🐼 Panda

I met Panda, as most people did: while riding a bicycle. I learned of his passing the same way.

John “Panda” Hermoso was an amazing, charismatic, and loving human. This story is about his love for cycling and the lives he impacted through the sport.

To many people’s surprise, Los Angeles is home to an incredibly vibrant cycling culture. Any day of the week, you’ll find pelotons racing circuit laps around LAX or the Rose Bowl, group rides climbing the hills of Griffith, Hollywood, and Malibu, or hundreds of people boisterously riding through the streets of downtown at midnight, soaking in each others’ two-wheeled company, on their way to the next 🔥 taco stand.

During a routine Tuesday ride (the one where we race laps around LAX), a friend turned to me and asked, “Are you going to Ponies tomorrow?”

“What’s Ponies?” - I replied.

“Oh, it’s great - it’s an early east side ride in Griffith. Show up at the pony stables at 6:30; be ready to climb”.

I had to have this conversation five times before my pony curiosity peaked, and I made the trek across Los Angeles at 5:45 in the morning to meet at these so-called “pony stables.” In retrospect, this sounds much more like a drug deal than a bike ride.

Luckily, my friends weren’t lying to me. When I arrived at 4400 Crystal Springs Drive, I was happily surprised to find an alarming number of cycles crowded into a parking lot in Griffith park. Also, to my surprise, there were actual pony stables.

I circled the lot, looking for my few friends that were there. Before I could get to them, a large man at the group’s center hailed everyone’s attention.

“Alright! If you haven’t been here before, welcome to Ponies; thanks for coming out. Standard route this week. We’ve got some fog, so the roads could be wet. Please be careful around the turns. See y’all at the top!”