Thursday, February 27th, 8:30 a.m.

Start Location: Ballona Creek Bridge.  From I405 exit Culver Blvd and head West or take Rte 90 West and take Culver Blvd exit turn left. Right on Esplanade St, left on Convoy St, and right on Pacific Avenue. Park by the Lagoon on the right. The bridge is about 2 blocks North on Pacific.

For a map and directions to the start, click Start.

Please RSVP on Meetup here (if you change your plans later, you can always change your RSVP to NO. But we really need your response, and its polite)  =>   

Los Angeles Wheelmen Road Cycling Meetup 

Group ride South along the beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Golden Cove where we stop for coffee and return. There are 3 optional dips on the outbound (hence the name Triple Dipper). The return can be hilly or direct – your choice.

There is no route sheet provided – just follow the group. This is an unsupported group ride so come prepared. Cycling involves significant risks so please never let your guard down, know and follow the rules of the road and always exercise safety. Please wear a helmet and bring flat tire repair gear (tubes, tire levers, pump and C02). Don’t forget water and a snack.

If you will be joining us for the first time, be sure to bring a signed release of liability waiver and hand it to the ride leader or to a club member at the start. Download the waiver at http://www.lawheelmen.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Waiver-and-Release-of-Liability-2013.pdf.

We occasionally send out a notice about a change to the route just to break the routine and visit interesting places. When that happens, we’ll make every effort to provide the update for that week including route sheets and courses for upload to your bike computer if needed.

Check out our weekly newsletter here to get a preview of some of our past rides…Newsletter (http://www.lawheelmen.org/vp-newsletter)

We hope to see you there!

Saturday, February 29th, 7:30 a.m. 

Start Location: DEL REY LAGOON in Playa Del Rey.  From San Diego Frwy off and west on Culver Blvd (or off and west on Jefferson, which runs into Culver) to end (approx 4 mi). R – Pacific Ave to park (Pacific Ave & Convoy).

For a map and directions to the start, click Start.

Routes:

• Century – 93 miles – 2400 feet of elevation gain (barometric)
• Metric Century – 64 miles—1800 feet of elevation gain (mapping software)
• Combined Routes

It’s “Leap Day” which only happens once every 4 years and even less often does it fall on a Saturday. When you are given an extra day in the year, you owe it to yourself make good use of it and what better way to use this extra day than by riding your bike. And as long as you are going to be riding your bike, you should make it special and what could be more special than riding a century. We have chosen for our leap day century a relatively easy century we have often ridden before – the “Coastal Cruise Century.” Just to make it even easier, we will be riding a modified version of this century which cuts out a few of the hills and simplifies the route with fewer turns. This is the version I often ride when I do this century on my own. Starting from Playa del Rey, the route heads down to Huntington Beach and back. On the way down we ride through Palos Verdes (which includes a few hills). We take an interesting route through the harbor area which is nicer than you might think. The Long Beach Bike Path gets us to Seal Beach and then it’s a short hop to lunch at the northern edge of Huntington Beach. The route back is a bit more inland but has fewer hills. We will also offer a metric century. The metric stays with the full century down to the edge of Long Beach and then jogs over on the LA River to pick up the full century route again for the return.

Sunday, March 1st, 8:30 a.m. 

RIDE START & LUNCH LOCATION: LINDBERG PARK in Culver City (5041 Rhoda Way, Culver City 90230) Lunch will be in the activity building at the north end of the park. From Overland Ave just north of the intersection with Jefferson in Culver City go west on Virginia Ave about 5 blocks to park.

For a map and directions to the start, click Start.

Route: Only Route – 27 miles – 1200 feet of elevation gain (mapping software)

The club is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year and we are planning a number of events during the year to commemorate this milestone. The annual installation of officers will be the first major event in our year of festivities. We will be having the usual lunch and installation of officers preceded by a short ride, but this year we hope to make it special. There is a new ride and we will be taking a special anniversary group photo. For this we want maximum attendance at the meeting (whether you do the ride or not). We will also be inviting past members to create as large a group photo as possible.  As for the ride, it will be a short 27 mile ride starting and ending at the lunch location. Since we don’t often ride downtown and Sunday is the best day to do this, we thought we would tour this portion of the city for which the club is named.  From Culver City we will head downtown and ride through the USC campus (another place we almost never ride). We continue to downtown past the Staples Center and the new buildings which have sprung up around it.  On the way back we will tour some other historic neighborhoods in LA. The ride will not be hilly except for an optional climb to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook which gives an excellent view of the city (the 1200 feet of gain includes this optional climb). Even if you do not ride, we implore you to come to the lunch. It will start at noon with the group photo being taken right after we finish lunch.

Sunday, March 8th, 7:30 a.m. 

Start Location: PARADISE PARK in TORRANCE.  From San Diego Frwy (405), off & South on Hawthorne 3.5 miles.  R – Torrance Blvd 0.5 mile, L – Anza one block, R – Lee to Park.  We usually park on the West side of the park (on Ellenwood) by the school.

For a map and directions to the start, click Start.

Routes:

• Century – 96 miles – 2200 feet of elevation gain (barometric)
• Metric – 63 miles – 800 feet of elevation gain (mapping software)
• Combined Routes

This is our official century and metric century for March although we will be riding the Rose Bowl Century later in the month in case you miss this one. Believe me, this is the more enjoyable century of the two, so you should try to make this one. This is about as flat of a century as any we have, even including the trip up Laguna Canyon which really isn’t much of a climb. The route is fairly straight forward. From Torrance, we head down the coast (picking up PCH in Seal Beach) all the way to Laguna. Then it’s up Laguna Cyn and we make our way back north using a more inland route until we reach Huntington Beach. Then we pretty much retrace our steps back to the start. There is a metric century as well. This starts with the full century and stays with that route until Huntington Beach. It then cuts inland to pick up the return route of the full century. We have usually used this century as one of the Grand Tour trainers, but they are only a month away, so you might want to start getting in shape for them now. This route would be good for that. NOTE: Daylight saving started last night so reset your clocks or you might arrive at the start an hour late.