Bloody Toenail Tour (Solo Ride)

46.5 miles at 16.4 average. Man it was windy ha ha! Was kind of cool to get out on my own though, doing my own thing. Gina's sister visiting from Missouri so she was visiting while I set of alone.

Bloody toenail and all! Right as I was getting into bed last night, somehow my foot caught the edge of the wooden foot board of the bed and that thing does not move. Oh my gosh, a paralyzing pain! I must have been tired though because it was throbbing but I fell asleep after 5 minutes or so. I guess that helped ha ha! I woke up this morning to blood stains on the sheets. Then trying to put a sock onto the somewhat broken nail, now that was uncomfortable! Seem like my little toe nail was broken, cracked, or something! It was covered in dried blood and I didn't want to mess with it right before the ride so I just put a sock on it ha ha! Them little toes are so sensitive, ouch!

I did park at the Katella theater/promenade parking lot today, just east of the Honda Center park. Man it was so much better. I actually had a clear path to the trail without like 372 homeless people being fed blocking the entrance to the trail. That's what is happening at the Orangewood?Rampart entrance. Though nothing has been done about it, I hate riding with the homeless idiots out there. Yeah, very few are considerate but too many are not. I only want to say the mess is getting bigger. Now the entire stretch from Katella to Taft is lined with tents and drug addicts. Such a shame! OK, on to better stuff!

I did run into Rick today. He rode up while I was taking a breather at Edna Park. He said he had seen me all the way back at Imperial and thought maybe he would catch me. Now if he had, I would have been very surprised ha ha! It was windy as heck out there. I was pushing pretty good so if he had caught me, I would have had to shake his hand ha ha! But we were talking and turns out this was his fourth day in a row of riding. Yeah, no way were his legs going to push into that wind today! I was fresh and barely making it so I can't imagine how his legs felt. We had a good little chat and one thing about Rick, it always seems that he agrees with my point of view on many issues. That guy is ALRIGHT by me ha ha!

At one point, around Lincoln, I passed a couple of riders. I said hello as I passed them then mentioned how hard the wind felt today. One dude said, "yeah, maybe you can break the wind for us!". I was kind of excited about riding alone today but I just smiled. They took my wheel for about 30 seconds then they were gone. I tell ya, that's when you know it's windy. When a rider gets on your wheel doing 16 MPH and they can't stay on it!

The sky ??? I was at the coast and snapped a shot of the clouds in the sky. Stupid little point and shoot camera ha ha! I bought some filters for my DLSR. You know, one of them circular polarizing deals that really shows the clouds in the blue sky? Heck, the little point and shoot got a nice blue sky with clouds. My big camera is getting a brown sky filled with dark ugly smog filled, lung killing clouds ha ha! Maybe that is why I like riding to the coast vs the air pollution around our local neighbor hood!

I don't know what happened to the women at the beach today. Lots of people but no bikinis. OK so I saw a few but I think my cleavage was a little more impressive than what I saw today ha ha! And the fact that my nipple is hard kind of adds to the excitement! :-P

Rick !

Blue sky vs brown sky at home!

New parking area from now on. Starbucks, few restaurants and very few homeless. ;-)

Saturday SART with The Guys

44 miles, 17.3 MPH average speed, pics for now, story a bit later.

Her's the story, somewhat strange strategy imo. So we have 4 guys and I am thinking this is going to be fun and fast. When we started north toward Yorba Park, we were rolling pretty good.  At the park they asked if we could skip the Edna Park stop and ride right through. Sure! The only reason I stop at Edna is so Gina can take a break when she rides with me. Then we turned around and the guys were holding it down to 16. I was thinking to myself, OK maybe they're warming their legs back up after the short turnaround break before heading back to the coast. Few minutes later I'm sitting at the back wondering what the deal is!

