San Fernando Valley to the beach and back

Now here's ride of which I've done parts of before, but it occured to me that one day I was going to have to just get my head down and do the whole thing. So this is it. This ride is a bit different from all the other rides I've described - it's main feature is length:

Yes, that would be 82.69 miles, and all on a mountain bike, even though most of it doesn't require one - 15% of the ride is on dirt roads and single tracks, the vast majority is on tarmac. This adds to the masochist factor since the knobbly wheels on a mountain bike are must harder work on a smooth surface.

So I set of from Studio City, heading west on Ventura Blvd, then south on Laurel Canyon, and then turning right on Fryman before it starts to get really steep, past the trailhead and parking lot of our most local hiking loop we do quite often, called Wilacre Park. The back side of this loop is the most efficient way of getting up to Mulholland Drive, and with all those miles ahead of me, I'm going for efficiency! You turn right off Fryman onto Iredell Lane, and continue up the hill, passing some pretty big houses of which one on the left hand side near the top, with a basketball court close to the road, belongs to George Clooney. (Thomas Guide® Pg562 G7).

At the top of Iredell, you come to a trailhead, which looks like this. You take this for about a mile and you come to the "Treepeople" area - the local headquarters for a conversation group, which, among other things, gets volunteers to plant trees. Taking the trail to the left, you pass a new amphitheater just created in the woods.

You shortly end up at the very top of Coldwater Canyon, on the Valley side, and Mulholland Drive is just a few feet up to the left. You take Mulholland West which is a sharp right turn. One thing that struck me as I was riding along between 7-8am on a Saturday morning, was that just about every vehicle passing me was a truck of Mexicans on their way to working (gardening or construction typically). At one point, at the top of Benedict Canyon, there seems to be a labor exchange where hopefuls show up looking for work. There's also a few of catering trucks up there, which makes sense, since the nearest shop you could get anything to eat is miles away!

Mulholland wiggles along the ridge of the Santa Monica mountains, with some of LA's most exclusive estates and residences closeby, and eventually at about mile 10, you cross over the 405, on the bridge that people have famously thrown themselves off and caused huge traffic jams in the process. After the freeway bridge, it's another 3-4 miles or so before you come to what's known as "Dirt Mulholland" where the fun starts. As people were setting off from their cars parked up there, I felt a little smug that I'd already got a few miles under my belt.

After just about a mile, you come to the "Nike missile site". Nothing to do with sneakers, this was an early warning station whose job was to track incoming missiles and hopefully protect LA. It's now converted into a neat little park, and you can climb up a couple of towers. Picnic tables in the shade offer a welcome stopping point for hikers and bikers. It's also the northern end of the Westridge trail.
	Looking towards the Valley side, you get a good view of Encino Reservoir. (And being interested in water affairs in LA, these things excite me!)

You continue west on Mulholland which goes down quite a decent hill, and you find yourself at the top of the Caballero Canyon trail. Then it's a gentle ascent until you see a gateway on the left marked Temescal Canyon".(Thomas Guide® Pg590 G1). You now head south into the Santa Monica Mountains proper, and it's just great - rolling hills for the most part, and miles and miles of untouched wooded canyons.

After a couple of miles and a short ascent, you come to what's known as "hub junction" which is a 4 way juntion with a signboard, and there used to be a portapotty there, but it wasn't there on this day. Now on a couple of previous rides I've taken the middle fork ahead, which is called "Eagle Springs Fire Trail". If you do this, you end up meeting up with the Paseo Miramar trail and end up on Sunset, just near the beach. I elected to try something different, so kept straight on the Temescal Fire Road.

This was pleasantly flat for a while - you pass a turn off to the Will Rogers Backbone Trail, and then a little later took the left fork which was marked "Temescal Ridge trail". This starts descending quite steeply, and you pass by a turning to Palisades Highlands on the the left, which I ignored for now. Then the trail started to get really rutted ,and about 200 feet later there was a sign in the middle of nowhere indicating "no bikes". Figuring it might get much rougher, I turned back, and happened across a rattlesnake that had taken up residence across the trail just after I'd ridden down it.

