Griffith Park Ride

So I took a weekend off from riding to travel to Colorado and watch USC Hellions of Troy (women's ultimate frisbee) KICK A$$ at their regional competition and walk away with the regional title - after defeating UC Santa Barbara in the finals 15-14. Yea, I probably should have been training for ALC9 but in a way, this counted as mental training. IT WAS EPIC and a quick shout out to all the USC ladies . . . I LOVE YOU ALL AND I AM SO PROUD OF YOU. Maybe you know this now, maybe you don't, but what the Hellions have is a very special bond that surpasses friendship. It's a connection that comes only from hard work, love, respect and a common goal. It's incredibly rare and you are all so lucky to have one another. I consider myself lucky just to get to witness the amazing things you are accomplishing together. SO. MUCH. LOVE.

I was totally inspired this weekend to work harder towards my goals.

I digress . . .

This past weekend I was back on my bike, sort of. Saturday I set out to do the Griffith Park Observatory Loop. OF course I had grand plans of doing the loop twice which failed miserably due to my general lack of a sense of direction and needing to be at Midas at 3pm to pick up my car.

All things considered, I'm lucky I made it through the loop once.

I'll get the pictures up eventually but the highlights include:

1) Los Angeles streets are terrifying. Glendale - I hate you.
2) I went up the steepest hill EVER only to find out it was a dead end. This was made even better because and entire street's worth of lawn mowers stopped mowing to watch me struggle up the hill, laugh when I got to the top, and laugh even harder when I had to walk back down because I was scared to ride.
3) Griffith Park is BEAUTIFUL. I strongly suggest riding there someday if you haven't already.
4) I almost ran over some one's pet turtle. If you're out walking your turtle in the park, leash the thing or don't let it walk on bike paths. The end.
5) It takes 4 Midas employees and 1 very embarrassed girl to get my bike into my beetle now. I was doing great two weeks ago, but now, I can't get it in to save my life. In the process of taking off the tire I bent a spring I'm pretty sure I need.

In the end I didn't spend as much time in the saddle as I wanted but I was glad to get back up (and eventually down) some hills before the ride in 19 (gasp) days.