Tonight is the June edition of the monthly RIDE-Arc ride, which will roll throughout the San Fernando Valley and if it’s anything similar to the valley ride of last November it’s going to be a long night with a lotta miles. Though the route is scheduled to be somewhere around 25 miles by the time I get home tonight in the wee hours I might have cranked out more than 40.
See it’s all contingent on the ride finishing while the Red Line’s still running. Last November we wrapped somewhere around 2 a.m., a couple hours after the subway gets put to bed for the night, and so a merry band of us eastside biker types beat a retreat to Burbank along the Orange Line’s bikeway to its terminus at the North Hollywood Metro station and then discovered the utopian Chandler bikepath. From there we cut over Victory to the L.A. River Bikeway and home, were I arrived somewhere in the vicinity of 3 a.m.
In the midst of such unknowns I’m certain of one thing: along the way our destination will be this place (click to enlarge):
That’s an available-light shot of the far-out Sepulveda Dam spillway. The black things out there in the murk are some of the hundreds of bicyclists that cruised around the place in mindblown disbelieving glee. And beyond its massive breadth and depth it seems almost other-worldly (especially under a near full moon, if she should decide to put in an appearance tonigh through the stubborn June gloom).
Anyway, I’m meeting Sean and maybe other of the IAAL•MAF at Scoops at 8 p.m. for a pre-departure ice cream then we’re boarding the subway at Santa Monica and Vermont for the trip out to North Hollywood where the festivities will commence at 9:30. I’ll be packing my new Canon cam so expect thorough photographic documentation to come.