I scooted past it, carrying my bike to minimize disturbance, and then dropped down into Palisades Highlands. This turns out to be (in my mind) the gated community from hell. Every street had a big steel gate across it, the houses jammed together with no real land between them. But it's what the developers are doing more and more - eating up the canyons for this, and it makes me sick. There were only two good things about getting here - first, there was a hill that was so long and steep that I managed to break the 35mph speed limit by 5mph.

Also, I came across this - one of those "only in LA" things, except I felt like thinking it was "only in Palisades Highlands". A visiting dog/cat/horse cleaning service - and it all happens in the truck (well maybe not for horses I guess). Judging by the scampering noises coming out of it, a lively dog was getting its grooming when I passed by. In fact I think it just went from the "wash cycle" to the "drying cycle" -there was water draining out for a bit, then powerful hairdryer noises started up.

I was glad to escape this community from hell, and shot down Palisades Drive downhill all the way and hit Sunset Blvd about 1/2 mile from the ocean. OK so now we get to the beach section - turning left, South on PCH and along Will Rogers State Beach. The first mile or so you have to be on PCH itself and pass one of the more popular spots for surfing, then you get to jump onto the bike trail.

About 26 miles done at this point and the next section of flat along the beach broadwalk is a welcome change. You pass by Santa Monica Beach, then Venice Beach (which was being totally overhauled - I guess they're really trying to clean it up, including new restrooms) and then into Marina Del Ray, where you have to take a detour in streets to pass inside the Marina. Then it's out to the end of Ballona Creek and a cruise south until you can go further, passing under the flightpath at LAX, and such excitements as the Chevron Oil refinery and the sewage reprocessing center at Dockweiler State Beach (LA has amongst the very cleanest processed sewage in the country!).

After Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo, the broadwalk stops in the city of Torrance, just shy of the Palos Verdes Headlands. Talking of which, did you know that the most expensive real estate in LA is in fact the Rolling Hills estates, in PV? The zip code is 90274. It beats Beverly Hills.
At this point, I'd done 49 miles and had a cheeseburger to celebrate. Several times I found myself having to avoid these little scooter things which seem to be all the rage. They're called "Razors" and sell for about $90. The wheels look like a large version of Rollerblade wheels.

Heading back, I managed to rip my cycling shorts just as I set out (or perhaps they just started disintegrating). I started to wonder if I was going to get arreested in Beverly Hills! I did see a bit of activity at Dockweiler where they'll teach you to hang-glide, but they weren't even close to getting off the ground, so I didn't wait around.

And so it was back north, as far as the Ballona Creek and then inland towards Culver City, along what must be the most boring scenery - this is a concrete flood channel that was used for filming of some motorbike chase scenes in the Terminator series.
Although just when I was "terminally" bored with this stretch there was suddenly this exotic sculpture on the southside - depicting some kind of vase with a drop of liquid coming from it. (This one's worth seeing larger, so go on, click it).

There now follows the most tedious part of this ride (more masochism!) - the Ballona Creek trail eventually closes and you have to exit onto National Blvd in a dreary corner of Culver City. I went west on National, then right (north) on Robertson Blvd. All the while you're aware that you're having to get up over the Santa Monica mountains one more time before reaching home.

I wiggled through Beverly Hills, via Doheny Drive and onto Sunset, then west till Beverly. I really really wanted to avoid the 6 way stop sign junction from hell on my bike (where Beverly Drive, Canon Dr and Lomitas cross just south of the Beverly Hills hotel) where I imagined just getting squished between two Lexuses (Lexi?)

Then it was north on Beverly heading toward Coldwater Canyon, except then you turn left to stay on Beverly Drive and eventually get onto Franklin Canyon Drive. Franklin Canyon is a wonderful place - an almost completely unspoilt canyon (well, the Department of Water and Power have had their go at messing it up with a couple of reservoirs and some plumbing) but it has some pretty trails and a learning center called the "William O. Douglas outdoor classroom" where school groups and conservation groups meet. Most on my mind at this point were my burning feet (they'd just been shut in cycling shoes too long), sore butt and a desire to reach the top of the hill, which I soon did. You end up once again at the juction of Mulholland and Coldwater Canyon, and then it's past the "Treepeople" again, and home through Fryman Canyon, Laurel Canyon and Ventura Blvd. Phew!!!

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