07 May 2007

Sierra Made to Long Beach via San Gabriel River

We did a long bike ride this weekend from Sierra Madre to Long Beach via the San Gabriel River. Mapmyrun is all jacked up, so I can't show you the exact route. We started at the end of the Metro Gold Line, rode over to Santa Fe Dam (about 10mi), down the San Gabriel River (about 25mi) , then over to Long Beach (about 7mi). The return route was along the Metro Blue/Red/Gold lines.

Things went bad when we hit the river route. First, we had a headwind. The whole way. So instead of 25 miles of slight downhill it felt like 25mi of slight uphill. That's a big difference for us wimps.

After a couple miles, I noticed Grace's back tire was a bit low. We stopped to give it a few pumps. She has Presta valves on her bike, which I have not used before. But my pump handles them, so I attached the pump and filled it back up. But then I couldn't detach the pump. I was wiggling and twisting and *blam* the whole stem came off in the pump. Grace was screwed.

After much apologizing, cell phone calls, lamenting, and checking of spares (thanks, Desi!), it was decided that Grace would push her bike back to Stan's bike shop in Monrovia and get it fixed and then head back to Sierra Madre. The rest of us pushed on.

We saw lots of interesting stuff along the way. Including this wacky sign and a mariachi band.

By the time we got to Long Beach, we were bushed and hungry. We planned to eat at Alegria, but due to the Coffee Convention they were closed to a private party. We ended up at Hooter's. Meh.

I finally dropped Nick off about 9pm, 10 hours after we started. I then headed over to Anna and Robert's anniversary dinner, which I missed. We had some after dinner drink at The Nose Wine Cellar, across from Vroman's in Pasadena. This is an awesome little restaurant/wine bar. Very intimate and with a friendly staff. I liked it a lot. They even after chocolates from L' Artisan du Chocolat !

I had a great time, got really sunburned, and my legs still hurt. How was your Saturday ?

6 comments:

Desi said...

Great write-up!!! Next time we will have to take a picture with the Hooter Girls!

Desi

qazwsx said...

I really should get a 'real' camera for such events. Apparently Robin had
one in her giant pack, but w/o batteries !

Anonymous said...

<hindsight quality='20/20' >You should probably carry spare tubes around with you. :) </hindsight>

qazwsx said...

Yeah, everyone needs spare a spare tube. And we should designate a non-rider as on "on-call" emergency contact for the group.

Anonymous said...

That is one long ride, seems quite fun.

qazwsx said...

I got this great bike path map the MTA publishes (pdf version here). After looking at this, I think we could make this ride shorter and more fun by coming back along the Green Line.