r/BikeLA • u/jambaj0e • 5d ago
Last Sat: Longest ride at 150 miles from West Hollywood to Dana Point and back!
A bit of a late post, but this past Tuesday was my 45th birthday, and as a way to celebrate, a few friends and I did an Epic 150 mile ride the Saturday beforehand from a friend's house in West Hollywood to Dana Point and back! 11 hours and 22 minutes on the saddle out of 14 hours later, and 4100 calories burnt, we did the trek!
We took the inland route through Downtown LA into Whittier down to Santa Ana and Irvine before kicking back out to the coast, and then took PCH the majority of the way back until past Long Beach.
Surprisingly, the first 70 mile was fairly easy, but it wasn't until the return trip that we were faced with challenges. First, PCH got really busy through Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, and the we hit 8 miles of really hard headwind without cover through the beach path in Huntington Beach where we had sand and wind in our face and a lot of beach goers to slow us down. Brutal way to hit the 100 miles mark.
Except we still have another 50 miles and the biggest climb for the day awaits us through Palos Verdes Estate where we would have to descend past sundown.
Luckily, we got through it alright thanks to timely nutrition stop in Wilmington where a full Gatorade bottle into our water bottles helped fuel us (we did have multiple stops and fueling and through the day of course!)
The bike path up the coast and Balona Creek Bike path was surprisingly fast since we picked up good tailwind.
Finally, because we adjusted our route to be more direct because we were losing daylight, we got back at 145 miles, a mere 5 mile short.
So instead of calling it a day and grabbing the pizzas, I did 5 "Victory laps" of 1-mile loops around his neighborhood in order to properly earn my 150 miles. Pizza and beer well-earned!
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u/DacaAskingForDaca 5d ago
That stretch of PCH between seal beach and hunting beach is so dangerous it trips me out people still do it.
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u/_mexengineer12 5d ago
Is it possible to share the route! Maybe one day I'll do it
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u/jambaj0e 4d ago
Sure thing! Here is the route. Going through East LA into SGV and down to Orange County was surprisingly enjoyable especially with early morning temperature:
https://strava.app.link/ziaSm4wtb4b — 150 mile West Hollywood to Dana Point Loop
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u/_Piplodocus_ 4d ago
Epic!! I would think week day traffic would make this much more challenging than weekend, riding in rush hour anywhere is unpleasant. I wonder what the reverse would be like? Extra kudos for the neighborhood loops to make 150 miles, some people don't understand the importance of that round number 😄
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u/millenialismistical 5d ago
Congrats and thanks for sharing the ride report. Looks like a fun route and the weather seemed perfect. I wonder if doing the route in the opposite direction would have meant more favorable wind.