riding Santa Monica and Malibu

As we returned from Boise have a nice gravel ride there, i was on the my way back home haveing one more day in the area of Los Angeles. We arrived pretty early from Idaho and it was sunday. It was time to do a last ride in California after my 3 week stay hitting a lot of touristic places.

I stayed in Hermosa Beach a little south of LAX airport to have a smooth arrival the next day. Brian our sales manager dropped my off the hotel and within half an hour i was on the bike to ride towards north along the coast to reach Santa Monica and Malibu.

I was already a few times there but this time with Betty which made it different. From the hotel i quick was on the bike path which guided me easily along the airport and around Marina Del Rey experiencing with Betty the work of Mitch Buchannon from Baywatch. There i met a guy from Romania which lived already 25 years in LA. We had a nice talk following the coast line and getting closer to Santa Monica where my first stopp was at the local Rapha Store. Having a coffee i talked to the guy working there and gave him an idea of my ride coming up.

The loop was planned as a mid of mountain tour but also relaxing after the training days i had before. With his recommendation it was changing as he showed me a route which was a famous and nice one for locals. Anyways it was the last day and it didn´t matter if i again extended it to a long one with a nice altitude. So from Santa Monica it was a bit more stressy regarding cars as the highway there is limited in width (just 3 lanes each side) to give it no space for a bike path. As traffic to Malibu is much it needs that size though as many cars use this road.

The new target was to reach the climb a little more far after Malibu up to Escondido Canyon Park. To be honest it was worth every extra mile to do this climb to Malibu Vista and Oak Hill. On the very top i touched famous Mulholland Hwy down to Seminole Hot Springs, which was closed for cars and therefore ideal to do a nice downhill enjoying every corner. From there i had a few kilometers flat reaching Malibu Lake embedded and surrounded by nice hills. Again on a nice downhill i reached Las Virgenes Road which was in my original plan the road riding out to coast line again.

As traffic was too much for me there i had this genious idea to leave it again and go over the hills back to Malibu. And again i had an altitude of 500 meters to go. Coming from my original idea this was far away again but it could have been just good to have this additional training. Just from my mind setup it was already enough. Anyways with a gradient inbetween 5 and 9% it was doable and as i reached my last peak of my US trip i was glad to just go downhill and then flat back to Hermosa. It almost went wrong as just close before the botom the road was closed by a huge door. Lucky enough there was a guide that opened a small side gate for me to reach the Malibu Hwy again.

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From here the touristic part came along and starting with Malibu Pier and the end of Route 66 i also went to the home of Arnold in his younger days, Muscle Beach and Venice Beach with its skate bowl. Followiong again the bike path back to the hotel in Hermosa i finished with almost 150k and agin more than 1500m - a nice piece to end nice training weeks before the tour across the alps.