Living Car Free in the SCV : The happy waving cyclist

My first few “Living Car Free in the SCV” adventures were about using a bicycle as transport in Santa Clarita. In them, I detailed the colorful people you can run into when you don’t have a car in Santa Clarita; the elderly black woman who ranted about Jesus on a bus, the guitar playing paseo nymph who surprised my wife and I on a bike commute from the mall back home, the homeless bridge-sleepers, and the drug using teenagers who now have a lot to fear thanks to the Sheriff’s Bikes-On-Patrol program.

But as with many of my hobbies, I never leave good enough alone. Cycling as a mode of transport is an important part of my day-to-day activities, but I wanted more.

And by more, I mean I wanted to go faster. Much faster.

So in July I purchased a true road bike. What’s more, I went all out and bought lycra shorts and a bright yellow cycling jersey. I got some sunglasses and gloves. I bought clipless pedals and shoes to match.

Yes. I’m one of “those guys” now. Bicycling/alternate transit acvistist Jeff morphs into Speed-at-all-costs/Road Cyclist Jeff at least three to four nights a week now.

Indeed, since I got the new bike, I’ve been riding all around the SCV on medium length trips in an effort to get in even better shape and shed the stubborn flab that hangs above my belt. I naturally thought that since these rides were all about riding fast rather than getting from Point A to Point B, that I’d have less interaction with people.

Boy was I wrong!

Last night’s course is among my favorite. I call it the Placerita Canyon Loop and it’s a wonderful 24 mile circuit that’s relatively flat, quite fast, and offers a great ride through two of the SCV’s most elite and beautiful neighborhoods, Placerita and Sand Canyons. The final leg offers a thrilling and stimulating 40mph “bomb run” through P-Canyon’s roller-coaster loop-de-loop mountain road, and if you time it just right, your ride will coincide with the evening sun splashing golden light on our trademark oak trees. Valley of the Golden Dream indeed!

But to get there, I must first run the gauntlet on Santa Clarita’s bike path system, which is used by everyone, their mother, and their pet. It’s an often harrowing experience to ride these paths at higher speeds (I can hit about 27 mph on the flat parts), especially in the early evening hours, but I give lots of warning to slow moving pedestrians.

The first half hour of this ride is spent on those paths, and by the time I reached upper Canyon Country (about a half mile north of  Sierra Highway/Soledad Intersection) I felt the need to take a 5 minute breather since the damanable summer headwinds had taken a lot out of me.

Is that a knife in your pocket or are you just a racist?

The very moment I unclipped my pedals, set myself off to the right side of the path, and sat down on a bench, a friendly looking woman approached me. She was white, in her late 50s, stood about 5′5 and had a medium build. She wore a bright red visor over her wrinkled face and her gray, curly hair spilled out above her ears. I looked her up and down and saw that she had several “tools” on her belt.

“You taking a break?” she asked me with a smile on her face.

“Yeah, it’s pretty hot out and that headwind is tough,” I replied with a smile.

She then launched into a bizarre story as I was catching my breath.

“You know I was walking this path last night when all of the sudden, a black man come out of the store up there. He just jumped out of the door and started walking down the path toward me,” she said.

She got excited and told me what happened next: “I  reached for my *untintelligible* and said, ‘I’m ready for you boy!”

You know those times when you hear something so shocking, so out of place, so surprising that you shake your head and blink your eyes rapidly in reaction? That was me as the woman reached for her belt and pulled out what looked like a Gerber folding work-knife.  She didn’t completely remove the knife, just showed me the handle of the impressive looking weapon.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she had actually pronounced the word “boy” as you would expect a Southerner to say it, when she went on to the next part of her story.

“That boy ran across the street and started beating the hell out of this black woman. I dialed 911 and the cops came real quick and took him away,” she reported to me.

Wow. Is that so? Imagine That, I offered up stupidly, still quite shocked.

She then wished me well, walked off, and over her shoulder shouted to me, “This neighborhood isn’t as safe as it used to be you know?!?”

Yeah, whatever you say lady, I thought as I jumped back on my bike and got the hell out of there.

All was well for the rest of the bike path journey. I passed moms with strollers, recreational bikers, roller bladers (yeah people still use those!), and just plain pedestrians enjoying a warm August evening.

Oh me oh my, Sand Canyon!

Finally, I got to the entrance of Sand Canyon, the second best part of the trip.

