Christmas in June

After a 6 week wait I finally got the shiny new bike Sunday evening. I spent yesterday doing a lot of catch-up things (you can imagine there were a lot of those after spending 6 weeks in SoCal!) as well as setting the bike up. Today I spent more time with the bike changing out the rear cogset to a 10-28 and installing the aerobar and speedometers. Finally at 6PM I decided to take advantage of the long NW Oregon Summer days and take it out for a spin.

I ran it through all the gears, braked hard, cornered harder, and just generally took a good test ride. It's more responsive than my Marin both in acceleration and handling. Shifts are nice and crisp. I might just like it. ;-)

Today of course is the last day of June. I'm short on miles because I spent some time helping a friend. It was a good thing to do and the short miles shouldn't hurt me. When I did go for a ride they were generally good effort training rides.

July should be a good month, STP gives a good leg up on a high mileage month. The remodeling work is mostly done so if I do go back to SoCal I'm bringing the bike and will continue to ride regularly. The miles become more important as we get closer to October.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............32...............0.................32
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......543.....+.........0........=.......543
Year to date...4270.....+.........30.......=......4300
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Uncamping

Late Friday evening I started northward from San Diego back towards NW Oregon. Along the way I had two stops planned. The first stop was in Medford for a fire service meeting and the second was a stop at Silver Creek Falls State Park outside Silverton where I was to meet up with extended family for the tail end of a weekend campout.

Today one of my sisters drove my pickup back to Wilsonville leaving my brother-in-law Dave and I free to ride bike back. It was a beautiful day to bike, a brisk headwind, but blue sky and moderate temperatures, probably in the mid to upper 70's.

Total Gain: 2452 ft
Total Loss: 3580 ft
Net Change: -1128 ft

It was my second ride in a row with more downhill than up. Not a bad plan if you can make it work out!




+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............45...............0.................45
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......511.....+.........0........=.......511
Year to date...4238.....+.........30.......=......4268
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Insignificant

That's what riding in Death Valley makes you feel like. The landscape is so huge and awe inspiring that I couldn't help but feel insignificant, just a small footnote in the giant scheme of things.



My San Diego Tour Guide put on a support crew hat today. We left San Diego at 3:30 AM and headed north towards Trona,CA. At 8:30 AM I was straddling my bike at mile 200 of the Furnace Creek 508 route, on the edge of Panamint Valley, checking last minute details and looking straight ahead at the rather daunting looking Townes Pass in the very near distance. The temperature was 78. I said my goodbyes to the SD Tour Guide who headed off to do some hiking....
....and I began to pedal eastward towards the most fabled climb of the Furnace Creek 508.



I began pedaling with a light tailwind and was able to hold 18-19 mph even as the road began to tilt upward gently. My speed soon dropped as the gradient increased, at times to 13%. With the wind at my back I missed out on it's cooling effect. At times I was riding in a dead pocket of hot air. I settle into my lower gears and worked my way up the road. There weren't many cars, but those there were friendly and I guess appreciative of my effort. Most waved or gave a thumbs up. A startlingly different feeling than I get from most autos in the San Diego area.
I kept a reasonable pace on the climb, never dropping below 5 mph and was usually in the 5.2-6.3 range. I had my full "Rando load" on the bike, tubes, tire, food, water, repair kit, yada, yada, yada but the climb was tolerable. However, I kept reminding myself that today I began this climb with fresh legs, in October I'll be starting with 200 miles already completed...at endurance race pace. I was quite warm and gravitated towards the shadows cast by the high banks when they were available. Soon reached the summit (4956 ft)and began the 17 mile descent. What a fun roll! I held 40 mph or more for so long it almost became boring......almost! The last 5 miles or so the road began to flatten out with an average gradient of 4%. At that point I began to use my big gear (56-11) to keep the speed up. It was fun to just be turning pedals and flying.

