Los Angeles Invitational

The Los Angeles Invitational is an annual event hosted by our friends (and Sklar Bikes Authorized Dealer) The Cub House. The Cub House is a bike and succulent store in beautiful San Marino, Los Angeles County, CA. After hearing about this event for years, Nick and I decided to load up the truck and head south to see what it's all about.

My genuine curiosity about bike scenes in different locations has been a big part of the Sklar Bikes journey. It is so fun to see how people connect over these machines in different places, how local riding affects the way everyone builds up their bikes, and which social scenes cluster around these different styles. When we showed up to the start of the Saturday ride I was immediately impressed with what a diverse scene it was. There were spandex’d up roadies, kitted-out mountain bikers, basket bike kooks, and everyone in between. I personally take part in all of these disciplines and often feel like I can’t do them all at once, so it was really cool to see everyone hanging out together in one place. What a sweet scene. So many metal bikes too!

The ride rolled out through some suburban LA neighborhoods, winding tree-lined streets with beautiful homes all around. LA really does have some nice architecture. We passed through a gate and hit our first dirt climb before descending a super fun and windy singletrack. It was fun to see different groups rounding corners three drainages away. Up in the hills, city stuff below. The next climb was a big one and it was heating up, allegedly 107ºF! We all sweated together, stopping to recover in the small occasional patches of shade before a big ripping descent down to the Fabrica de Rojas aid station. I headed back on the road from there for the double scoop route. I don’t do great in the heat.

The next morning was the bike and car show and also a bike swap. The Cub House had shut down the street and cool classic cars lined up. Folks entered their bikes in the bike show and there were some really cool ones on display. I particularly liked a klunker with square chainstays. 

We roamed around and chatted it up with tons of friends, new and old. I got to meet lots of Sklar customers like Ken on his Tall Tale, Riley who was riding a custom-built frame made many years ago, Tony who has a sweet blue SuperSomething, and a rider out on their new Titanium SuperSomething! It's really fun to meet Sklar customers in person.

Thanks to Sean, Carla, Danny, and all the Cub House folks for hosting us! See you next year.