Malibu Barbies (USA Day 142)

We’ve made it to Los Angeles. The original endpoint of our tour (though it’s changed plenty of times since then) and by far the largest city we’ve seen since New York. To get here, we had to make it through Malibu, a stretch of overdeveloped coastline littered with multi-million-dollar beach houses, their ugly garage sides facing the road, the real money put presumably into the end facing the beach. Riding was easy, which left us plenty of time to ogle the rich people and tut at their extravagance.

Every mile or so we were overtaken by a peloton of cyclists in gaudy lycras, not unlike us, but without the many kilos of baggage. A little behind rolled some support vehicles: cars with spare wheels on the top and vans full of (presumably) snacks. Looks like they were riding something called the Tour De Fresh, which raises money to provide good school meals to children. We’d have joined the ride and kept up with their infernal pace, beaten it even, but we hadn’t donated so felt that it wouldn’t be fair.

Malibu stretched on for twenty miles, but eventually it became a town with an accessible enough beach for Amy to swim and me to watch, guarding the bikes and not having to worry about sharks/rip tides/jellyfish/underwater murderers. Then I remembered that the thing about the sea that most scares me is tsunamis, within whose range I was very much in. I used to have terrible dreams about tidal waves, and still when I see a bank of cloud on the horizon I connect the wrong dots and assume the worst. Stay in your lane, Pacific.

From Malibu onwards, we contested for a body-width of road with a malignant mob of cars and trucks, so while it was easy riding all the way into town, we never found a second to enjoy. This city, friendly to drivers and that’s about it, didn’t want us cyclists inside it very much and made plenty of efforts to keep us out, such as random vans parked in the shoulder with no chance to merge, and plenty of glassy moments. But incur into the forbidden city we did, and soon a bike path appeared along the side of Santa Monica beach. Flat and winding, with the sea shuffling away on its right, it made a peaceful change from the roads. We had to leave it (for now) to cycle inland: another twelve miles through bland Brentwood, bougie Beverly Hills and hip West Hollywood before zig-zagging northwards towards our hosts for the night, who we joined to watch the Democratic Primary debate with a lot of hope, plenty of apprehension and a bowl of french onion soup.

We’d hoped to reach LA a few days before November 23rd (when our visa runs out), with time to celebrate, pack up our bikes and fly home. Turns out, even with quite a few large detours and Amy’s injury, we’re here a month and five days early. So that’s cool. Well played, legs. I guess we’ll just wait quietly? Naah.