Team Midnight Ridazz News

Welcome to Team Midnight Ridazz

noreply@blogger.com (indigis) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:38:00 +0000

Team Midnight Ridazz is ramping up for our third go at AIDS Lifecycle 9. Ride begins May 31st and runs for a week as we join thousands of others biking from SF to LA.

All of our rides are No Rida Left Behind. If you want to play with Ridazz while becoming a stronger, more experienced rider this is the way. You don't need to commit to the ALC ride. You just need to commit to having fun!

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN - sat may 9 2009!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:42:00 +0000

Team Midnight Ridazz is having an awesome art/food/bike event on May 9th, 2009! Come on down!

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

Images from the LA BIKE SCENE

Date: Saturday, May 9, 2009
Time: 7:30pm - 11:30pm
Location: The Bike Oven / Flying Pigeon L.A.
Street: 3706-3714 N. Figueroa
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA

Come out and check out the fabulous photography and art produced in LA's bike culture. Select pieces will be available in exchange for donations. Amazing art by some of Los Angeles' most talented underground photographers will be available for your enjoyment and acquisition!

All proceeds go to sponsor Team Midnight Ridazz, who in this year's AIDS/LifeCycle are riding 545 miles (from San Francisco to LA) to fight HIV! Come on out and support, this is a great cause.

Vegan catering will be by DOOMIE'S Home Cookin' - that's right, LA's famous vegan comfort food master will be doing his thing right here.

The Bike Oven's Spoke'n Art Ride will be finishing up at Pics Or It Didn't Happen on this night. Check that out for even more galleries to visit on your bike, and there's even a ride over from the westside.

Tell your friends who are into photography, art, bikes or vegan noms! Spread the word on Facebook or check out the listing on Midnight Ridazz.

Get Your I BIKE LA tees this weekend!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Team Midnight Ridazz will be all over Los Angeles this weekend to make sure you can get your fabulous I BIKE LA t-shirts. We'll be at The Ride With No Name on Friday night, and CRANK MOB, The ALC Day On The Ride, and the Palms Cycle BBQ on Saturday, so come see us and come get one!

Each one comes with a spiffy matching spoke card with which to adorn your bicycle and our sincerest thanks for your sponsoring us!

There's just six weeks left until we ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of AIDS/LifeCycle 8, and we still have a lot of fundraising to do.

These look and feel great and have special AIDS-fighting powers - each one you buy directly goes to helping those in need as well as prevention and information services at the forefront of the fight against the HIV epidemic.

2009 official I BIKE LA tees!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:27:00 +0000

Team Midnight Ridazz is producing wearables for your bod. And they're delicious. They're the all new 2009 Official I BIKE LA shirts.

Ain't that awesome? They're just $20 and come in sizes S to XL and any color you like as long as it's black. Each one comes with a fancy limited edition laminated spoke card telling you how awesome you are for joining in the good fight.

ALL PROCEEDS go to the fight against HIV/AIDS via AIDS/LifeCycle via Team Midnight Ridazz.

Tell your friends! They're available starting this weekend. The team will be exchanging shirts for HIV-fightin' dollars at the Long Beach Bike Expo, San Diego Custom Bicycle Show and Prix Body Adornment in West Hollywood for the Ink-N-Ride Tattoo and Bikes FUNdrazor.

Yeah. It's getting crazy up in here. I'll have these around for sale for the next two months or until they run out! Ping us if you want one or know someone who does.

ALC8 Training Kickoff Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:53:00 +0000

We had a great turnout for Team Midnight Ridazz at the AIDS/LifeCycle 9 Training Kickoff Rides at Griffith Park on Saturday. All told, about 20 folks consisting of previous team members, new signups, riders curious about joining us, and supporters, came out to ride in addition to all the other teams and individuals.

It was great to see so many familiar faces again and to have three folks convinced after their ride to register to do ALC with our team. We also had numerous folks who are interested in coming on our training rides and making up their minds later, which is also great.

