AKA Street Sign of the Day: 6

The other day I was biking in the valley, which is over 15 degrees hotter than where I live. That is good, though – I need to start biking in evil dry heat to toughen myself up for the death valley century in the fall.

I looked on MapMyRide.com earlier and saw a nice 20 mile loop from Topanga Canyon to Kanan Rd., the entire way on Mulholland Highway. Great! Hills, canyons, great!! I need to do more climbing.

Alas, I didn’t get out there till 6 PM, but hey, sunset at 8 PM. Even with major hills, I can do this in two hours. No problem.

Well. Let me tell you – there were problems. I will list them out in chronological order, as well as the solution.

• Rocks everywhere on the road. Why? Because, as the multiple signs indicated, the area was all rock slide territory. Rocks the size of my fist and bigger, everywhere.
• After biking forever, I found myself half mile from Kanan, at the bottom of my friend’s street. It was 15 miles! Not 10!
• I was almost out of water. I go through two bottles of water every 20 miles. Therefore, not enough water to get home.
• Called friend, acted passive aggressive and didn’t want to inconvenience him (he was still at work)
• Biked five miles back, realized I would not get back before the sun set, and there were NO street lights on the canyon roads
• Got off bike, texted friend an SOS. Continued to bike.
• Knight in Shining Armor (aka Kyle) showed up. Had nice cold Mexi-Coke (Coca Cola from Mexico, which means it has real sugar)
• Knight in Shining Armor drove my a$$ back to my car (ten miles away). Yes. I got SWEPT. SWEPT!

Ultimately, I DID do 20 miles! My originally intended ride. Sigh.

Here is a collection of rock slide images I found online, and probably saw a few of today. None of the ones I saw today had a cow.

Ever bike on a road covered in ‘death cookies’ (rocks)? Ever seen a variant of this sign, ignore it, move on ahead, then regret it??

Click here to see all the traffic sign posts!