Almost a Half Century

After an aborted first attempt to ride Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and the next try where we got drenched with rain, we finally had a great ride along the coast. Third time’s the charm!

It was Oscars Sunday and we met up with Shifting Gears at Helen’s Cycles in Santa Monica. It had rained on Friday, so naturally we were concerned whether it would rain on us again on PCH. It was also colder than usual, probably brought on by the post-rain breeze (if there’s such a thing). Still, we were hopeful that we would have a good ride sans rain. The plan was to ride at least to Cross Creek Road in Malibu. If we felt up to it, we would continue on to Zuma Beach for a total of about 50 miles round trip, making it our longest ride to date.

The ride took off east toward the beach through the local streets of Santa Monica. After 4 miles in, we were on PCH and immediately, we saw the beautiful ocean. Sam and I live inland and we don’t venture out to the beach often, so it’s a treat to see the ocean, especially on a nice day. We spent the next 10 miles riding east along PCH to Malibu. During this stretch of the ride, I found myself having a difficult time catching up with Sam. I wasn’t terribly tired, so I was very surprised that I was struggling just to pedal. I even ate a full plate of spaghetti the night before to carbo-load and even loaded up on potassium and electrolytes with coconut water and bananas. I should have had plenty of energy in me. Other riders were passing me. I was happy to finally arrive at our pit stop at Cross Creek. I sure needed the rest.

We decided to do the optional extension and continue on to Zuma Beach. After all, it’s only 10 more miles and how hard could it be, right? It turns out that it was not as easy as we thought. The route from Cross Cress to Zuma Beach was nothing but a bunch of rolling hills. We went up and down, up and down. It was exhausting. Strangely, my energy picked up after the first pit stop and I felt pretty good during this stretch, despite the rolling hills. Before we knew it, we arrived at our second pit stop. I think the stunning ocean view helped lessen the annoyance of the rolling hills.

We didn’t stay at the second pit stop for long. We used the restroom at Starbucks and ate a couple of chocolate croissants (yum yum!) and took off. It was getting late and we still had another 25 miles to go on our return trip. We wanted to get home to feed the dog. The ride back was even more spectacular, since we were riding closer to the ocean. What a beautiful day!! We rode passed Cross Creek (our first pit stop) and decided not to stop again. Neither one of us felt like we needed a rest, so we kept on going. Once we reached Will Rogers State Beach, we got off the bikes to cross the underground tunnel to get to the other side of PCH. But we found that the tunnel was flooded from the rain, so we had to find another way to cross PCH. We ended up riding further down on PCH until we reached a pedestrian overpass to cross over. We created our own detour from there to return to Helen’s. We almost did a half century, logging 48.58 miles. A half century is 50 miles. Even though we were a couple of miles short of a half century, I was still pleased because it was our longest ride yet.

This ride is dedicated to these awesome sponsors: Mary & Shannon H.