Riding in Southern California

[mksalazar]

hey so-cal people, i just finished school up here in upstate new york and i'm moving back to southern california where i'm originally from. however, i started road riding when i moved up here for school and it's the perfect type of atmosphere for it: ie: long stretches of open roads surrounded by mountains, farms, cornfields and nature. now, in southern california, there are cars all over the place and when i used to live there i don't ever remember seeing a single cyclist on those busy roads.. where the heck do you guys go to ride? will it require me having to drive someplace void of traffic and pedestrians?

 

[insung]

Where in So-Cal are you moving back to? I work and live near Pasadena and there are some decent places to ride like the Rose Bowl and Glendora Mountain Road. There's also the Montrose ride on Saturday mornings if you want to go fast. But the fact is, living in So-Cal, cars and smog is a part of road cycling. It sucks, but at least we can ride all year long.

 

[mksalazar]

hey dude, im going to be living in north OC, where i am from and will be doing grad school at UCLA (i know, sucky commute) but yeah. im going to really miss the coutry roads and scenery over here in the northeast.

 

[insung]

Commuting from north OC to Westwood?! Ok, you may as well give up cycling an any other pastimes since you're going to be sitting in traffic about 5 hours a day. But seriously, where in north OC are you? Brea? Fullerton? There's tons of decent rides around there. Irvine and South OC has tons of great bike paths and lanes... miles and miles of it. Cycling near UCLA is pretty nasty as traffic always seems pretty bad. Santa Monica is a little better.

The thing that sucks about So-Cal is that traffic seems to get worse and worse every year and cycling can help reduce congestion, but riding in urban areas is too dangerous because of traffic. A vicious cycle.

 

[mksalazar]

lol yeah man the commute is going to be a *****.. im from buena park. the good thing about my class schedule however, is that my courses only run from 9am to noon. so the commute home to OC will be a breeze. when i first saw how far away it is from BP to westwood (35 miles roughly) i thought to myself "hey i can ride that every day, easy!" but then remembered how messed up cali traffic is. it would probably require me cycling down imperial highway through the ghetto! haha, i wouldnt last a second, unfortunately my legs aren't strong enough to pedal faster than the bullets flying towards me in those neighborhoods!

are u on a club or team that races? what is the race culture like down there?

 

[insung]

If you were hardcore, you probably could make that cummute. Maybe a combination of Metrolink and riding. I have a friend that commutes from Venice to Arcadia and he rides through LA at night. Did you see Collateral? Imagine riding your bike through the locations in that movie... insane.

I used to race a couple years back, but I don't have the time any more with work and a girlfriend to train consistenly. So now I just ride when I have time which is never enough. Trying to do my 20 mile commute when I can.

The race scene here is getting growing, which is good and bad. Its good that there are more races and lot of people supporting them, but there are also inexperienced riders that cause crashes and do stupid things to endanger everyone. Most races around here are crits, though there are a few GP races which are nice. Check out socalcycling.com for race listings.