Our hats and sunglasses off to Allan and friends who participated in the recent Metrolink to the Desert ride! We’re talking the Burro Schmidt Tunnel Camping Trip.
Allan, Thaddeus and Gabriel love city cycling… yet they also love a larger-than-life camping adventure. You will want to click on these photos, and check out more great photos of their recent weekend cycling trip in the Mojave Desert.
They traveled by Metro light rail and Metrolink train to get out of the L.A. area. That was perhaps the only easy part of the journey. They headed out to the Burro Schmidt Tunnel, and met the caretaker at Bickel Camp. They pushed their bicycles through sand when the dirt roads became sandy roads. They enjoyed some tail winds, and they laughed through some head winds as well. A comfy campfire at night.
While the cycling and road conditions were challenging, they had a GREAT time. We know this, because Allan is already planning his next cycling adventure. Allan calls his next great ride the Ridge Route.
On our bicycles, we feel at home everywhere… in the bustle of downtown Long Beach… also along quiet residential streets… and also out in faraway places where few folks wander… where the silence is stunning. The bicycle! What a great invention!
I am so glad that you guys love wind before and behind… roads made of gravel, dirt and sand… and conditions urban and rural. The next time I plop-clunk-jar-thud over a pot hole, I will think of the three of you. Perhaps minor defects in the surfaces of some city streets are an unintended invitation for a mini adventure.
Great photos Allan. Looks like a hell of a trip.
Over the years, when cycling sustained elevation gain, I sometimes humor myself by reciting my own variation of a familiar Robert Frost poem. In my version, I say that “something there is that loves a hill.”
Allan, Thaddeus and Gabriel… and everyone else out there who loves cycling—short trips, long trips, easy trips, challenging trips… what kind of poem variation might we drum up to sing of pot holes and of desert sand?
—Michael (who is prone to hum the same tune for miles and miles and miles)