I intended today's ride to be a quick, short affair; head out on PCH, carve up some canyons, engage in a few screaming leans around corners, home in time for lunch.  Instead it turned into an all out, all-terrain off road dirt-biking excursion through the heart of the Malibu wilderness.  Ok so it wasn't the trip to the ends of the earth and back that I always speak of undertaking, but it was a pretty good trial run.

    I went down PCH, not really appreciating the weather and scenary since this is California and I'm used to it.  In fact, after the years spent in the American Riviera --- Central Coast --- nothing short of Corona Borealis localized entirely within my backyard is going to move me.  I make a right onto Kanan-Dume, start playing some riding music in my head --- selection: the theme song from the Thomas Crown affair(remake), and start twisting on the throttle.  I barely get through one switchback and saw this little gem of a trail, bout the width of a 1 car garage driveway....
dume

d2
     I then started thinking about why we drive on parkways and park on driveways...  and why spirals are always negatively connotated.  It's always "spiral of depression, spiral of alcoholism, spiral this and spiral that, but never things like, spiral of joy!"
     I have ADD.
     I found the entrance to the traill, the gate was open, and I set forth!  Most of the trail was very narrow, and filled with patches of gravel, and lazily headed deeper into the Malibu hills.  The trail felt like one of those country roads in Europe, one that you would take to reach some cobblestoned hamlet tucked away in time, a place where words like "WiFi", "market fluctuations" hold no meaning.  I was quite desperate to find, such a place, I have a midterm on monday that I would like for it to lose meaning.

d3


    I ride on, doing my best to hold a eastward course.  For the next hour I saw no one.  I concentrate on negotiating the trail since falling and dying in the wilderness yet so close to a nexus of civilization would be highly ironic, and moronic.  Also it would affect my life plans by a tad. 

    I come across this sign:
 p2
I didn't know that pavement can just get on up and well, end....

   
Now I really concentrate on staying on the trail...
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d2
Then the trail gets REALLY narrow, about the width of my bike, with plenty of shrub brushing on both sides.

Oh no way in hell am I going to make it up there, better turn around and retrace or something, why wouldn't I turn back?  I mean, I just waxed the bike, I've got total street sport touring tires on, I'm not physically endowed enough to manhandle the bike, heck I can't even flat foot the damn thing, plus, I don't have my cell phone, didn't bring a map and just for good measure even left my tools behind....

But what did I have?  1 part stupidity, 1 part bull-headedness, 1 part youthful exuberance, and 1 part plain "big-o'-balls" - ness. 

Can we say fortune favors the brave?
d3
Luckily over the hump the mini trail merged onto a larger, more manageable path.  Whew...



    I forge onward.  The gravel paths make interesting and bumpy riding, I spend the next hour pretty much standing on the pegs and try to desperately recall dirt-biking tips.  Again the hour passed without running into a single soul.  Nature has rewarded my diligence, sweat, and delinquincy with utter solitude. 
tr
la la la......



    I came across one bend and onto one of the most panoramic of vista points, the left is the ocean-side view, the right is the southern view.

vs1  vsr

If I only had some Brie, Soppressato, a bottle of port!  Some appertifs along with the company of a special lady, say, Lindsay Lohan, and the afternoon would have been complete! (I apologize to my girlfriend, my wife (ask me the story sometimes!), and all the other special ladies in my life for choosing LL over them).

The view to the north was slightly less flattering:
vsy  I live at the red arrow.  I breathe the brown arrow.  I hate LA.


I return home an hour later caked in dirt.  I think my bike hates me now.   My chore for the next day? 

             Making this:  tr  go away.


7/17/2004
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