Day Thirty-one
Ventura to Hermosa Beach, 78 miles
Today is one of those days where I have to strain my brain to remember how it began. I started in Ventura, which seems so long ago. This may be because I felt so thoroughly “in the moment” for most of the day. The bike worked fine, the body is holding up—even getting stronger as the day wears on—and the surroundings were always stimulating.
Ventura is a town with a deep history, for a town in the West, anyway. But the thing is the beach. The beach is the thing for all of today’s 78 miles. Every wave hitting the shore has drama. I can see how people can just stop everything and watch the waves crash. This morning, Venturians were not just watching, they were surfing. Hundreds of surfers, of all ages. I’m impressed with how many old dudes surf. And these gray beards are lean and FIT.
The road paralleled the beach for some miles, then kicked inland through farmlands and the greater Oxnard area. I read earlier that Oxnard is the third of California’s strawberry growing areas, after Salinas and Santa Maria, but the road didn’t take me through many strawberry fields.
I did pass some military installations, and I stopped at the museum for the US Navy’s Seabees, their combat engineers, at the Naval Construction Battalion Center, then the Point Mugo Missile Park at Naval Air Station Point Mugo. Then it was just miles of clean, smooth beachfront road for miles and miles.
“We build, we fight”
The Bu
I got to Malibu much sooner than I expected.
The “City of Malibu” is long
The sign “Entering the City of Malibu” is about 25 miles west of downtown Malibu.
The amazing beauty of this coastline has been jealously guarded by a small circle of private interests for more than a century. The Rindge family built their own railroad—”a railroad to nowhere” to keep the Southern Pacific Railway from building a line. They knew that if a railroad already existed, the Interstate Commerce Commission would not require land to be ceded to build a second line next to it.
The family, lead by the matriarch May K. Rindge, so-called “Queen of Malibu” fought to stop construction of the Pacific Coast Highway; in 1923 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Los Angeles county could appropriate land and in 1925, the county paid $107,289 for a right-of-way.
In 1991, the area was incorporated as a city to stop the county from building a regional sewer. Fighting over sewage continued until 2016 when the Malibu City Council created the assessment district to pay for a wastewater treatment plant.
Just east of Malibu town center, the effects of the Palisades wildfire earlier this year became apparent. Hundreds of homes and businesses burned.
For miles along Highway 1, chain-link fences separate burned-out building foundations.
25-mile construction speed? Nah.
This being California, the construction speed was universally ignored, so it was a squeeze to ride between construction fences, traffic cones and zooming California drivers. However, I never felt intimidated, even with the zooming, because the drivers are competent.
The Strand
Just east of the Palisades I started riding on the Marvin Braude Bike Trail that runs for 22 miles along the beach, through Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Marina Del Ray, past LAX and El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, and right to my hotel in Hermosa Beach.
The Strand is fun
Thousands of bikers, skaters, walkers, runners, volleyballers and surfers are on or near it. Just one, 20-mile-long festival.
I noticed though, that as darkness descends, everyone goes home. By 9 PM, the sidewalks of Hermosa Beach seemed to be rolled up, with virtually nobody out and about. Los Angelenos know how to have fun, but they work hard too, maybe too hard. Tomorrow is a work day, and everyone has someplace to be early. Fun time is over. Off to bed.
Today I rode strong. Switching back to my cycle cross bike has added speed and miles to my days. I finish tired but not wiped out, and I am perfectly confident that I’ll wake up a little stiff but otherwise, ready to hit it again.
Tomorrow, I will get back on The Strand and it will take me to Redondo Beach. Then it’s back to negotiating with car traffic on surface streets.
My goal for tomorrow is San Clemente (roughly half way between LA and San Diego), but I may push on to Oceanside, 85-miles down range from Hermosa Beach. If I can do that, then Thursday is a 55-mile day to Imperial Beach, and the border is just 8 miles beyond that.
Right now, I am planning to finish those last 8 miles early on Friday, if for now other reason than the morning light will be better for my end-of-ride pictures than late afternoon light. But that seems a bit vain, so maybe I’ll just grind it all out Thursday. It really depends on how far I go tomorrow. So like the rest of LA, it’s time for me to be off to bed. Tomorrow comes early.
