So I mapped out this route from Silver Lake up around and over Griffith Park and back several months ago before I finished working on The Phoenix, my beloved single-speeder, and I've been hesitant to undertake the trip in large part because it sports an 1,100-foot elevation gain and it's a bit of a given that uphill and one-gears just don't mix very well.
But then I read Mack Reed rockin' about his latest roll over on L.A. Voice and I got the gumption up to tackle the trek, which I did this afternoon because my current state of joblessness allows me to do shit like that.
It was exhausting and exhilirating to climb so high, though at times it felt as if I was hauling my fat ass and a tractor up those winding roads. Funny thing was that my arms were actually wearing out before my legs. From a life spent dependent on granny gears seldom is it that I've had to stand and deliver like I did today and my arms were not at all happy about all the work they had to do.
Anyway, the distance comes to a little more than 17 miles and I finished up seven minutes shy of two hours. It's an awesome mix of urban and rural that lets you get up high and away before bringing you back down to earth.
Flickr photoset of the scenery can be found here.
6 comments:
This is dope! Thanks for posting this. Everyone should do this ride, it is an amazing excape from urban LA.
Thanks, Matt!
Thanks Charles. I rode it solo. I have a light mount that I was able to adapt to hold my digicam so I just kept pressing the shutter every mile or so. The photos of me were just done with the cam's self-timer.
great route! I just found this awesome site/Google hack (maybe you used something similar for your map?) called Gmaps-pedometer that lets you map your routes and save them AND see the elevation gain and the mileage. After you save your route you can share it with us with a link to it on the Gmaps site. It's great.
Thanks M! I'd heard about what you mention, but instead of going looking for it wasted my time downloading and stitching satellite images then adding the route in Photoshop. I'll definitely check it out.
Is there a problem with those links of the BLOG ARCHIVE? I mean, I was trying to follow your entries by month and it was impossible to access them.
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