“Los Angeles sucks for cycling”. You’ve heard it, hell, I’ve said it before. Before I had the right guides, to do the right rides, at the right time. See, LA is a special city. Take it at face value and you’ll succumb to ritz and the glamour, while overlooking the many mountain ranges in Los Angeles County.

While the road is one path traveled, the dirt is set aside for a different breed. I’m not talking about finely crushed gravel, this dirt is unforgiving, unpredictable and probably a lot better suited for larger tires.

Grades crush your legs, rocks, your tubes but if you can manage to pull it together mentally, especially when it’s the right time of day, you’ll soon forget about all that (and even the rapidly dropping temperature).

Kyle and Sean had the brilliant idea (really) to do dirt Mt. Lowe up to Mt. Wilson one night. A frontage road climb isn’t easy, even with cross gearing, but all the pain paid off as we snaked our way around the Mountains of Madness…

By the time we hit the 9 miles marker, we had climbed over 4,000′, setting the total for the day at 20 miles and 4,500′. It was a MTB ride on cross bikes. My only regret for the day was not having color film loaded in my T4. I saw a mountain lion, we got a few flats on the descent and I haven’t been that cold coming down from Wilson since forever!

See more in the gallery!

Tools of the trade:
Yashica T4
Neopan 400