I was doing my best to enjoy the scenery while at the same time keeping my attention on the road that was slipping by quickly under me. The SD Tour Guide was meeting me in Furnace Creek, 50 miles into the ride to resupply me with water. The Tour Guide came up behind me and passed at mile 38. The Tour Guide pulled to the side and handed me a chocolate bar and a fruit smoothie type thing before heading on to Furnace Creek. In short order I arrived at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center (-178 ft)and refilled water and took a very brief look around. The Tour Guide was going to take a more complete look then meet me at Badwater. The Tour Guide came up behind me again just as I reached Artist Drive. It was 107 degrees and I was pedaling against a stiff wind and going through a water bottle every 7-10 miles. I guess it would be fair to say that I probably looked like hell.
The Tour Guide was concerned for my health. I had ridden Townes Pass, my priority. I would have liked to have ridden Jubilee and Salsbury Passes and finish today's ride at Shoshone with 126 miles but I honestly wasn't looking forward to those climbs in these temperatures. It didn't take a lot of coercion on the Tour Guide's part to have me load my bike and become just a tourist. I pretty sure I could have ridden the exit passes. I was tired and hot but not broken. I was a little disappointed that I could not ride faster. I've been riding a lot of miles but only had a 13.7 mph average today. My work is cut out for me.

We did take a little drive through Artist's Drive then followed the Furnace Creek Route all the way to it's terminus in 29 Palms. It was nice to see the section of the route that I will be riding in the dark in October. It is stupendous country.

I ended up with 63 miles, just half of what I had hoped for, but enough to become the talk of the tourists. (did you see that crazy guy on a bike?)

We got back to San Diego at midnight, a long day but a good time.



Total Gain: 4910 ft
Total Loss: 6612 ft
Net Change: -1702 ft

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............63...............0.................63
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......466.....+.........0........=.......466
Year to date...4183.....+.........30.......=......4213
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Palomar!

(as per usual, you may click on any photo for a full sized version)

I took off at daylight and headed up the shoulder of Soledad Mt and over to La Jolla. Traffic was VERY light, as in nonexistent, on this early Sunday morning. I got to the trendy little town of La Jolla and took a picture of the coast before beginning the climb up Torrey Pines.


It was still a bit cool out so the descent from the top of Torrey Pines (40 mph!)down to Carmel Valley was a bit chilly. I continued up the coast through Del Mar, Solana Beach, and Encindas (where I stopped for a breakfast burrito at Angelo's!)


On the outskirts of Carlsbad I turned inland and before long began to see the hills that were a precursor to the challenge ahead.




There were dark clouds around but winds were light. As I got into the Escondido and Valley Center area it was raining lightly. It continued to rain lightly for about the next hour. Not a lot of rain, but enough to make the roads...and my shoes, wet.
About 5 miles past Escondido, and 50 miles into today's ride I rode past Lake Wohlford.


As I rode farther inland I began to pass citrus groves. Like most fruits and vegetables oranges taste best fresh from the tree! ;-)


The directional signs pointed to the fact that there were many Indian reservations in the area.


I also passed several casinos, but unlike Oregon these seemed unaffiliated with the tribes.

I was climbing steadily since leaving the coast, but began climbing in earnest as I turned up South Grade Rd. This steep and curvy road up Mt Palomar is a favorite of motorcyclists. It's amazing that I didn't see any crashes. I used to ride motorcycle, am familiar with what they can do, and probably have pushed them to their limit a time or two in my younger days.........but these guys (and a few gals!) where scaring the bejezus out of me. I'm not sure why CHP doesn't patrol this section. Seems a few cops up there could more than pay their way with the tickets they could write. Crossing double yellow lines, speeding, noise, all seemed like an easy call.


The climb was relentless but I just settled in to a "doable" gearing and pedaled up between 5.0 and 6.5 mph, most of the time in the mid 5's. The Amgen Tour of California used this section as Stage 8. I was riding the same route as "the fast boys"...albeit at a much slower pace! I had two full water bottles at the bottom but both were empty with about 2 miles still to go. When I finally got to the Mt Palomar General Store I picked up a bottle of water to refill my two bottles (one mixed with Accelerade and the other with Perpetuem)


I also got a 32 oz bottle of G2 Gatorade. I sipped away on the G2 until finally deciding there wasn't enough left to worry about and drank it! Probably a mistake.

