# L.A. Ride Report: Mulholland Highway



## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

Took a solo ride from Brentwood to a barbecue/pool party in Newbury Park.

Took PCH allll the way up to Mulholland Highway.

Took Mulholland Highway to Decker, then down into Westlake, then cut across to Newbury Park via Potrero.

Took a long time to climb Mulholland, which was 9 miles and somewhere around 2500ft of climbing.

Took the time to add waypoints in Topo for each mile of the climb, counting down from the summit. Then I downloaded them into my Garmin. That turned out to be a great idea. On the long climes it's nice to know where you stand.










The elevation profile. Note the waypoints. The ones not on the climb were for navigational purposes. The Garmin is great for stuff like this (when it works); much better than a cue sheet.










Riding on PCH isn't always so bad.










Thanks for the warning!










Um, yeah, thanks for the warning.










The climb wasn't too steep, and it had a few nice respites where it would level off for a stretch or go downhill. (Note:
those little respites wreak havoc when you're calculating average grade over the entire climb.)










I ran over something sticky on PCH -- don't want to know what -- so as I rode all these little rocks were sticking
to my tires. I pulled off here to wipe the tires clean.










Getting near the top, where it was slightly more populated.










This was about 30 meters before the summit and made a better stopping point.










The Garmin was in fine, non-malfunctioning form for the entire ride! (Note: It's a brand new replacement.) (Note:
It's my third one.)










Rock.










Got caught behind a crew filming a Dodge commercial. Now
THAT'S an "only in L.A. thing," Hollywood. :thumbsup: They finally let me
pass and I had a nice little Paris-Roubaix moment riding past
them on the dirt shoulder.










Arrived to this ...










... and this.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Is that potato salad and ambrosia?


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Oh and uh, great ride report. If I ever get back in shape I would love to ride those roads.


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## undies (Oct 13, 2005)

Nice pics, and the meal looks delish! 

Years ago I was stationed at NAS Point Mugu, and that was my favorite riding area... on my motorcycle. I used to do a lot of mountain biking in Sycamore Canyon, but no road biking.


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## Hollywood (Jan 16, 2003)

cool post - never ridden it. Having a buffet and a pool waiting for you looks like a good combo!



il sogno said:


> Oh and uh, great ride report. If I ever get back in shape I would love to ride those roads.


when we gonna meet up, neighbor? Coffee? Cupcakes?! Coffee _and_ cupcakes!

(you can come too, DR)


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

il sogno said:


> Oh and uh, great ride report. If I ever get back in shape I would love to ride those roads.


I'm sure your Colnago would appreciate it.

I'm by all means not a climber. So if you ever want to ride with someone who will make you feel fast, look me up.


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

Hollywood said:


> (you can come too, DR)


Awwwww.


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## YuriB (Mar 24, 2005)

nice stuff and cool seri carvings. i don't see those very often anymore.


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## I am The Edge (Jul 27, 2004)

Hollywood said:


> when we gonna meet up, neighbor? Coffee? Cupcakes?! Coffee _and_ cupcakes!
> 
> (you can come too, DR)




what about _*ME*_?! :idea:


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

I am The Edge said:


> what about _*ME*_?! :idea:


Only if you stop typing like Wendy Kroy. (Obscure movie reference.)


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## MB1 (Jan 27, 2004)

Was the ride really that traffic free? 

BTW what kind of SoCal pool party is that where they don't take the condoments out of the jars and put them in little color coordinated dishes?!?? They must be from the midwest.


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## Beethoven (Jul 28, 2005)

I'm coming to L.A. for a year in September. I'm very much hoping I get to do this ride on a regular basis.


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

MB1: These were _normal_ people. If it were my mom's barbecue, not only would the condiments be in their own dishes, but each dish would cost more than my bike. PCH wasn't too bad for a Sunday morning/early afternoon. I think I saw maybe seven or eight cars on the 9-mile stretch of Mulholland.

Beethoven: What's cool about SoCal riding is once you take a road into the Santa Monica mountains, you can take all kinds of roads to traverse or descend. Lots of options.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Hollywood said:


> when we gonna meet up, neighbor? Coffee? Cupcakes?! Coffee _and_ cupcakes!
> 
> (you can come too, DR)


If there are cupcakes involved, I'm there!


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## Chain (Dec 28, 2006)

DrRoebuck said:


> Took the time to add waypoints in Topo for each mile of the climb, counting down from the summit. Then I downloaded them into my Garmin. That turned out to be a great idea. On the long climes it's nice to know where you stand.


Nice ride. The food and pool at the end look very inviting.

Now for the idjut question of the day. How did you do the "Topo" thing? That looks like it would be very fun to have here on some Colorado rides.


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

Chain said:


> Nice ride. The food and pool at the end look very inviting.
> 
> Now for the idjut question of the day. How did you do the "Topo" thing? That looks like it would be very fun to have here on some Colorado rides.


Not idjut at all, as it's not the simplest thing in the world.

Here goes:


Buy Topo! for $99
Using Topo, you can just trace a route. The road details are pretty weak, so if you're taking small streets, etc., it's good to have a street atlas to help you figure out the names of streets
Once you draw your route, you can right-click on it and get a ton of options, including Build Profile (or something like that) and an option to convert the route into a GPS route.
When you convert to GPS, it will try to auto-add waypoints. That, to me, is worthless. I tell it to add one waypoint, which will be the start, then add the rest of the waypoints myself.
When you build a profile, you can zoom into the profile. This makes it easier to set up the mile-markers that I put on the climb.
Download the route to your GPS using the built-in Topo GPS functions.

Did I even begin to answer your questions?

I'm sure there are other ways of doing this, including online sites for creating routes. But this works perfectly for me. I know there's one site that will sort of auto-draw along roads as you direct it. That's great for doing cue sheets but I don't remember if it can download the route to your GPS, etc.

Also, the Garmin Edge 305 has a limited number of waypoints per route that it can store. That's when you'll see a Route Truncated message on the Garming after you download a route to it. If your route has more than 20 waypoints or so, you might have to split it up. I found this out the hard way on a century in an unknown area. Luckily, I wasn't the chief navigator.


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## Chain (Dec 28, 2006)

Thanks for the response. I'll have to bookmark this one and figure out if I want the TOPO software or another new lens for the camera. 

You just keep giving me opportunities to get into trouble with my finance manager. Oh, yea, I also bought a set of wheels for NNC. Guess I'd better lay low for a few months.

Thanks for the info. I might google around and see if there is a free on-line way of doing it.

Have fun & take care.


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## DrRoebuck (May 10, 2004)

Chain said:


> You just keep giving me opportunities to get into trouble with my finance manager.


I excel at that.


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## Beethoven (Jul 28, 2005)

I'll see you there! I can't wait to get vertical again. I spent 6 weeks in Switzerland and did some major damage to the Alps, but now am stuck in hot, flat Chicago for the rest of the month.
Of course I suck at climbing, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm...


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