120 Mile Bike Ride from Victorville, California to the Santa Monica Pier and the Bike Trip that Preceded it

During a recent vacation to Los Angeles, I ventured down to the Santa Monica Pier at about 7pm, just to walk around. The rides and the pier sparkled against the California evening, a seaside breeze swept up from the Pacific ocean. I walked down to the oceanside, and sat on a bench by the beach, and felt a wave of nostalgia as I reflected about another memory at the Santa Monica pier, fourteen and a half years ago, back in the summer of 2007, when I was sixteen, about to turn seventeen.

I had been part of a six week, three thousand mile, cross country bike trip — myself, nine other bikers who were all around my age, and two trip leaders. It was through a summer program called Overland, kind of a summer camp. My parents told me I could go on the trip if I agreed to pay for half of it. During my junior year of high school, I worked part time every week at the local Starbucks and by the time the summer came, I gave all the money I had saved to my parents to reimburse them for my part of the trip.

The cross country trek is one of the greatest achievements of my life — a great feat of mental and physical endurance, but I don’t think about it much anymore.

We had begun the trip in June, in Savannah, Georgia, where we symbolically dipped our back wheels into the Atlantic Ocean, and then trekked through different American cultures and landscapes. We ventured through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. All of our clothes and gear were piled and stored on our bikes in panniers which hung from the back rack of the bike. Aside from a few days where we rode in the desert, and had a van supply us with extra water and food because those days had minimal places to stop at, we did not have any other assistance. All riders had a dorky orange flag which stuck out of the back of the bike so we were more visible to passing traffic. We all proudly wore bike spandex with no other shorts while we biked. Personally, for about ninety percent of the days we rode, I wore the same cotton t-shirt, crusty and salty from the previous days or weeks’ dried sweat. It was gross, but I liked it that way.

Six weeks into the trip and approaching the end of it, after climbing mountains, biking in the midwest, and meeting new people across the country, we eventually reached our goal — the Santa Monica pier, where this time we would dip our front wheels into the ocean. This moment came on the heels of the most epic and physically demanding day of the trip — 120 miles, up into the San Gabriel mountains above Los Angeles, before descending into and through Los Angeles rush hour traffic and eventually landing at the Santa Monica pier at about 10pm that evening.

Nowadays, I almost never talk about the trip. For me, it’s like a fun fact — a blip on the radar. People don’t believe me when I bring it up in conversation. Even though I had always been a biker growing up, riding the streets of my hometown in Connecticut with my friends, and even though now, at 31 years old, I still bike a good amount in New York City (not very ideal for biking — lots of traffic, pausing at stoplights, and very flat terrain, but I make it work), this cross country bike trip is not something that really ever comes up in conversation. People don’t believe me when I tell them about it. Maybe not because they don’t think I’m physically capable of completing such a journey, but more than likely just because it is a cool thing that I never mention, which maybe should be talked about more.

But walking along the pier that night on my recent 2021 trip, the thoughts of the bike tour come swarming back to me. I have a lot of nostalgia about the last day of the journey — the last 120 miles in California.

During the first six weeks of the adventure, we averaged about 85 miles per day of riding, and biked almost every day, aside from a few “buffer days.” Buffer days were, when we we were able to take them, days off, as long as we had completed all required mileage leading up to that day. However, there were times when we fell behind the required mileage because we did not reach our destination in previous days, and would need the buffer day to catch up on the lost itinerary to remain on pace for Santa Monica. From my memory, there was maybe one occasion out of five or so possible buffer days where we were behind and had to use a buffer day.

The first three states — Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, I remember, brought super humid temperatures and also a lot of great hospitality. I remember in Mississippi, about an hour from where we would stay that night at a church community center, we received a caravan of police escorts who met us along the road, and drove just ahead of us as we biked into town. The residents of the town said that their helping us had something to with what God wanted. I grew up Jewish but not so religious, so that was a new thing for me to hear. Throughout the journey, we stayed in many churches and community centers and also camped a good amount.

After Mississippi, we crossed into Arkansas, and then Oklahoma. Oklahoma was surprisingly the most difficult state of the trip. We had biked up some mountains in Arkansas, and while Oklahoma has a reputation for being flat, and while there were no mountains to climb, most of the time while in the state we were met with intense headwinds and rolling hills — up and down on the road while getting blasted by the wind at our faces. On the last day in Oklahoma, we biked over a hundred miles and all the way across the state’s panhandle, the wind in our mouths, wide open terrain on all sides of us — nothing to shield the wind. When we finally reached Clayton, New Mexico, at nightfall at the end of this exhausting day, I remember we all exhaled that we had reached the end of Oklahoma. The wind seemed to stop immediately, as well.

New Mexico brought education about the Navajo population — we biked through Shiprock, New Mexico, through the Navajo reservation and then continued into Arizona. New Mexico and Arizona brought breath taking, open and desert like landscapes.

We hit California at the San Bernardino township line, and then, if I remember correctly, had about four days of biking until Santa Monica.

The last day, leaving from Victorville, I don’t think any of us, except our leaders, really knew how the day would unfold. We knew it would be long day, but were not aware it would be the most physically demanding day of the six week excursion. There was a lot on the line too — a good handful of us had been told to book our flights home for the very next morning. (After six weeks of grueling biking, we would be sent home quickly and abruptly). There were no more buffer days left — the last destination was Santa Monica, no matter what hour it was when we got in.

