34.9 mi / 9.5 mph / 1643 ft. climbing
Home: Ken and Susan’s house via WarmShowers

With the weather cleared, and the Wizarding World explored, it was time to continue multi-day trek eastward across the endless sprawl of the Los Angeles metro area. I had feared that the stop-and-go, aggressive drivers, and generally brutal urban-sprawl riding conditions would make for a soul-draining ride, especially across multiple days, but if the first full day is anything to judge by, we’ll get across quite comfortably.

For nearly the whole distance, which took us through Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, Glendora, and probably a bunch of other ill-defined “towns” whose names ended with ‘a’, we had some sort of bike lane, shoulder, or wide lane to give us space from the cars. And the vast majority of drivers were respectful and gave us space when the road-designers did not.

Our destination was Ken and Susan’s house in Glendora, a WarmShowers host we found along our route. With my feelings about the structural imbalance built into WarmShowers, I figured this Los Angeles traversal would be a perfect time to “take advantage” of the community, since, there are no campgrounds, and how many touring cyclists would ever be riding through these suburbs? Well, it was actually reading their WarmShowers listing that made discover that this route isn’t only something a few crazy bike tourers do when trying to get to Palm Springs, it’s also the Adventure Cycling Route 66 route! While not the most-popular route, it still brings plenty of bike tourers by, and made me somewhat more comfortable about our route being manageable.

Ken and Susan were nice enough to accommodate us even though they had a busy day of their own, and allowed us to set up in their back yard until they got home. The whole day had been pretty cold and cloudy, and we timed our arrival for sunset so that we could stay warm with riding before then, and then cook a warm dinner on their patio. But then Susan got home early, so we were able to shift our cooking indoors, where we were just as grateful for the WarmStove as we were for a WarmShower.

We were also grateful for a WarmHeatingPad, something we wouldn’t have been able to use at a motel, and definitely not a campground. Rett’s back had started bothering her before our arrival into Los Angeles, and we had hoped that the three days off the bike would give it a chance to improve, but today’s ride showed things had moved in the opposite direction. Even after picking up a lidocaine back patch early in the morning, she was still in quite a bit of pain, and spent most of the evening resting and recovering. Her recovery was also aided by our host dog, improbably named Neil, who was more than happy to give her healing snuggles on our bed.