Los Angeles to Las Vegas

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USA Californian Cycle. Arrived from Tokyo and had a 30 hour stay at Geneva Beach near a large marina. Visited the bike shop & assembled our bikes with no time for sight-seeing. On Friday morning a Polish film crew arrived to televise & interview the Polish cyclists in our group. They filmed us leaving town along the beachfront route to Santa Monica. The tidy beachfront houses were a stark contrast to the rather shabby retail area close to where we were staying. Even on the beachfront Parade there were signs of homeless people among the joggers, roller-bladers & surfers. We left the coast and climbed up into the suburbs of Beverley Hills & Hollywood. We stopped at the Avenue of the Stars (messages from film stars in the pavement) where a Police Woman moved us on & attempted to banish us to the back streets. Some street vendors selling tour passes & food took a lot of interest in our trip & made quite a fuss of us. It was a long ride through suburbs ( about 60km) to clear LA city & eventually reach Lake Castaic. Our van eventually caught up with us at 9pm after a drama gaining insurance cover. Set out in front of group & climbed a couple of long hills before realising we'd missed a turn-off & had to retract for 3/4 hour. By now temperatures had soared & it was 3 hot hours before we reached a small township & one shop. Cooled down with cold drinks, sandwiches & ice creams & set out again to knock off some more Kms. Had a wonderful downhill, wind -assisted ride of 10km to realise we had turned right at the wrong intersection & had to back-track again. Six of us had made this mistake. Got out to some large open plains & were assaulted by a fierce cross wind. We still had 35km to ride. Eva who had only started in LA was struggling with the wind & called up Yever our driver to come & meet her. Brian & I felt it was a waste not to fill the truck for the last 30km while Bill punched on. He was into camp at 10pm & the last arrivals were Natalia & Wojtik who found McDonalds but struggled to find the camp until 1am. Woke the next morning to find thousands of wind turbines in the nearby hills & dozens of 747s seemingly abandoned in fields near the airport. California City (a small low - economy town) was our last chance to shop before heading out into the Californian desert . There have been some big climbs & some thrilling downhill rides. Some of the scenery has been like a moonscape, mountains, sand-dunes & gravel flats.







Stayed a night at Randeville, a ghost town with about 50 residents. The old buildings still stand in the best of order but most were closed. We stayed at the Cottage Hotel where the owner served excellent pizzas followed by huge helpings of ice cream , a cyclists dream meal. The next day was a big downhill ride to Trona. From the road we cold see the Trona Pinnacles, more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 142 ft rising from the Searles dry lake basin. Trona itself had a few shops & houses & on the outskirts clusters of makeshift houses & caravans & many derelict cars. Camped at the Golf Club where strong winds caught our tent & had it airborne even with rocks anchored to the guy ropes. had to find a more sheltered spot & then the wind dropped. Decided we needed to start cycling earlier to beat the heat although this is impossible. Easy cycling near Homewood Canyon & through Valley Wells. We were entertained all morning by US Airforce jets swooping up & down the valley, roaring overhead & one time diving out of the sky vertically towards us as if we were in a war zone. Our camping was at PanaMint Springs but sadly the springs had dried up some years ago. 40 degrees so the afternoon & early evening were spent in a restaurant / bar. We were away at the crack of dawn to climb the Towne Pass over 1 km in elevation. It was all downhill to the next town where we entered Death Valley National Park.

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