Some of us did the Category 2 ride which was a 20 mile double loop with a short climb in the middle, and some of us did the challenging 35 mile climb of La Tuna Canyon. The purpose of the Category to ride is to extend casual riders into going maybe a little further than they've gone before.

We'll be hosting many more training rides in the upcoming months in preparation for that 545 mile ride in June next year. If you would like to come along and try it out and see what we're about, keep your eyes peeled to this blog - we'll post all the rides we are organizing here and on the midnightridazz social rides site.

Photos by Mike (seen registering here!)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:41:00 +0000

ALC 8 Kickoff Training Ride!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:32:00 +0000

That's right, we're doing it again! After a successful ALC 7 Ride in June 2008 from San Francisco to Los Angeles where we raised over $55,000 to help fight HIV, Team Midnight Ridazz is reforming to do it again in 2009!

We'll be at the Griffith Park Training Ride Kickoff on Saturday, October 25, 2008, and invite you to join us to get a taste of the ALC experience.

Maybe you'll want to join the team after this! The kickoff is a great place to register for the ALC because you get $20 off the registration cost which is usually $75 (but of course if you just want to ride with us, that's totally free).

Come on out and support! See the training calendar for more details about Saturday's ride.

Dark Century III

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Ah, the epic insanity that was Dark Century 3. Certain memories from our journey come to mind. Like pedaling through a flooded underpass tunnel with water so deep my feet had to go completely underwater to continue pedaling. If the biking endlessly in the rain hadn't made your feet wet yet, that sure did. Singing songs in a half delusional state of mind. The god send that is 7 Eleven, even if they had the worst croissant I've ever had in my life. Seeing a bat take shelter with us under a bridge as we took a breather.

The Dark Century always attracts a certain detected few in the cycling community, but last night especially brought out only select mentally deranged individuals, of which I am included.

Meghan from our team completed the ride with me as well, as her first century. Less then ideal conditions for a first time, but she hung in there. Also out there was Mark, who rode strong all night. I'm sure riding with the Wolfpack helped, and he was on his sweet new Bianchi. Randy started the ride, and went for a good stretch, but was having trouble and took the blue line home. It was an absolutely crazy night, and bailing was probably the smarter thing to do. It was an honor to be in such good company with everyone there, on the most enjoyably miserable bike ride ever. Dark Century forever.

-Gary

Trailz to Traxx: Training Ride for 2/10/08

noreply@blogger.com (Someone) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:03:00 +0000

After our ride was botched due to a freak rainstorm last week, we decided to head out of Venice early on a Sunday morning to tackle Mandeville Canyon, tour the upcoming route of the Expo Line, ride down Ballona Creek and re-visit the cherished "Moustache-To-Pass" bridge.

Unfortunately, Ben couldn't join us, as he had just suffered a rather gnarly accident, possibly tearing his ACL. (We're hoping you didn't!) He'd actually designed the route, so we felt a bit weary riding a route that we were so unfamiliar with. But it's good to throw caution to the wind, right?

We left just after nine AM and headed up Ocean Ave towards San Vicente. As expected, the weekend warriors, the casual riders, the commuters, and the families were out in full force. We got passed at one point by a guy on a road bike with weights around his ankles. I'm sure it was probably bad for his knees, but the dude was pedaling with a solid pace, so whatever. Without the weights, he could probably destroy me.

We headed east on San Vicente, which was packed with riders and runners. It was all steady riding at this point of the ride, warming up for the inevitable 5 mile climb up Mandeville Canyon. I hadn't ridden over 3-4 miles uphill before, so, needless to say, the task seemed daunting. I'd heard the climb really wasn't that bad until the end, anyway.

We hiked a quick left on 26th, which turned into Allenford, and turned east on Sunset Blvd. After a couple blocks, we turned left onto Mandeville Canyon. We waited up for Danny and newcomer John, who will be joining our team shortly.

