 130 for the first night. This was looking out of the question. I decided to keep pedaling until around midnight or mile 115, where I had previously dropped a pin for a likely bivy spot. With fries spilling out of my toptube bag and my shake wedged in my aero bars, I kept going into the night.
Thursday 11:45pm - Mile 108(ish): The night riding was slow and I was still riding by myself. There were some chunky sections of trail and hike a bikes, but overall I was still feeling pretty good, but knew that I wasn’t going to push through the night. At this point, 2 riders had blasted way off the front, and there were 4-5 of us vying for 3rd. Somewhere in a semi urban trail system I topped out a climb and scoped a bit of flat ground near some bushes and decided that I would bivvy down for the night. As I stealthily laid out my sleep kit I noticed some reflections from my headlamp and found another rider (The Surgeon General, aka Dylan) already asleep about 30 feet away. I felt reassured that my sleep spot was a good one. I heard another hub as I closed my eyes. Seth was pulling over in our spot, too. I gave him a whistle and a wave and rolled over. I was surprisingly chilly so put on my puffy and slid into my bivy.
Friday 5:30am- Mile 108(ish): I could hear two riders, Dylan (The Surgeon General!) and Seth packing around 5, but I rolled over and tried to trust my gut that I would need the additional half hour of sleep. I finally started packing around 5:30, dug a cathole in some bushes, took 3 ibuprofen and a caffeine pill and started riding for the day.
Friday 8:40am - Mile 123, Simi Valley: I met two other riders (Spencer and Jason) at Starbucks in Simi Valley. 2 Pesto Mozzarella Egg sandwiches to go, please. I used the bathroom and washed my face and rolled out just behind them. We spent most of this day in each other’s orbits. This day was honestly a slog. Hiking and route finding. We were headed towards Santa Clarita and eventually the San Gabriels. And despite our best efforts it felt like neither were getting any closer.
Friday 11:51AM -Mile 136: A friend in Tucson at one point, while encouraging me to ride a longer route, said, ‘just keep eating and drinking and you’ll be fine.’ I could feel a hot spot showing up on the ball of my right foot for most of the morning, so I knew I was going to need to stop and do some foot care at some point. I almost decided against stopping for real food, but am glad I did. Grilled cheese, fries, a coke and a chocolate shake. I found some shade on the sidewalk out front of an In-N-Out, and posted up to do some foot care.
Friday 4:01pm - Mile 153, Santa Clarita: 11 hours of moving and for 30 miles. Brutal. At a certain point there’s some mental math going on about balancing exertion and speed. Is it that much faster to ride my bike up this chunky singletrack than it is to walk? Will walking conserve my energy without losing too much time? Santa Clarita was the last resupply for the 100 mile stretch through the rugged and remote- feeling San Gabriels. I spent $30 on Chips Ahoy, M&M's, and a packaged pastry at an AMPM and got a Footlong at Subway before starting the climb out of town. At this point, I had a feeling I was going to push through the night, in order to keep pace with the other riders around me. Spencer caught me on the climb out of Santa Clarita, and we eventually passed Seth together a few miles later.
Saturday 2:38am- Mile 193: Condor Trail is not where you want to crash, but I crashed anyways. Lots of the trail is exposed and I was taking my time, but got loose and took a slight tumble off trail, caught by the bushes a few feet below me.. A moment of reassessment and both a metaphorical and literal breath. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Keep eating and drinking and be cool.
Saturday 6:00 am: I was falling asleep towards the top of the hike-a-bike out of Big Tijunga Canyon. At this moment I figured a couple different things: The other riders had also pushed through the night, and because I hadn’t passed anyone, and hadn’t taken my phone off airplane mode to check trackleaders, I was in 4th, maybe 5th place I could afford a 10 minute morning nap in the sun. I pulled on my puffy and laid my thin foam sleeping pad in the sun, set a timer for 10 minutes and closed my eyes when I heard footsteps. Almost in embarrassment I got up and started packing before a hunter came around the corner and greeted me with a goodmorning. I wished him good luck and decided to keep pushing. I took my phone off Airplane mode, got a text that let me know I was in 2nd place and checked trackleaders. At this point I was only a few miles (but a nasty hike-a-bike) ahead of the other riders vying for 2nd. I turned my phone back onto airplane mode and kept going. The San Gabriels would have 3 major climbs ahead of me. Strawberry Peak. Mt. Wilson. Echo Mountain/Mt. Lowe. All 3 would end up as hike-a-bikes. I spent this day fully alone, pushing my pace on the hike-a-bikes and relying on efficiency more than speed to try and not get passed.
Saturday 5:45 pm - Mile 235: And finally, I was being caught. I could see lights coming behind me. I had been hiking most every uphill for most of the day, but Dylan (The Surgeon General!) came cooking past me, riding hard. Although he invited me to ride with him, but he dropped me right away. Up until this point I had been riding within myself, focusing on ‘riding my own ride’ and make decisions rooted in that. I felt shook at this point, rushing and reckless as we started to (at long last) descend down out of the San Gabriels via chunky and technical singletrack for the next 13 or so miles. I ate some gummy worms and tried to compose myself.
Saturday 8:37pm- Mile 250, Altadena, 50 miles to go.: I could see that Dylan was a few miles ahead of me on trackleaders and almost didn’t stop at the jack-in-the-box right on route, but it didn’t quite feel like in the spirit of the route to pass it up. I stuffed fries and jalapeno poppers into my toptube bag and, once again, wedged a milkshake (milkshake #3!) into my aero bars. I was having a hard time figuring out what layers to wear (it was cooling off, but I was riding hard) and feeling a little frustrated by my inefficiencies. The route, at this point, took me past the Rose Bowl and through Pasadena, along the LA river to climb to the Griffith Observatory, before dropping north to ride past Studio City.
Saturday 11:12pm- Mile 272, Studio City: I had been playing catch-up for the last couple hours and finally saw Dylan’s blinky ahead of me. I pulled alongside him and introduced myself. We had been playing leapfrog for days, but had never really ridden together. At this point, we were cruising together, I think we were both grateful to have someone to chat with as we still had some long hours to go.
Sunday 1:48 am- Mile 293, Backbone trail: Dylan, who is a seasoned bikepack racer described it as “The Fun Zone.” As we descended the final bit of singletrack the shadows were dancing a bit and the tall grasses were shifting into haunting (but friendly) bird-people, as my brain was beyond exhausted, telling me, through hallucinations, that I should rest soon. I couldn’t have agreed more.
Sunday 3:15 am- Mile 307. Santa Monica Pier: Dylan and I got to the finish together, tying for 2nd. We snapped some photos of each other and waited for our gps to update on trackleaders. It was while we were waiting to confirm our trackleaders had updated when we got approached by a guy on a cruiser bike. “Where is everybody?” he asked. “What do you mean?” “I mean, where is everybody?” “It’s 3:15 in the morning.” “But its LA, man!” Dylan and I rode the mile and a half back to my house and crashed for the night.
