The buzz stop

Whizzing, crouching blurs of saturated color stream into the core of an awakening Redondo Beach. South Bay Wheelmen (which include women) sporting red-, yellow- and black-striped jerseys; the LaGrange Bicycle Club in blue; and the Triathlete Zombies in blue and white head to Catalina Street, where they emit a vibrato screech of rubber-meets-metal and come to a halt. Scores of the area’s fastest two-wheeled road jockeys have just pedaled their weekly 40-mile “doughnut ride” around the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Now comes mocha time.

Although team cyclists are by definition social animals, observing their interactions -- not to mention deciphering all the PowerBar, Clarion and local sports medicine clinic sponsor logos splattered across their torsos -- is difficult because, you know, they’re always moving. Not so on Saturday (and, to a lesser extent, Sunday) mornings at the Catalina Coffee Company.

From 9 to 11 a.m. as many as 100 aluminum frames by Ben Lomond, Alchemy, Cannondale and Fuji lean three, four deep against the patio fence. Once their riders double-queue for a coffee and a restroom flush, they cluster alfresco, put their black Lycra-sheathed legs up and relax.

“The Catalina Coffee Company is the scene,” says Jean Walsh, a weekend Zombie and weekday bookkeeper-secretary from Westchester. “When it’s really cold, we don’t like to stop because then we have to go back out after we get all sweaty. But when it’s nice, you see a lot of people.” Walsh and her husband, John, a former Category 1 pro cyclist who owns a pool repair service, have been hanging here for six years, since back when the place was called Yesterday’s. The current owners, Ellen Brown and her son, Jeff Sallee, took over in 2002, changing the name and the decor, but the bike crowd never missed a coffee break. In two hours, the cafe’s staff churns out more than 150 brewed, steamed and iced beverages, serves up countless bagels, cinnamon buns and muffins and refills bikers’ water bottles as well.

As for the bookish set traditionally associated with cafes, no one seems to mind the 10-speed invasion. Well, not enough to make a fuss, anyway. “Don’t tell them,” says one non-riding regular, 35-year-old Cris Whetstone. “But the clatter of their bike shoes annoys me while I try to read.”

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-- Mark Ehrman