I Really Dig the Styles They Wear

I must apologize to my glut of regular fans; I have been lax in my updates since arriving in sunny LA. I have no good excuse, other than I just haven't felt that anything blog worthy has happened. Since arriving in LA, I haven't done anything that special. I moved in my stuff (not hard, since it all fit into my rather small car), I found some yummy places to eat (too many to list, but the sushi place is closest), found the nearest grocery store (two of them, a Ralph's, and a Whole Paycheck) and figured out how to get to work (walk three blocks, turn right, walk one more).

Riding wise out here, it's spectacular. The Cervelo is in hog heaven out here, since nothing is flat. I took a ride through Bel-Air a couple days ago; in three miles I gain twelve hundred feet of elevation. To put that in perspective, Old Mill Rd. on the east side of Cleveland gains 320 feet in exactly a mile. And most of the riders I've met out here look at a hill like Bel-Air as a good start to the day.

If climbing isn't your thing, there's always the Pacific Coast Highway. The PCH is a little four to six lane road running along...that's right: the Pacific coast. Bikes are allowed on it, in fact it's usually the only way to get to some of the better rides through the Santa Monica Mountains. It is not, however, for the faint of heart. Most of the road has a very nice shoulder on which cyclists can ride. Sometimes, though, the shoulder is taken up with parked cars and every so often, like when you cross a bridge or the like, the shoulder just goes away. Usually the cars will let you in. Usually.

Riding on surface streets here is something of an adventure as well, though less so than on the PCH. The amount of traffic in LA means that often a cyclist can keep up with, if not entirely out-pace, traffic. So far, this has meant that I've not had any issues with rude or inconsiderate drivers; I'm not delaying them at all, so they mostly leave me alone. Of course this isn't always the case, as was demonstrated on July 4th.

And otherwise that's about it. Work is a lot like work, but I like the other staff on my unit, and the new hospital UCLA just opened is awesome to work in. It was designed by I.M. Pei, so it's very big, open, and full of natural light. It also doesn't hurt that I'm on the top floor ICU, with a fantastic view of the Santa Monica Mountains out one direction, and a look downtown in the other. For now it's time to chill and fine tune the bike in preparation for my first California race on Sunday. Race report here afterwards, I promise!