Chinatown Firecracker Ride in pictures!

This was my first time at the Chinatown Firecracker ride - there were two routes offered - an easy flat 20 miler, and a hilly 30 miler.

I chose the hilly route, thinking it would be fun.

It was, but the main challenge wasn't the climbs, but navigating Los Angeles' legendary shitty roads. 

Starting line

And the impending rain, of course. Despite hopes that it would hold off, it started sprinkling just as the race started. Luckily, it never really rained, just misted enough to make the roads slick and fog up everyone's glasses.

Tandem!

The ride had a really nice mix of people, and since it wasn't a race but an organized ride, there wasn't such a sense of urgency to go flat-out, but I did end up joining one of the pacelines, which was fun, but since the road was wet I got covered in the goop being thrown up by the tire in front of me.  I looked like "Pig Pen" from the Peanuts cartoons.

Griffith Park

About halfway through Griffith Park, the blue sky started to peek through the clouds.

Steep climb

So steep that everyone had to stop and rest 

The only aid station of the ride was at the halfway point, located at Travel Town.

Aid station

Appropriately, we were given fortune cookies in addition to the standard fare of pretzels and bananas.

Fortune cookie for the Chinatown ride! Get it?

...in bed.

Good thing they had a repair station at Travel Town, as a large number of people were having mechanical problems related to the wetness and shittiness of the roads.

By the time I left the aid station, the sun had come out and it was a gorgeous. We rode through Burbank. looped back to the LA River bike path, and made our way back to Chinatown, where there was a huge line for the promised carbo load lunch:

Load me up! I'm hungry!

Noodles, and more fortune cookies.

There was a beer tent, which seemed promising, but they weren't serving good beer. I wasn't expecting top-end microbrew or anything but:

I'm sorry, I thought someone said there was to be beer.

I didn't drink any of the so-called beer, instead opting for a Vietnamese iced coffee from the Pho place across the street.

Red Lanterns

Red Lanterns and puffy clouds

Gong on a shop

I wandered around for a bit, chatted with some fellow riders and some friends who were there picking up packets for the run on Sunday.

When I got home, the first thing I had to to was wash the gunk off Gary, then I took a shower myself.

It was a really fun ride, and I'll definitely do it again next year, but I'll seriously consider bringing a mountain bike because of the pavement.

Beer me!

I'm not normally a beer drinker - I don't like the taste of it very much, and it's too, well, beery for me. I'd rather drink wine, sake, vodka, etc..

But a strange thing happened the other day. I was scheduled to do a 30 mile training ride, so I decided to do it on the commuter bike and make a stop at a farmer's market that's about 8 miles away from me in Culver City.

So I headed out, figuring I'd do a couple of loops on the Ballona Creek bike path, hit the market really quick as I knew what I wanted from a particular vendor (he sells seedlings for $1.50, and I needed some more tomato plants for my garden), and then book it back home.

Of course I forgot about the strong winds we have this time of year, and since the commuter bike doesn't have drop bars, I was really fighting the wind for most of the ride. On an 80 degree day, a nice brisk wind coming from the ocean should be refreshing, but in reality it was just exhausting.

When I got back home (after doing a tad under 30 miles), I had, for the first time in probably my entire life, an insatiable craving for beer. Not a heavy dark beer, either, but a light pilsner. I hiked up to the local bar, downed two glasses, and felt better.

I didn't continue to want beer and I haven't had the craving since. In fact, I'm back to thinking beer is yucky.

I've been riding in the heat for *coughcough* years and this has never happened before.

I wonder what it was?

Ah, hot tub. How I love you.

My friend, the beautiful and talented Jenna Phillips, leads an indoor Mission: Possible at the Sports Club LA.

Since I'm not a member of one of the most expensive gyms in the city, I have to beg Jenna to put me on the club's guest list for the class.

When she can, it's great. Jenna's Mission: Possible workouts are fun and extremely challenging, and afterwards I get to sit in the club's hot tub. 

While my gym is nice, they don't have a hot tub and the bathtub in my apartment is too small to get more than a third of me in there, so getting to soak my entire self in overheated water while getting a back massage is a rare treat.

I know it's bad for me, but it feels so good.

So after an ass-kicking Mission (push up tabatas. Ouch), I swam a few laps in the club's beautiful pool to get the lactic acid out of my limbs, lolled on the sun deck with the rich people, then retired to the locker room where I soaked in the glorious hot tub. 


When I started to feel like an overcooked noodle, I got out, hit the shower , then strolled over to the clubs in-house restaurant and had a happy hour pepperoni pizza (personal sized, not a giant one) and a beer. I then biked about a mile home while chanting "shut up, legs"

This morning, I'm only moderately sore, but I am feeling a little bloated from the salt.

It was worth it.