trainers

Monty and I stepped out of our homes-away-from-home this past Sunday morning. We were parked at about 5000' in elevation, right at the spot this picture was taken. We slept overnight adjacent to a road that had more curves than a centerfold (more on centerfolds below), and this road climbed from 3000' to almost 8000'. Monty, with his new pacemaker, and me, with my smashed-up collarbone, each would have preferred, if given the choice, to have our way with the road. Lip smacking. But when you can't ride bikes you don't even bring them along. We were like surfers watching hollow overhead tubes peeling left and right from a point, but with no boards on which to surf.

We were on the backside of the San Gabriel Mountains, which neither of us had ever visited before. It was odd we'd not checked this place out. I'd looked it over on the map many times over the years, but never came here until now.

The bottom of this climb is Valyermo. There isn't anything in Valyermo except a post office that looks as if it's no longer in operation. The only thing that's there is Saint Andrews Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. It has a website, and danged if they haven't swiped the town's domain: http://www.valyermo.com. A real company town.

Valyermo sits at about 3000', and is in the desert. But you can just about touch the pines on the adjacent mountains if you stick an arm straight out. The Benedictines have a good photo of this on their site.

It's called Big Pines Highway, and it connects to Highway 2 just above the Mountain High ski resort. That junction takes place at about 6000', maybe 6500'. If one turns right and continues up #2 it tops at about 7900' before descending westward into L.A.

Nobody drives these roads. They're empty. Cyclist's dreams. There are also quite a few paved roads on the east side of these San Gabriel Mountains, more than the maps indicate.

As good as the roads are, the trails are perhaps even better. Those on which I hiked started from Devil's Punchbowl County Park, just a few miles from Valyermo. The County Park is likewise almost uninhabited, and sits precisely on the border of desert and forest. I love the desert-to-alpine transition zone. It is my favorite bioclime, or life zone, or whatever you want to call it. Joshua trees, pinon and big-cone pines, junipers, and cacti all exist together. Just a few hundred yards from Devil's Punchbowl it's pure desert, a few hundred yards up it's pure forest.

From the parking lot I walked up the trail a half-mile and climbed about 500' in elevation. At that point my trail was completely under the pines. Though it was just a stones throw—perhaps a Nolan Ryan throw—down the hill to the dry and warmer desert below, this trail was mostly covered with a 1/2" deep layer of snow which in turn sat on an amber bed of pine needles. The trail was on a steep mountainside and was about three feet wide, but it was cut almost exactly horizontal. I was on this section of the trail for almost a mile and its elevation never varied by more than 50 feet. The footing was perfect, and a good runner could keep up a six-minute clip without any trouble. It was a runner's dream.

There is a reasonably good photo representation of this area on a site called Digitaldesert. I'm writing about an area that is roughly west, and up the mountain a bit, from Pearblossom. All the good parts are west of the Pearblossom Highway (#138) that travels south to north from the Cajon Pass to Lancaster/Palmdale.

From where Monty and I parked and slept you can see peaks in various directions. Though we were in the mountains, the view east is entirely of the desert. The distant mountain visible to the north is Mount Whitney, at 15,000' above sea level the highest point in the lower 48. Straight east is the snow-capped top of 11,000' Telescope Peak, which sits in the middle of Death Valley and is immediately adjacent to Badwater—the lowest point in the United States. A little south of that you can see Mt. Charleston, just north of Las Vegas. These mountains are each several hundred miles in the distance. But that's the desert for you—almost unlimited visibility in the mornings.

I saw all these things. That's the good part. But I couldn't roll up my sleeves and enjoy it mile-by-mile at 155 beats per minute. That's the bad part. It did at least motivate me to get back on that silly trainer.

I'm bored something awful riding that contraption, but it's the one thing I can do that gets my heart rate up. It is in several pieces—the collarbone, not the trainer— and each of the pieces appears to be guided by the principal of centrifugal force. After having spent 45 years together my bone fragments are each trying to find their personal space.

I've been organizing my music. Getting it all moved over to MP3 in advance of the iPod I intend on getting as soon as I don't have anything better to spend $400 on. I've got the R&B in one place...

It's Too Late to Turn Back Now (Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose)
Didn't I Blow Your Mind (Delfonics)
Oh Girl (Chi Lites)
This Old Heart of Mine (Isley Brothers)
Me and Mrs. Jones (Billy Paul)

...and so forth. I've got the modern stuff in its place, and the L.A. 70s Latino scene (El Chicano, Malo, Santana). In the spirit of a triathlete my taste is multi-genred.

I don't know if I'm a man's man, but I'm at least a guy's guy. My generation, you just need to say Neil. "I've got some Neil if you need to borrow it," to which the answer comes, from any other guy...

"If it's Decade I've got it, got any Harvest Moon?"

No need to say Young. Any guy in his 40s or 50s knows just Neil. (Same with Led).

So I've got my Neil in one spot, and to produce energy while on the bike I've got the driving rock of yesteryear:

Centerfold (J. Geils Band)
Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf)
Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)
Sweet Child of Mine (Guns 'n Roses)

...and more of that ilk. Guns 'n Roses is as new is it gets for me. That's Kenny Souza's favorite band, by the way. I believe he has an Axl Rose tattoo.

That sort of music is very good for a hard trainer workout. But in the spirit of full disclosure, because transparency is our theme here on Slowtwitch, I've got a confession to make. It's painful to admit this. I know that I'm going to lose a measure of respect. But... you can't do a dozen one-minute out-of-the-saddle repeats at 320 watts to Heart of Gold. It's... it's... disco music for that.

Disco. There, I said it. Disco, disco, disco. Not just dance music, but late '70s disco.

Let's Groove Tonight (Earth Wind and Fire)
Romeo (Donna Summer)

I confessed this to my editor, Amy White. "Hmm," she said, and then asked, "You like Madonna?"

"No!" I shot back, followed a moment later by, in a quieter tone, "Yes."

Madonna's Burning Up for Your Love is what's in the earphones for my last desperate trainer repeat.

As for the trainer itself, it is my "fit bike." I had Mandaric make it for me. It's the bike on which I place those who have a lot more money than I do and are willing to part with way too much of it to have me fit them up for tri geometry. It wasn't made with collarbone-challenged riders in mind but it fits the bill perfectly.

It's infinitely adjustable, and weighs about a ton (well, probably 150 lbs.) It looks like a spin bike, except in place of the "flywheel" in front it has a spoked wheel with a 7-speed Shimano Nexus hub (with internal planetary gears). It's got a Computrainer load generator bolted on the front, above the wheel, so that the rider can adjust wheel tension and turn the power on and off without having to get off the bike.

I've got the thing positioned way back, probably 65 degrees, so that I can ride sitting up. When I get out of the saddle, as I am in both the photos, I've got the handlebars jacked up so that I can prop myself up with the one good arm.

It's pitiful. I should be rounding up the spaghetti bends of that beautiful desert-to-mountain God-inspired Big Pines Highway pavement. Failing that, though, the trainer's more or less effective. In fact, I think I'll stop writing and go out and ride that bastard. But no disco today. I'll trade that mindless meat-market crap in for something cerebral and uplifting, like...

My blood runs cold, my memory has just been sold, my angel is a centerfold.