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The last car drove by and all that remained was true silence. It was beautiful.

I was standing on the side of Topanga, stretching my calves before starting up the "S-Curves": two miles of switchbacks averaging a seven-percent grade. I learned of the S-Curves back in high school, when my fellow students would boast about how smashed they were while flying down the S-Curves on Topanga. Ever since then I'd had a deep anxiety about traveling on Topanga, even though I did it all the time.

When a friend of mine first mentioned riding Topanga, I harkened back to high school stories and thought he was nuts. A year-and-a-half and 7,000 miles later, however, and Topanga had become one of my favorite rides. Tough but doable climbing. Beautiful scenery. And the occasional silence, the likes of which would normally force one to travel deep into the Santa Monica mountains to find.

But that last car had passed and there I was, leaning against the top tube of my bike, stretching my left calf, listening to a quiet breeze snaking through the dry brush in the hills surrounding me.

I was stretching as a precaution. A few days earlier I'd had a great, if not short, ride through the Pacific Palisades on Sunset Boulevard. At one point Sunset had been torn up for repaving so I took a detour through Rustic Canyon (my stomping grounds as a teenager). I actually sought out a hillier route: through the canyon, Upper Mesa to Amalfi, Amalfi to Napoli, Napoli back to Sunset. I could have gone down Mesa instead of up, and had one easy climb to get to San Vicente and home. But I looked forward to the hard road, to attacking the hills on Upper Mesa, Napoli and Sunset.

I hadn't had that mentality for months. It was like that first kiss after being welcomed back into a relationship by the person who dumped you.

As soon as I started pedaling I turned a sharp curve and was staring headlong at the S-Curves.

You remember the feeling as if it never left, even though at times you wondered if you would ever feel it again.

I was feeling it again for sure. Getting my legs back. The stretching was because I was intent on going strong on the S-Curves. I'd felt a little tightness in my upper quad and didn't want to cramp (a problem that's plagued me off and on all my life). After counting to 30 on my left calf, I walked my bike back out to the edge of the road, waited for a break in the cars and started pedaling again.

The stretching worked wonders because all the tightness was gone. As soon as I started pedaling I turned a sharp curve and was staring headlong at the S-Curves. I took a swig of Cytomax and threw down the gauntlet. I kept my cadence going strong through the first couple curves. Then the steepness of the climb caught up with me. My heart rate reached 181. I came around another switchback and the road turned even steeper. My heart rate shot to 186.

According to a few cardio-pulmonary stress tests I'd done recently, I was definitely going anaerobic by that point. But I felt surprisingly good. Didn't need to stand, didn't need to let up. And soon enough I was past the S-Curves and rolling through Topanga proper.

The rest of Topanga is a steady climb for about 10 miles, with a few steep turns thrown in for laughs. When you reach the top of the last, steep pitch you immediately start down a fabulous descent. Steep enough to get some speed, and the switchbacks are mild enough that you can keep that speed. It's something to look forward to while you're suffering on the way up.

At the bottom of Topanga I hung a right at Dumetz and took a network of residential roads back to Sepulveda. The roads were rough and the terrain was rolling, with a few steep points. By the time I got to Sepulveda my legs were pretty tired. I hadn't gone very far — just over 30 miles — but the climbing had taken its toll.

About halfway up Sepulveda it started getting steep. I slowed down a bit and just huffed my way along.

For some reason, though, after he passed me I started pedaling harder. It wasn't intentional, and it wasn't substantial.

I was thinking that the hard part of the ride was yet to come, and I was wondering how I would do now that I was tiring a little.

That's when, for no apparent reason, I looked behind me. And sure enough, about 40 meters down the road, I saw another roadie crawling his way toward me. I moved over to the right a little and kept my same pace, content with letting him pass me.

We cranked some more and eventually he passed me. I didn't feel too bad. He was extremely fit. His cadence was quick. His form was immaculate.

For some reason, though, after he passed me I started pedaling harder. It wasn't intentional, and it wasn't substantial. But after he got about 15 meters ahead of me I'd accelerated enough to stop him from pulling farther away. My heart rate had shot from the lower 160s to the upper 170s and, again, I was feeling ok. I didn't even feel tired anymore. I hammered harder and started closing the gap, which was now less than 10 meters. My heart rate continued to climb as well, and was now in the 180s and still rising.

Five meters. Now I had a decision to make. Should I pass him? Should I be one of those poseurs who gets passed, then goes balls-out to catch the person who passed him? No. I only wanted to get close enough to know that I'd stayed with him.

Four meters. Three. I changed my mind. This was no longer about him. I wanted to push myself harder than I'd pushed the entire ride. Harder than I'd pushed in months. I wanted the pain, the suffering. I wanted a map to the stars (which is what you see when you're redlining).

I made my move and nudged left, riding just outside the white line separating the shoulder from the right lane of traffic. The pass seemed to take forever. Our eyes met, after he did a double-take. I'd seen this look before. I just nodded and kept hammering. I cleared his front tire then moved back onto the shoulder, directly in front of him.

My heart was now beating at 191 beats per minute, and we still had about a quarter-mile to go before reaching the tunnel, the crest of Sepulveda. I couldn't slow down. Not after I'd just passed him. That would make my vain antics too transparent. My heart rate reached 192, 193. My eyes darted back and forth between my cyclometer and the road ahead, longing to make the last turn and see the tunnel in the distance. It couldn't come fast enough.

I glanced behind me and he was still there. He'd grabbed my wheel and let me pace him to the top of the hill. Fine by me, as long as he didn't pass me again. 192. 193. 192. 191. 193. The last switchback. Yes. The tunnel in the distance. Yes. I glanced behind me again. Still there? Yes. 192. 193. The tunnel. Yes. Here? Yes. It swallowed me up. My eyes had trouble adjusting to the sudden darkness. Ahead was the bright, blurry glow at the opposite end of the tunnel, but everything else was pure black. Except for the stars that were punctuating my periphery.

Almost all the way through and the road turned down. My legs thanked me, but I didn't listen. Instead I just kept hammering, gathering speed to fly down the other side of Sepulveda. The home stretch.

The roadie and I raced down together, taking turns pulling, conversing at red lights. He barely acknowledged me the first time he passed, but now we were riding as if we'd been riding together for years.

We rolled into Brentwood together. I peeled off at Gorham and cruised home. I coasted into my carport, got off my bike and sat down on the stairs, enjoying the sun and draining the last few drops of Cytomax out of my bottle.

Yes, I was feeling it again.

End.