I had worked up a sweat climbing and at the elevation (5200 ft) I was getting cold enough to shiver. I decided I couldn't wait to dry off, so I rolled the arm warmers back on, hopped back on the bike and began rolling down East Grade Rd. I shivered violently from time to time. A bit scary to be coasting down a winding road at 35-40 mph and shivering hard enough to make the bike shimmy! Along with the shivering I developed hiccups. I blamed it on too much G2 at one sitting. I put my bike in the big gear (56-11) and pedaled, not because I needed the speed, but because it helped warm me up. I did stop from time to time to take in the view.





I got down to Lake Henshaw.



It seemed that there was a grasshopper convention going on. The sky was just full of them, as were the sides of the roads.




I still had hiccups. Normally if I get them laying down for a bit alleviates them so I pulled into a grassy location that had a good view of the lake and laid down for a bit. The hiccups stopped in about 5 minutes and I rested a bit more just for good measure, total stopped about 15 minutes.

I hopped back on the bike and pedaled on, for "there where miles more before I sleep". Within 5 minutes the hiccups returned. They would stay with me the remainder of the ride. I was riding into a noticable wind and on rough chip seal besides. The fun was rapidly draining away.

At the little town of Santa Ysabel my course turned a bit and at least I wasn't riding directly into the wind.

While the route is more down than up for the last 80 miles I can tell you that there was still plenty of up.


My route took me along the Old Julian Highway, and older alternative to the busier Julian Rd, Hwy 78. It was a nice ride through some very scenic areas.
I passed this little oasis at mile 105 of today's journey.


I wasn't drinking or eating anything since the top of Palomar because it was just too difficult while hiccuping and I was hoping that just a bit of "rest" for my stomach might help. The lack of "fuel" was affecting me. By the time I got to Ramona I knew that hiccups or not, I had to eat something. I stopped at a Taco Bell and ate a crunchy taco with a glass of water.

I was doing a little mental arithmetic as I rode and figured that I would get back to Pacific Beach around 7:30.
However, it was not to be. You will note a little "out and back" leg to my route on the map that begins at mile 113. I had mapped the route on the computer then uploaded it to my gps. I followed my gps's instructions and turned onto Mussey Grade. There were two signs at the beginning of this road...one said "Dos Pecos County Park" and ominously the other said "no outlet". I double checked the gps and pedaled on........with trepidation. The road was descending, normally a good thing but I was fearing I may have to ride back UP! The road split with the right turn option heading for the park, again with a "no outlet" sign. The sort of straight ahead option didn't have a sign. As luck would have it a young girl on a horse came riding up. I asked her about the road and she told me she "thought" it went through. She said the other option ended at the park. I continued down, down, down, Mussey Grade.
After 5 1/2 miles of descending I rounded a bend on a road that had a centerline and foglines.........to see a big gate right across it. I was too ticked to even take a picture of it. I couldn't believe it.
I could see a reservoir down below me. It was San Vincente Reservoir. I knew from the lay of the land that if I could just get there I could salvage this leg of the ride. Downhill and SW was a good thing.........unless you had to turn back around and ride uphill and NE!
All of my time calculations went out the door, I knew I'd be finishing in the dark now. I turned the bike around and pedaled back up. When I got to the turn to Dos Pecos park I took a turn towards it. Soon a county cop came driving by. I flagged him down and asked if the road went through. He said no.
I pedaled back up to the Hwy and pedaled on. After several miles I saw the dirt trail that my gps informed me was my route.
Side note.......... after finishing the ride the first thing I did was bring the map up on the computer to figure out what happened. Indeed, the downfall of computer mapping is without doing a very close look at the roads from something like Google Earth there is no way know if the route is paved or gravel.......or dirt. The road from Dos Pecos park turns to a dirt trail just past the park. Drat, I didn't bring my mtn bike!

At any rate I was back on course and riding towards Pacific Beach. The taco in Ramona had helped. I still had the hiccups but was sipping some of my electrolyte drinks and had a power bar. I wasn't pedaling fast, but I was pedaling faster than I was earlier!