Our original plan was to take 1 mile turns at the front in order to hold a decent pace. I don't know what was going on at that point but it wasn't working out that way. One guy would sit at the front holding 16. OK, time to move over, nope! Stayed at the front. Hmm! I was getting bored so when it was my turn, I lifted the pace to 18. Figured that would be good if we all held it there. Nope! Rotated back to the front and again pace was down. Couldn't figure it out cause these guys usually like to do a good pace.

Then after the ride, one of them explained the situation. I guess a couple of them had a disagreement last week so they were somewhat playing cat and mouse. Seems the plan was to hold it way down to the coast then save some gas to race back hoping to drop one another. Great!

So we have this lousy average to the beach when we could have all had a good ride. On the return, the guys pick it up to like 25 MPH. Rolling pretty good but I'm getting tired. The two guys take turns trying to drop one another and I'm just holding on. At the short little climb (405 fwy) the 4th guy gets dropped. He helped us at the front too so I don't think it's fair to just drop a guy after he helps. SO I hold back and let him get back on my wheel. I think he recovers but not enough I guess. The other two are rolling and I do a hard effort to close a gap of 30 yards maybe. 4th guy can't keep up so he falls behind. By the time I close the gap, I'm hoping the other two will slow down, NOT! These guys must have really wanted to kill each other cause they were rolling. 24, 25, I was breathing hard. Sure, my fault for not riding much lately but darn! So I just told them I'm not taking the front and I'm just trying to hold on. Finally, at Fairview, about 1/4 mile before Edna Park, I just popped. My legs didn't want to push anymore so I let them roll ahead. Of course they were going to call it quits at the bridge anyway as I knew that was their finish line goal for the day.

My legs were to tired to push 24 but I knew I still had it in me to continue on at a decent speed. Sure enough, and not expecting it, the guys stop at the park, what! I knew they had to be tired. A short break then we hit the trail again. This time the speed is like 16 MPH. Then one guy turns off ending his ride. I really expected him to ride all the way back with us as usual but he turned off.

Then the other guy takes the front and holds like 16 still. OK, I'm tired but this is boring again, I got in the front and held 19 the rest of the way. I think at this point the others were really tired and possibly burned themselves out playing games with each other.

I'm not one for racing back at 24-25 trying to drop my friends. I'd rather do a decent pace through the entire ride. Did it before with 3 of us and we held a 19.3 average over the 44 miles. This time it was rather discouraging holding 16 for 30 miles then having the two guys race each other at high speeds trying to play hero on the way back over some silent feud on the ride.

I tell ya man, I get tired of riding in groups now. If I am the strong man that day, I usually end up at the front for 40 of the 44 miles. If someone else feels strong, do they help? No, they try to drop you!

Being at the front 90% of the time over a course of 30 consecutive rides gets old. But ask someone to help??????? People just don't know how to ride together. :-(

Jose R. (2nd spot) and his buddies

Pete, been many years, maybe 10 ???

What happens when you ask 2 guys to put their heads together and hug for a pic ha ha!

44 Miles on the Santa Ana Sh!t Hole !!!

I'll get to the sh!t hole in a bit but first, some cycling details. 44 miles at 16.7 average on the bike with Gina today. Nice day, bit cool at the coast but we'll take it! Gina hasn't been on the bike much lately but looked really comfortable on the bike today. Kept up really well, no sweat! Maybe the cooler weather had something to do with it. Of course we have been trying to get out there a bit earlier since being baked on the bike a couple weeks back ha ha! Ran into Louie, Mark, Alex along the way. Saw Jose R and his buddies (River Velo) Sadly I used to get decent pictures of friends riding by. Nowadays, most of the background in the photos is trash, tents, and crack whores on the trail.

