hillary dixon rust

I finally decided that I should ride all the way down Malibu Canyon.  I've been working on a ranch out in Calabasas for a TV show for the last few weeks and basically told myself that I had plenty of time to build up the guts to do it because I would be working out there for the next few months.

My time at the ranch ended sooner than I thought it would but not necessarily sooner than I wanted it to and yesterday appeared to be my last ride out that way for a while so...

I stopped at the ranch and had a coffee, an apple, two PB&J's, dropped off some stuff, and filled out a time card. With the final seal all licked and stuck I hopped on the ol' Trekkie-pooh and instead of hanging a Louie at Las Virgenes I swung a Ronnie and pedaled toward the beach.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the wind in Malibu Canyon blows. It blows big time. I've done the first 3 miles of the canyon about 20 times now and it is always windy beyond belief. To the point that I'm normally in the baby gear up front and pedaling the entire 3 miles of fairly steep down grade to Mullholland Hwy where the ranch is. 

This time was no different but right after Mullholland the road takes a turn for the nice steep uphill climb to the tip top peak. Which is great and all but with the wind gusting violently in your face it kind of makes you want to jump off a building. And when finally cresting the top, after imagining the moment for at least the last 20 minutes of riding into the horrible onslaught, you find that the peak is the point where the wind has been funneled into it's most powerfully terrible gales! 

I assume that I am like many cyclists that aren't competing in a race and when I get to the top of a giant hill I generally stop pedaling and allow gravity to do its job and begin to pull me down the other side. Well after making it to the top of Malibu Canyon I stopped pedaling and the wind blew me to a stop. 

I pedaled the entire way down. The tunnel was the scariest/coolest part of the ride and in the end I was actually pretty disappointed in the entire adventure. Only because like Grover who was terrified of finding the monster at the end of the book, when I reached the PCH I found that the only thing that was scary about Malibu Canyon was my thoughts of doing it. All the excuses I'd made for not going down after work were never valid. I'm glad I saved it for awhile though because it gave me something to look forward to. 

Now I