I had several reasons to try to keep a reasonable speed up. I was navigating solely by the little line on my gps. I don't know the area and didn't have a paper map or cue sheet along. The gps had been on continuously for over ten hours and the little power indicator told me there wasn't a lot of battery left. Also, while I had lights along I didn't want to be sharing the roads with California drivers in the dark any longer than necessary.

I pushed on as the daylight dimmed. The gps finally got down to "no bars" left on the battery indicator. I zoomed the display out trying to get a general idea of what turns I might be making. The Garmin 205 does not have a map, just a line on the screen that your are to follow. It generally works fine, as long as you intend to ride the premapped route, take no shortcuts, or want to do any "freelance riding" in an area. In this case it would have been nice to at least have street names so I could memorize the last few roads I should turn on.
Since I didn't have that info I just kept pedaling as long as the gps was telling me where to turn hopefully recognizing some street names soon.

I still had hiccups, but at least my luck held on the gps. Before long I turned onto "Balboa St". I always read street signs, even when driving a car. In this case it paid off because I remembered that I had exited off I-5 onto Balboa when I drove down here 3 weeks ago. I didn't know how far I had to go (since I had taken my little Mussey Grade detour that added to my trip) but knew that I should be able to find my way back even if the gps died now. In a few miles I passed under I-5. It was pitch black, I would have loved to have been in Oregon, the sun would have been up yet! I had two Planet Bike Super Flashes on the back and a white Planet Bike 1 watt in blink mode on the front. The roads had good shoulders, and I knew I only had a few miles to go. Things were looking good.

I was in town now, stop signs, merges, signals, traffic, all required attention.
With about 10 blocks to go I pulled up to a four lane road with a stop sign (as always, controlling the lane) A car came in behind with a right turn signal on. I tried to show a little "kindness" to the car and scooted a few feet to the left to allow them to turn right while I was waiting to cross. Legs where a bit tired, and I still had one foot clipped in. As I scooted over I lost my balance and went down. The car pulled up, looked down at me, and proceeded to turn right. I wasn't hurt, but it just amazed me that the driver wouldn't have said "thanks" or asked if I was okay..........or even acknowledged that I had move over for her.
My camera was in my back jersey pocket and the fall cracked the case a little, but beyond that nothing else seems damaged.

I finished up the ride. As I pedaled up to the entryway the Garmin gave me the first warning tone that the battery was dead. Normally I'd get about a minute or so of beeps before it powers down. 14.5 hours "on" continuously!

The San Diego Tour Guide was happy that I had made it back, and I was happy to be back. I parked the bike and laid down while recounting the ride. The hiccups went away. I took a LONG hot shower. A good way to end a good but challenging ride.

My Cateye tells me 159.65 miles, depending on which mapping program I use total climbing was somewhere from 12,134 to 15,783 ft. I guess perhaps the most accurate thing to say when asked about total elevation gain would be to answer "significant". ;-)


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........160...............0................160
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......403.....+.........0........=.......403
Year to date...4120.....+.........30.......=......4150
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

falling behind

I've had a very busy week working on "the project". I've been neglecting my riding. :-(
While I've been busy remodeling the rest of the world has been riding and continuing to improve. Today my brother-in-law Dave rode the Strawberry Century. After struggling a bit on this ride last year this time around he rode a pretty quick 17.2 mph average. He's well on the road to his planned very first 1 day STP. I'd be happy with a 17.2 average for 100 miles, especially with the hills involved with the Strawberry.

In an effort to make up for a lazy week I'm going to ride up to Palomar Mt tomorrow. I mapped a 147 mile route that should get me up there and back. I'm a little concerned about daylight. The days are much shorter here than at home. It's very dark by 8:15 PM and should have lights on much earlier than that. With the many stop signs and signals in portions of the route and the significant climbing I may be pressed to be off the roads before dark.

Here's the route:



Should be some good opportunities for photos. I'll be riding along the coast for much of the early ride then of course up to the top of Palomar. There won't be a lot of time to stop for photos though.