This final day I can recite from memory and I think I remember it pretty well even though it was a long time ago. We left Victorville early, maybe eight am or so, and immediately began climbing into the mountains. Victorville is at 2726 feet, and we climbed for a good amount of the day, first through dry, desert vegetated landscape. From what I remember, we ascended, for hours, into the mountains. As we got higher, the vegetation changed — the trees became greener and it didn’t seem as dry.

For the duration of the trip, the group was told to remain as close together as possible. There were a few bikers that were maybe stronger who liked to bike near the front, but we were not supposed to get ahead of the leader at the front of the group (there was a leader in the front and one in the back). I was usually in the middle of the group — I never felt the need to bike near the front.

On the last day, the group became very spread out — at one point, as I was pushing uphill, I spotted one of the faster riders in the group way ahead and above me, high above on the road — I spotted him from way below spiraling upwards on a zigzagging road along the side of the mountain. The road weaved through the trees higher and higher up.

After a few hours of biking, we reached “Dawson’s Saddle,” which seemed to be a peak of sorts — we thought we maybe had completed the climbing for the day. Dawson’s Saddle, according to a sign there, was at about 7000 feet. I only know we reached this specific place on the mountain range because of a photo I found in our old FaceBook group. But we did not go down immediately, even though we would we be at sea level by the end of the day.

I don’t think we ascended much higher, but we did not descend for a long while. We biked along the ridge line of the the mountains for awhile — it seemed like hours or going down slightly, and then up again. The afternoon dragged on. Eventually, we started going down.

Maybe around 6pm, it seemed we had finally emerged from the mountains, and we stopped as a collective group. Our leader halted and pointed out what was below us — below a thin sheet of haze, there was a skyline of buildings. The city of Los Angeles lay beneath us. Beyond it — the ocean. After six weeks of biking, our trip was coming to an end — crazily. The goal of getting to the Pacific Ocean was not just in focus, but about to be tangible.

While the first half of this last day was characterized by intense climbing into and out of the mountains — this last part would be defined by biking alongside busy rush-hour Los Angeles traffic. It was now probably five or six o’clock — the mountains had eaten our day away. Now, we were biking along urban sprawl. People speeding alongside in their cars while disgusting bikers with weeks worth of shit on the back of their bikes inched closer and closer to the coastline. I remember stopping alongside a busy, traffic filled Los Angeles street, while someone in the group needed to get a flat tire fixed (we fixed flat tires on the road ourselves). (We all learned a good amount about bike maintenance during the trip. At one section, in New Mexico, it seemed that someone was dealing with one flat tire after another. The flats were endless during this one part of the trip and we all learned how to quickly and effectively fix a flat tire ourselves).

After more hours trekking through Los Angeles, it was late when we finally made it to the neighborhood of Santa Monica — and dark. It was about 9pm I think when we got there — we had been biking for 12 hours. There was maybe only one other time during the trip where had biked in the dark, on that last day in Oklahoma.

About a block from the beach, the familiar sea salt breeze wafted up onto us. We had been in the middle of America for so long and had talked so much about Santa Monica, like it was some fairy tale place. Now, it was imminent — it was upon us. It was no longer a goal. It was actually here.

At a stoplight, about a block from the beach, tourists walked alongside us — they probably had no idea who these bikers were and what we had been through. One of the other people in the group turned around to me while we were stopped — “loosen your quick release, we’re about to be by the ocean.” The quick release is the piece of the bike which keeps the wheels attached to the frame of the bike. When it’s released, the wheel is able to disconnect easily. He was preparing to dip his front wheel in the ocean.

We were waiting for a traffic light to turn green, and when it did, we turned onto Ocean Avenue, the street closest to the ocean. We took another right turn, and headed onto the wooden Santa Monica pier, dodging tourists in the summer evening, our bikes, weighed down with all of our crap, thumping against the wooden boardwalk, bouncing up to the apex of the pier, the entryway of it.

We reached the top of this initial part of the pier, then looked downwards and began moving onto the main area of the pier.

As we moved downwards, we could now see a large banner being held by people. It said “Overland” and the “American Challenge,” (the name of our trip), and a group of people cheering. My awesome parents were surprisingly there too — they had decided to meet us here in California along with a few other sets of parents.

We biked though the banner which was outstretched before us, and threw our bikes down, embracing. I said hi to my parents, but our priority was dipping our front wheels into the ocean. We wrestled the front wheels of our bikes from the frames, and scrambled down to the pier, and dipped our wheels in the ocean.

Then, we took a few photos in the dark, left the beach, celebrated, had a nice dinner, and then ten hours later flew home. I think the immediately flying home in the morning made it seem like the trip was something that never happened, something fleeting. We never really had anytime to process it together!

But we won’t ever forget it, I’m sure.

I have been back to the Santa Monica Pier a few times since the bike trip, and every time I’m there, I think about this unbelievable trip that I never really talk about anymore. Being at the pier really brings back memories of pushing myself both physically and mentally during the trip. If anyone ever asks about it, I’ll forward them to this blog post.