Monday, October 20, 2008

Sat-Urrrr-Day!!!!

Some days are good, some days are great, and others are pretty Epic. So far I've only had a few distinctly epic Saturdays. The Death Ride was one of those, and a few early training rides of 2007 rated highly up there... My Saturday started like so many, but unlike so many at the same time. Usually my Saturdays start before 7:00 a.m. to get on the road early and get in some ridiculously high mileage count for a training ride. This Saturday had all those elements, except the whole getting up before 7:00 a.m... yea, Eff that Poo. I really hate getting up before 8, so this weekend I woke up a little late and didn't hit the road until about 8:00 a.m. My plan was to ride from Burbank, up to Mt. Wilson, down to Big T, see how I feel and then figure out my route home. I left Burbank and took Mountain to get to Cordova and Glenoaks. From there I went up Chevy Chase to get over to the Crest. Riding the rollers through Mountain and then getting that quick climb up Chevy Chase was a good way to get ready for the real climbing on this ride. Which came very shortly after my time on Chevy Chase. I felt pretty good on the Crest. I set my lap at the light by the Shell Station and clocked 51 minutes and some change up to the Clear Creek Station, although... I did stop here and there to take a couple pictures.

Like this one...


And this one...


And this one as well...


But I digress... After Clear creek I took it a little easy as I headed up to RedBox. From there I took the left up to Mt. Wilson. The climbing up to Wilson was hard. I kept looking at my Garmin, and it kept saying 6% grade, which is nothing for me, but man that was the hardest 6% I've ever been on, that road was insane. To make matters worse I kept looking up the road and everything looked so close, but the road just kept on going. But when I got to the top, man was it worth it.

See? That's Pasadena, L.A., Glendale and some other cities down there.


From there I headed back down to Clear Creek, then down Angeles Forest Highway, then down Big T. When I got to Oro Vista and Foothill I had had enough, so I hopped on Sunland Blvd and headed home.

Saturday night was the Rock & Roller party at SiteLA in Silverlake. This was the fundraiser for the Encino Velodrome. The roller racing started around 8:00 and once that got going I shot little video clips of some of the folks racing. The party was pretty fun. The space was nice and there was a good crowd of folks there. I know I give a hard time to the hipsters but I was definitely the biggest Fred there as I drove and was wearing a button down shirt... Lame-o. Anyway, here are some pics and vids...


This is Meghan(?), she's a frame builder who spends a good amount of time at the track


SiteLA


Let the Racing begin!





Awesome.

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