Many celebrities call Calabasas home, which makes it attractive but odd. Stars like the Kardashians, Lady Gaga, Will Smith and Britney Spears all live here and the trappings of exclusivity and wealth are everywhere. Porsches and Ferraris are common, as are horse ranches.  In nearby Malibu, the shopping plaza featured brands and boutiques we never see in our downmarket world. Most strange to my eyes are the gated communities, beautiful hilltop fortresses (and I even saw one subdivision with a moat) that keep people and their prized possessions safe.

About the bonking – past readers will know the term as being bottle-empty-lights-out calorifically depleted. Happened to me today. We headed away from the mountains for a change and rode the pleasantly flat-to-rolling terrain near the Reagan Presidential Library. However, one wrong turn took us hard, fast and long into a valley from which the only escape was to point our bikes back uphill for hard, slow and long climb. I pedalled the proverbial squares, and was a broken reed thereafter.

And then my guys dropped me. And then I got a bit lost. After an extra-unnecessary loop I rejoined the group. And then I bonked, head drooping, and tunnel vision to end my five hours in the saddle. But it was ok because I rolled right up to the Jack-in-the-Box across from our hotel and ordered a 1500-calorie nutritional crime, filled a bucket-sized cup with Dr. Pepper, root beer and two flavours of Fanta, and downed it all in five minutes.