Richard and I took off from the pack at a steady pace for the first couple miles. (It must be noted that Richard rode his fixed gear bike the entire distance.) While it certainly was a long hill, it really wasn't as bad as I expected; the incline was fairly gradual. It didn't help, however, that cyclists would rush down the opposing lane and whiz by. It only made me feel slower.

I lead for the first half of the climb, and then Richard passed me and lead until the very end. And they were right: the end of the hill is the worst. After 4 miles of climbing, you're tired, out of breath, sweating in your eyes, and wondering why anyone would ever pave a road like this. You're wondering why people would build houses so far up a mountain. You wonder why people, much like myself, would try to conquer a hill of such length on a bicycle.

As the incline began to sharpen and I was sick and tired of this annoying hill, I rounded the last corner to see the green gate at the end of the road. About 8 other riders were taking a break and I decided that I needed to touch the gate immediately. I had just switched to my lowest gear and sprinted the final hundred years. (Note: My "sprint" was rather pathetic, but man. That last bit is so steep.)

Richard and I rested at the top until the second group of riders arrived: Liz, Drew, Kim, and Chris. (Another note: Chris actually rode up Mandeville looking for us, thinking we'd left earlier. When he didn't find us, he rode all the way back down, spotted the second group, and then rode all the way back to the top. Jesus.)

We stayed up at the top to fix Liz's flat that she got while her bike just sat there. (Those are seriously the worst flats, but at least she didn't get it while riding.) The ride down the hill was probably my favorite downhill section in Southern California. (Right behind bombing down La Tuna Canyon.) Chris and I raced a guy on a bike that was worth more than his and mine combined. Chris is a quick dude and if the douchebag in the Jeep hadn't pulled out in front of me without looking, I probably would have been able to keep up.

The gap between riders was much smaller this time around, so we retraced our steps back to 26th and San Vicente. We headed down 26th to Olympic; our goal was to tour the area where the new Metro Expo line was being built. However, after missing a turn (that wasn't signed!!!), we quickly became lost.

I mean that in a relative sense. We knew where we were, but the route became a jumbled mess that had also begun to run from being in a pocket full of sweat. (It was hot out! Don't blame me!)

So we improvised. Centinela down to the Ballona Creek path, out to the Moustache Bridge, and then back through the Venice Canals to Ben's house. It was hot. It was windy. And when we finally sat down for Mexican food at La Cabana's, we were tired.

Total distance: 33.24 miles. About 2 hours riding time.

Hollywood 101

formerme@gmail.com (Bovine Apocalypse) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:06:00 +0000

Sunday Ridazz!

If traversing steep, rock riddled, rain soaked roads is your thing, you should have ventured out for the ride on Sunday.

Danny took us for a nice hilly romp through some Hollywood suburb that didn't even look like California. At one point, we entered what looked like a Berg, complete with a Medieval tower.

Plenty of hijinks, downhills, and various forms of not knowing where we were at times. The shenanigans ended up at Cafe 101. Tastiness ensued.

Come on out for a Sunday ride!

R

METRIXXXXXXXXXX

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:30:00 +0000

[Midnight Ridazz Posting]

Our first group training of our own organizing was held in December. A flat moderate terrain ride, but over 100km(62 miles) in length. This being the furtherest distance ridden for several of our riders.

We held the ride twice, once to scout and then a second time with more advertising. It was gorgeous weather both times, with the post rain trickle of water glistening down the LA river. Thanks to everyone who helped scout this one with me, and that suggestion to go down the floral district in downtown was a really pleasant way to cut through the city, thanks Johanna.

teammidnightridazz.com is alive

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:31:00 +0000

We are up and running. teammidnightridazz.com is the official site name and the blog is published to teammidnightridazz.com/news. I just put up some basic under-construction signs for the rest of it as a skeleton for stuff we might need. Yay! More to come.