Riding Your Bike On The Beach

I rode my bike a lot in Venice over the years. We eventually got a little house on Cabrillo and I started working in the Marina and I would just ride the bike back and forth. I upgraded to a European Clone with a 38" frame, which I've had ever since. Then, after moving to Westchester, some brainiac (I think it was me) decided that we needed to do the Cycling Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts. My son was in the troop then. We ended up with about 25 kids that summer. Each scout needs a total of 150 miles to get the badge. Almost all the trips were on the bike path that runs from the north end of Santa Monica to Redondo beach (there was only one hill - on the way over to the beach from my house) And everyone's schedule was busy and so I would do make-up rides and re-rides and then for the end trip we would do a 50-mile trip from my house to Newport Dunes. That first summer I think I booked about 1500 miles on my bike with the numerous groups of kids and their fathers.

We had all the rest stops down. The hamburger joint in Venice, the ice cream shop in Redondo, and all the drinking fountains on the way to refill water.And where to watch for the sand that could make you take a spill. When the traffic was bad -always 1:00 pm on Sunday in Venice- you might as well walk.

The Dads that went were a trip. One rode twenty miles a day out there and he road along with us for about an hour, mostly for the conversation, and then he got bored and off he went. The only ones that could keep up with him was his own son and mine. One guy told me all about his experiences as a social worker in tthe South Pacific. One, a hot shot lawyer with a big corporation, spend an entire trip close behind a curvy roller-blade girl we didn't know. I kept telling him he was going to get in trouble. And then there was the girl on the swing in the red sun dress. Several of the boys wiped out and two of the Dads. I had my first aid kit ready so it wasn't too bad. One of the kids wanted to go home, but couldn't get a hold of his parents, so he ended up finishing anyway.

One Dad and his son only rode with each other and were usually a half an hour to an hour behind the rest of us. I had to take their word for it that they finished each trip, I'd have been there forever waiting for them to show up.