So for months and months I’d planned on banditing this year’s L.A. Marathon Bike Tour because I was grrrrrrudging on the event’s relocation from it’s traditional first Monday in March to Memorial Day.
It was this weekend that I realized, having supported the marathon with my participation in one form or another since 1994, if there was ever a year the thing needed my support it was this one. So at the end of Saturday’s Black Dahlia/West Adams ride I coughed up the ridiculous $45 late-entry fee at the convention center and got myself officially bibified.
Those four numbers at right tell me attendance is waaaay down. At such a late date in years past years bike tour bibs have always been well into the five digit realm. We’re talking 12,000-plus. Here they are with me signing up two days before the show and not even two-thirds to 10,000.
They picked a bad year to fuck with tradition and by they I don’t mean the new marathon organizers. I mean the city council which rolled over for a coalition of churches who complained their congregants couldn’t get there asses into their pews that first Sunday in March because of road closures.
Anyway, I’ve gone last-minute legit and I’m gonna try to get some shut eye in preparation for a 3 a.m. wake-up so I can get down there by 4 a.m. in my stars-and-stripes jersey and be near the front for a quick start when the gun goes off at 5 a.m. in hopes of protesting via a two for the price of one, in other words: rolling the course twice. Once cranking it, and the second time cruising. We’ll see.
In the meantime, here’s the vid from today’s 33-mile ride with Hap to the Los Angeles National Cemetery and then the Getty Center:
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