Cyclocross at the Greek...

This weekends cyclocross races to be held at the Greek theatre are shaping up nicely. This is the second UCI-rated event to be held in So Cal this year and is drawing some of the big names in the sport. If you have never experienced a cyclocross event, this will be a good one to check out. And, being held at Griffith Park there are plenty of other attractions as well. Make a day out of it. Races run both Saturday and Sunday, and other events, such as a vintage bike parade and sunrise yoga, are being scheduled. Among the riders VeloNews is reporting will be on hand are Chris Horner, Ryan Trebon, Chris Jones, Adam Craig, Sid Taberlay, and Troy Wells. And that is just the men's elite field. The women's elite field will see its share of fierce competition as well.

Event webpage here.
Facebook event page here.

Photos from the event, and recap (so to speak) are here.

Ride History III: La Tuna Ride...

Griffith Park has served as a staging area for many local weekend rides over the years, one such being the Sunday morning La Tuna Canyon ride of the mid-1990s.

The route: This ride began at the parking lot near the pony rides near the parks' Los Feliz entrance, although I seem to remember it shifting at some point over to the Zoo lot. The group started out at an easy pace through the park, headed north on Victory Blvd through Burbank before cutting over to Glenoaks, and then briefly onto Sunland before swinging right onto La Tuna Canyon Road. This is where things would normally begin to heat up. Depending on who was out, and whether or not anyone wanted to kick things off, the pace could pick-up and the group become strung out on the flat lower section, or not until the grade steepened up. Certainly by the time the top, and first sprint point, came in sight the only people left up front were normally the climbers. There was a general regroup at the top before heading down the other side, along Honolulu Avenue through La Crescenta and Montrose, to Verdugo Blvd and the second sprint point at the so-called Hospital Hill. There was another regroup here before the peloton raced down Descanso, Chevy Chase and Berkshire, just skirting the hills of La Canada-Flintridge. There was a third sprint near the end of Berkshire, before the group swung onto Highland and Linda Vista, running down the Arroyo Seco up above the Rose Bowl. From there we would take a number of streets back through Eagle Rock and Glendale, moving as fast or slow as traffic and lights would allow, eventually ending up back on Los Feliz and into the park. Sometimes there would be a final sprint here, though it was usually lightly contested.
The La Tuna ride was one of those strictly seasonal rides, starting in on the first weekend of November and ending when the first races kicked off in early February. Since it was a winter ride, it tended to be more relaxed and social, riders generally doing it to maintain their fitness during the cold months. Of course, as anyone who has been involved in the racing scene knows, this does not mean the the ride was not competitive. Anytime you get a group of racers together people are going to be hunting for bragging rights. For this ride, most of those rights were to be found at the top of La Tuna Canyon, or at the Berkshire sprint. Though I did the ride for four years from 1994 through 1997, most of my palmares came on the much less prestigious Hospital Hill.
Many of the local teams would be well represented on this ride, including Team Ape, Team Xtreme, Squadra Folgore, Aztecas, and PAA, and on nice winter days the groupo could easily top 50 riders. Frequently groups would branch off the loop bound for Big Tujunga Canyon and Angeles Crest, or do the loop first, and then tack on more mileage at the end, but the Tuna ride itself came in just under 36 miles. Not a whole lot of big names on this ride, but a few; Olin Bakke, for instance graced it with his presence, and others who made respectable names for themselves, including John Slover, Mitch Boggs, Darren Rogers, Dave Ward, and many whom I knew by first name only (Anthony, who seemed to always be the first to summit La Tuna), or like myself, were mostly fodder in the field, while striving for a top ten.
Though I moved from the immediate area, and therefore stopped doing this ride, I understand that rides have continued to follow this route after leaving Griffith Park on Sunday mornings. The Love Ride, leaving the Park at 8:45 follows the same route until Montrose, where they apparently stop for coffee, and then head back from there, rather than going on along Berkshire and Linda Vista above the Rose Bowl.

Ride History: The Bicycle Doctor Shop Ride...

Sooner or later, everyone who rides much discovers the local group ride(s) that take place near their home, or maybe their place of employment. Where ever there are a few, or more, cyclists there is bound to be a group ride. This little series will recount a few of the ones I have done over the years.

The Bicycle Doctor ride was a 27 mile shop ride beginning and ending at its namesake shop in the Highland Park area of northeast Los Angeles. I first started my association with the ride in [1990-91] when the ride, in its first incarnation, was a mostly flat sprint-fest. The route of this ride roughly followed Figueroa Street out of Highland Park, Riverside Drive north along the Los Angeles River, taking the flat route through Griffith Park, into the studio area of Toluca Lake, took Riverside Drive back through Burbank into Glendale, over the low rollers along the base of the Vergudo Hills, and then back through Eagle Rock to the shop on York Avenue.

During these years the ride was composed of a core group of riders, many of them racers, or former racers, who lived in the general area, and would be supplemented by others of varying abilities. Because of this, the ride could be highly competitive, and perhaps a bit off-putting to newer, less experienced riders, with the result that the size of the peloton would vary from week to week. Usually between 10 and 20 riders would show up or join in along the way, sometimes more, sometimes less. But with competition from the much larger and better known Montrose Ride, the BD, as it was known to regulars, was never going to be overly large.

The route that I am more concerned with is the second incarnation. In order to vary the terrain, the route was altered in the early 1990s by adding a couple of hill climbs in Griffith Park. Basically, instead of a fast ride along the east and north edges of the park, the ride shifted to go over the mountains. There were five designated sprint points along the route, three fast, flat sprints, with two hill climb spots sandwiched in between. The first sprint opportunity came along Riverside Drive, just before entering the park at Los Feliz.  The run-in to this sprint was made more treacherous due to poor road surface conditions. Pot holes and gaps in the paving claimed more than one front wheel. The Glendale Sprint was followed by a gradual ascent through the park to the short-but-steep backside of the well-known Trash Truck Hill, and then the longer mountain climb along Mt. Hollywood Road to the Summit. The back way up TTH was short enough that it was not uncommon for a pure sprinter to win the points there, but once past the gate at the top, it generally became time for the climbers to take over.

Once the climbing was over, and the peloton had negotiated the descent back down and regrouped, two more fast sprint opportunities followed. The first came at the end of a long run-in alongside Travel Town, with first place breaking the imaginary line just before leaving the park at Victory Boulevard. The final sprint point of the ride came after a lengthy series of rollers along Sonora, Kenneth, and Mountain Avenues in the city of Glendale. The peloton would usually soft-pedal back to the shop from there, though if someone was feeling especially pepe, the pace just might be faster. Sprints and KOM points were usually bagged for individual bragging rights, but at some point during the early 90s points for 1st through 5th at each location began to be handed out and an overall daily champion declared.

Gradually traitors riders began to drift over to the more hard-core Montrose Ride, the shop changed location, and the ride became defunct. Looking back through my old logs, I see that by late 1995 I too had shifted over to Montrose; on December 2 I wrote, "Returned to the BD after a lengthy absence and found a ride on the verge of collapse".  I believe the ride limped along for a while longer, but was never able to regain its old momentum. Like most group rides, this one had its share of spills and thrills, though none with serious consequences (that I can recall anyway). There were enough run stop signs to fund a small city for the year. But for many riders, the BD was a good stepping stone, a first taste of competitive cycling and group riding.