Sand Canyon is a place that can make a man feel rich even if he doesn’t live there. On both sides of the street, sprawling ranches are shadowed by gigantic old growth oak trees. Palatial houses, stables, and horses dominate the landscape. European Luxury cars and sports cars and $60,000 diesel trucks motor up and down the narrow road, their owners thumbing remote controls that activate decorative steal gates. Women in dresses or stylish, name brand business wear sometimes play with their children in the half-acre sized front yard. An earthy animal smell invades the nostrils. The horses themselves are better mannered, better groomed and more refined than me and most of my acquaintenances. Lawn sculptures are present in some yards, windmills and watering troughs in others, statues of horses and even a cow jump out at you from the front yard of one ranch. Overhead, signs mark the entrance to certain properties with names like “Skycloud,” “Wiiloughby,” and “Turner.”

Pure wealth. Pure class. Not the fake wealth and fake class of the West Side mansions. No, Sand Canyon is like our own Rodeo Drive or Park Avenue with a western twist. It may just be the most authentic place in Santa Clarita.

It’s a damn fine pleasure to ride my bike through that part of town, let me tell you!I feel as if a private security guard will escort me out at any moment.

Another guy addicted to speed

It’s also a place rich teenagers go, tempted by the wide open and winding road, the lack of cars, and probably, the lack of cops.

Nearing the fire station, I was startled to hear the throaty thump-thump of a Subaru STI, a high-end 305 hp version of my former car (the Official SCVTalk.com Subaru that I got rid of in July.) In my rear view mirror, I spotted the stealthy white sports sedan making its way down Sand Canyon at around 55-60 miles per hour. Its driver gave me a wide berth, but as soon as he passed me, this rich kid sought to test the limits of handling on his STI.

He gunned the engine and the STI leapt ahead, and then the driver whipped his wheel back and forth, using the entirety of Sand Canyon as his personal slalom course. The wide sticky grip of the STI’s tires kept the Japanese all-wheel drive car glued to the ground, and the body of the car rolled left and right as the driver violently jerked his steering wheel back and forth. Tire chirps joined bird chirps and my bike’s mechanical noises as he disappeared into the mountains.

Jealous and unable to compete, I decided to pick up my pace and ride faster as the sun was starting to get low.

Bombing Through Placerita Canyon

Placerita Canyon is what bicycling was made for. It’s short hills can be punishing to newer,

out of shape riders like me, but like the God of the Old Testament, P-Canyon gives and takes, rewarding each sweaty, dreadful climb with a thrilling descent with wide curves, a nicely maintained road, and a stunning landscape. Oak trees pepper the rolling hills, themselves shrouded in golden -not brown- grass. The vistas even at this low elevation are incredible- genuine forrests and mountains to the south, praries and hills to the north, the ruins of the Walker Ranch, and the distant mountains to the west are all visible from various parts of the road.  It’s a place that just makes you smile.

What’s risky about P-Canyon is that it’s such a narrow road, there’s no room for a cyclist to ride. I’m forced to hug the right-side white line as best I can and pray that motorists coming from behind me have the good sense to wait until it’s safe to pass, rather than just gunning it and hoping for the best.

The latter is what happened Tuesday night as a GMC Suburban laid on his horn and decided to pass me even though I was going around 35 mph. Mere seconds separated him from colliding with an oncoming Ford truck, who also decided to honk at me.

Whatever, I wasn’t going to let that ruin my mood.

The Happy Waving Cyclist

Indeed, as I flew down the last part of Placerita Canyon and approached Sierra Highway, I was grinning ear to ear. You would have had trouble finding a more happy guy than me at that point. The mood continued on through to the other Placerita Canyon, and my smile got even bigger as I dismounted my bike and carried it over that controversial gate the homeowners installed there some 10 odd years ago to keep people like me out.

Most of the rest of the ride is downhill, and as the sun started to disappear behind the mountains, I relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the trip. I passed by the Master’s College and waved at students dining in front of the cafeteria (they waved back). I spotted dozens of students participating in some kind of ice-breaker exercise on the west side of the campus, near the Baptist church, and I waved at them too (some returned the gesture). I passed a pedestrian on the side of the road, and not only did I give her a friendly wave, but I shouted out “zoooooommmmmm!” as I rode by her.

Back on Lyons Avenue, in the home stretch, I even waved at some kids who were staring at my from their car seats.

More than that, I had a personal best for the Placerita Canyon Loop. I rode the 23.72 mile loop in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 5 seconds, shaving about 15 minutes off my previous best time. The cyclecomputer tells me I did it all at an average speed of15.2 miles per hour, which was a goal of mine just two weeks ago. My top speed was 43.9 miles per hour, though I’m sure I would have gone faster had I closed my mouth and stopped shouting Weeeeeeeee!!!! on the downhills.

Beats a gym workout any day, yeah?