Should be....fun? Well, at least an adventure!

Recovery ride

Recovering not from a hard ride but recovering from a bit of a cold. Nothing like biking hard up hills to help in the battle!

Time was short, a big day of working on "the project" is planned but I did get out for a short ride up through La Jolla and Torrey Pines to Mt Soledad this morning. I approached Soledad on Via Capri which subjected me to climbs in excess of 15%. 1783ft of climbing today. That's pretty respectable for such a short ride. As per usual here, the weather is cloudy so the views from the top aren't as nice as they might be. Maybe I should start riding in the afternoons when it's more likely to be clear!











One good thing about riding early in the day however........... a better chance of seeing wildlife!

On the top of Soledad is a very nice memorial to those who've served the country in uniform.



Hopefully more time to ride in the next few days.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............15...............0.................15
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......243.....+.........0........=.......243
Year to date...3960.....+.........30.......=......3990
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Monday........

and the weekend was way too short. Back to "the project" today so I only had time for a very short ride early this morning. I rode out to Fiesta Island and did a lap then returned via McDonalds and a "deluxe breakfast w/large OJ"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............15...............0.................15
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......228.....+.........0........=.......228
Year to date...3945.....+.........30.......=......3975
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A Line in the Sand and a Silver Strand

The San Diego Tour Guide led me on a ride around San Diego Bay today. Along the way we saw a line in the sand....the multi million dollar per mile fence bristling with electronics and non-stop border patrols.........and a return via the Silver Strand highway.



The San Diego Tour Guide started off in a southerly direction this morning which meant crossing a few bridges.

The San Diego Tour Guide is much more likely to ride on bike paths than I am so it should not be all that surprising to find that we rode paths quite often.




Once a randonneur you can never really be a "regular cyclist" again so when we arrived at Imperial Beach the former rando and PBP alumna decided we should have REAL food. We found a small cafe and availed ourselves of a breakfast burrito.




At Imperial Beach they have a shrine to the local surfing god.



It was the nicest day so far since I've been here. The coast was beautiful.



We continued on our trip and soon viewed something on the near horizon


I was thinking it might have been a reservoir but the fence appeared to be overkill. We maneuvered to get a closer look but before we ever got close border patrol "visited" us,..... by 4x4 and ATV! Yes folks, after crossing the Canadian/US border countless times I had an eye opener on what the US/Mexican border has become. Countless dollars are spent on infrastructure and manpower in an attempt to make the southern border secure. (how come Canadians aren't trying to sneak into the US?)


After border patrol told us that if we wanted to see the border we should go to the official port of entry we pedaled along the border towards the I-5 crossing.



In short order we arrived. It seemed to be right out of the pages of the cold war. I pictured it as what it must look like to cross the border into some Warsaw Pact country.





Deciding not to take the chance of not getting back into the US, we opted to not cross the border but instead turned back northward. I made a brief stop at the Tijuana River National Estuarian Reserve, which included a nice visitor center.


Before long my tour guide had us riding northward on the sliver of land that separates the Pacific Ocean from San Diego Bay known as The Silver Strand.


Just one word for the residents here to think about..........tsunami ??????



There were certainly some grand sights along this stretch.



We continued on our way towards the northern end of Coronado where we planned to catch a ferry back to San Diego.



Unlike Oregon where the bicycle lobby has a voice here it seems that cyclists are an afterthought.........or even worse, viewed as a nuisance. The Coronado Bridge is a very imposing fixture, but autos only. No bikes allowed.


We looked across the water at San Diego and waited for the next ferry.


Of course, a little ice cream helped to while away the time!




Before long the little ferry arrived and took us back on the short trip across the water. We motored past the U.S.S. Midway before making berth.


From there it was a short run back up via path and streets to wrap up the day. A nice day to ride a leisurely 70 miles. (my tour guide informs me that most people would find that statement to be an oxymoron!)


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............70...............0.................70
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......213.....+.........0........=.......213
Year to date...3915.....+.........30.......=......3945
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++