Pumpkin spice latte
November 25, 2016 § 10 Comments
This is the time of year when seasonal specials abound. There’s the ol’ favorite of pumpkin spice latte (what is it, actually?), and of course Black Friday that is now Cyber Monday that is really just Business As Usual.
But the best seasonal special out there really is limited edition. It happens four, maybe five times a year beginning in November.
It’s free.
You have to pick it up in person.
It really hurts.
And it tastes like vomit.
This of course is the world-renowned Dogtown Ride, a pleasant little 60-mile jaunt beginning in Santa Monica, doing a few nasty upchuck-inducing rides, then hammering on PCH, then climbing some more, then climbing a bit more, then finishing it all with climbing a bit more and some hammering on the flats until you get back to your car or your home or the intensive care unit.
The ride goes off on Saturday at 8:00 AM at Dogtown Coffee, and I make it a point to always be busy that time of year. There are some seasonal specials that you really can have too much of.
The idea of a seasonal ride is actually an amazingly great one. Too often people start up a ride which is perfect for a particular time of year, but then the ride fizzles out because what works in November doesn’t always work in March. Then the ride is buried in a graveside service that no one attends, and years later people fondly reminisce about “Ol’ Leggs Ripperoffer that did 10,000-feet of climbing in the first hundred yards.”
Since doing a ride week in and week out, or month in and month out, is impossibly hard on real work-life schedules, doing it for a few weekends in the Fall is perfect.
The Dogtown Ride, although impossibly, miserably hard, features re-groups, a welcoming vibe despite the tag line of #nokooks, and awesomely delicious coffee at one of Santa Monica’s best roasters. Just make sure you don’t have anything planned for the rest of the day that requires you to use your legs.
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Cycling in the South Bay 
I went on the LaGrange “social” ride to PV yesterday and got dropped on Vista Del Mar. 1. This is why I don’t race. 2. I still made it to Catalina Coffee (actually beat the group who stopped for a pee) and got a bagel and coffee 3. I would get dropped so fast on Dogtown I might as well just make a date to meet you there for coffee. Hey…..
Date time!!!!
Is this the same ride that a few decades ago was named the Death Ride?
I don’t know. Everyone from the Death Ride died.
Tomorrow is the 32nd edition of The Dirty Dozen ride around the best gnarliest steepest Pittsburgh hills. The founder, Danny Chew, crashed this summer past and is now paralyzed, but the ride goes on and is now a fund raiser ride
Wow …
Does the Simi ride still happen? That was a pretty popular one at one time.
Yes.
If I hear one more Pumpkin Spice anything I will go Postal with my now Trump legal AK47. Fortunately for me I am a Kook, so no Dogtown rides. I would get dropped on the way out of Venice.
Pumpkin spice toupees.