Yesterday I rode 100 miles on my bicycle, a concept that is still kind of mind blowing to me as even the thought of driving 100 miles fills me with exhaustion. From my Palm Springs Century post it’s clear though that 100 miles isn’t some monolithic suffer fest like you would imagine cycling 100 miles at a gym is. It really becomes a series of adventures, compromises, and improvisations. I think it’s that excitement that keeps the ride feeling fresh and vital the whole way through. This time I wont exhaustively cover the music through the ride because even though I was listening to some, since I was cycling through Los Angeles my mind was distracted by the sights of the city, and by trying to stay alive despite some drivers’ insistence otherwise.

The century ride started as a great romp up the all the strand beaches and since I was riding mostly solo I could stop and take in views but more importantly stop for donuts. I had a deadline of 11 am to get to the arts district so I cut across Santa Monica, down the exposition bike path which runs parallel to the expo line, and finally down Venice boulevard straight into downtown. Just barely made it on time since I can’t play fast and loose with the traffic lights while riding alone, the ones in downtown especially took foooorever. Made it to Detroit Vesey’s (an awesome new cycling cafe at the arts district) just barely in time for the Heavy Pedal group ride that was rolling out.

They had posted the route in the weeks previous and it was going to be a ride up Elysian Park as an appetizer climb before hitting Griffith Park and climbing up to the observatory and back to the cafe for a raffle. What I didn’t know was that they had made the decision to do the route in reverse and hit Griffith first and I didn’t realize it until about 20 minutes in. Thankfully I made the start of the ride or I would have been severely lost, but Daniel was trying to catch up with us and I voice texted him the change in route lest he be lost forever too. He eventually caught with us up the climb to Griffith which I was impressed by because I would have given up and gone back. The group ride wasn’t slow either, I was struggling to keep up on the flats and once we hit the observatory climb I abandoned all hope of staying with the group. I went at a snail’s pace, I think the previous 60 miles, the heat, and the extra effort I had just made brought my energy levels way down.

Eventually Daniel who had long since caught and passed me told me that the group was waiting, and I did put in some extra effort because I didn’t want to be THAT guy who held everyone up even though I totally did anyways. I was the last person to get to the top and the group rolled out to take a photo in front of the Hollywood sign. Since it was hot and the group (me) was lagging it they decided to just ride straight back to the cafe which was a blessing since I wasn’t looking forward to the second climb.

Back at the restaurant we hade some delicious latkes, coffees, cookies, and I even had a mocktail that scratched that itch for a refreshing mid-ride drink. I ended up winning two prize bags in the raffle easily worth over $150 and I only bought $40 worth of tickets so it was money well spent. Finally it was time to head home for the last 24 miles of my century.

I took it real easy on the LA river path going back to Long Beach since the pains of a century had begun to set in: saddle soreness, back pain, toe pain (this one is the bottleneck for me right now, can get painful enough that I have to stop and take off the shoes for a bit sometimes). I realized as I got closer to home that I was going to fall 2 miles short of 100 since I didn’t do the climb up Elysian. Part of me didn’t care and wanted it to be over, the other part of me wanted to finish what I fucking started. The latter me won and I flew past the exit to my home and down to the beach path for some bonus miles. What I totally forgot was that the shoreline area had been inundated by tourists going to the Grand Prix, and an entire swath of the path was closed to foot and bicycle traffic. I got to a chain link fence and was told I needed to go back the way I came. Instead of going all the way back up to river path to the previous exit I rode up the wrong way on the Queens Way Bridge then flipped a U turn back into downtown and finally, mercifully back home.

I had a tight timeline since I was trying to make a concert at 7pm. Except as I found out when I got there the concert was actually at 8 pm. So I went to get a coffee and wait. I was watching Big Band of Brothers, a big band tribute to the Allman Brothers Band which sounds crazy but inevitably makes perfect sense. I sat in the theatre and watched this 13 piece band rip through some ABB classics with saxophone, trumpet, and trombone solos standing in for Dickey Betts and Duane Allman. The 100 miles still felt fresh and my legs were feeling a dull throbbing pain, I should have been home resting, but I absolutely wanted to see this band. This milieu I was in had me reflecting on the nature of Jazz. I was an Allman Brothers fan long before I was a jazz fan but now it seems inevitable that I would come around to it. The Allman Brothers band live was an amazing experience, the songs are never played the same way. You have all these musicians on stage who play off each other, off the energy in the room that night, or just trying something new that day. This southern classic rock jam band is really just a jazz band. I read a description of a 30 minute version of Whipping Post once where the band had shifted past the first couple verse and choruses and into a primordial ooze of instrumentation, a space where the band was still playing but where direction the song could go in was infinite, it was the nameless miasma before the universe is created. Then suddenly there’s a big bang and the song takes real shape again with every musician suddenly knowing exactly what their role in this new world is. That’s fucking jazz! So it’s inevitable that I would one day grow to love it, and also inevitable the Allman Brothers would be transcribed so well into it.

This form of improvisation is what sets this genre apart from every other music on the planet, what’s more it’s uniquely American. To me jazz shows are electric, energetic, and always unique. Something which unfortunately is not true for all the concerts I go to, thinking of Slayer and Megadeth who play through their songs with precision and clockwork just as they are on the albums, but it’s okay I love them for other reasons I’m sure I’ll get to on here some day.

This interplay between conflict, resolution, solos, improvisation, payoff: it was just like my ride that day. This dance between obstacles, setbacks, shortcuts, serendipitous rewards: that’s fucking Jazz! It’s alive and ever changing, exciting and new every time, no matter how many miles I ride.