ATTENTION !!!! Anybody riding the San Gabriel Trail willing to drop me a note with some info? Is it infested with homeless people like SART ?? Boy, I am really getting tired of this mess. The camp is now about 2 1/2 mile long, too long and the druggies are getting braver with every passing week! :-(

This always tickles me. We had just started, saw this dude (back bright green) on the side of the road. We roll by holding our warm up pace. He hops on his bike then blows by us like he's really going somewhere. Honestly, I think it is because I have Gina with me and guys look at her and think to themselves, " she can't beat me, I'm a MAN!". ha ha ha! He blows by then 2 minutes later he's fading like a bad tattoo ha ha! Not more than another minute, he's behind 20-30 yards. Later he tries to catch up, he does, but can't hold on. Again, we have just started and still warming up. He caught us at the wooden bridge then tried to hold on to Yorba Park. That didn't work ha ha! By the time we covered the wooden bridge to Yorba section, he looked like he was about to fall off his bike ha ha!I usually do my own ride and mind my own business, but when guys act up like this, I just have to laugh! :-P

Jose R, his buds and a bunch of crap for a background. :-(

Louie

Mark

This is the Sh!t Hole section

Yes, volunteers go out there to help the drug addicts. I can tell you, not once have I seen a guy or gal out there that looks like they lost their job and just fell upon bad luck. Doesn't matter what people on bike forums say or think they know. These idiots are drug addict low lives that chose to be out there. No rule, no laws, no bills, free food , free showers, people running around kissing your ass! What else can a scum bag ask for? Yeah, I know these types as I've said in the past. Bullies from Jr high school who choose to do drugs rather than give a little something to society.

So we arrive at the Orangewood/Rampart entrance. Holy shit! Again, this church (?) organization is there blocking the fire hydrant. Today it was a van, most times a truck with a trailer giving the drug addicts a free shower. But even when they don't have the trailer, these assholes park and block the entire entrance, curbs, streets, walkways and make it difficult for us tax paying society giving people a safe way to the trail. Today the volunteers have tables set up, and the idiots park their bikes across the bike entrance. You'd think at least one of the volunteers could pull their head out of their ass long enough to say, "hey, park your bike somewhere else you worthless piece of shit!".  Oh sorry, I'm a bit ticked right now ha ha! But really, these idiots park their bikes across the entrance so nobody can get in or out. Then to top it off, one of the druggy's bike, has a big aluminum bat strapped on it. Now to me, that's a freaking weapon. Let me carry that on my bike and I bet I get fined or even shot being a middle class working stiff Hispanic male ha ha!

So then later, we head to Yorba then on the way back, we approach the 5 fwy underpass. Usual crap and druggies there but this time, there is a fat crack ho looking chick on a bike parked directly across the southbound lane. 3 druggies on the left side just a bit off the northbound lane. I ring my bell cause this crack ho is blocking the entire lane. She's sitting there talking on the phone. I said softly," you shouldn't block the trail". Right away, the druggies start yelling, " she's on the phone, you need to go around!". Again, no rules, no laws, no consideration. Man, it takes all I have to refrain at times. Of course there are 3 skinny worthless POS's that I'm sure I could take out single handed but I'm sure once the action started, I'd have a whole homeless camp after me ha ha!

So anyway, the scum is spreading north now. A few tents just north of Taft. South of Taft, a big ugly camp full of scum. That makes it now, what? Maybe 2 1/2 miles of pure continuous homeless drug addict camps now!? Jesus, somebody clean this mess up! It ain't getting any safer for cyclists, or anybody for that matter!

Another religious fucker above the law.

I'm thinking to sending an email to this fucker explaining what a mess they are encouraging in the area. Like he doesn't already know. I think it's a plan to gather the scum here to keep them out of their neighborhoods.

Just north of Taft, tents going up one by one. About 4 now and growing!

Up ahead, crack ho on the phone sitting on a bike parked across the southbound lane

Hard to see her fat ass, but she's there. Another cyclist just went around her heading south, so the image of her fat ass is hard to make out.

Plenty of crap like this in the lanes while volunteers with their heads up their asses fail to recognize it's a road.

Dumb ass volunteers feeding scum on the trail!

New parks becoming a big freaking mess! A newer park, couple underpasses just south of the Edna Park bridge is a big fucking dump now!

Inconsiderate scum bag low life drug addicts hanging out blocking the trail, no consideration for anyone at all!