Memorial Day Weekend Rides

[Owlie]

I slept terribly last night and woke up late to boot. My usual route is the local rail-trail, and if you don't get back to the car by about 9, it is physically impossible to get out of the parking lot. Just as well, as I'm sort of sore from yesterday. I took the easy way out and did three or four relatively fast miles around the neighborhood, just to get out. Weather was perfect, of course.
I'm hoping to go out pretty early tomorrow and get some miles in.

I'm going to go find something caffeinated and then clean my bike.

[westtexas]

Tried to ride yesterday, but failed miserably. Went about 15 miles total, but it was 106 out with winds at 30mph. I couldn't take the headwind and my left leg fell asleep so we had to get off and rest halfway through. I was really upset about the whole thing because it made me feel really weak, but my cycling partner put it to me that even the professional riders have bad days where they do what they can and then go have a beer.

On a happier note, on the way back, we met some nice ladies on their road bikes training for the MS150 in July. We rode back with them slowly with that 30mph tailwind and it was kind of nice to decompress after getting upset about the trip out there.

This weekend we'll probably just ride when we can - supposed to be 108 today with 17mph winds. Memorial Day there is an early morning ride to the Vietnam Memorial with the bike club so I will probably do that since it's at 7 a.m. and should be relatively cool in the low 70s with little wind at that time of day.

[Crankin]

Having a wonderful vacation, but I am missing good riding weather at home.
So, yesterday, we ditched DS, DIL, and my dad to do a 3 hour bike tour of La Jolla and Pacific Beach. Although I have never lived here, my parents moved to San Diego 30+ years ago. I've spent a lot of time here, so I figured I would see things from a bike that you never see in a car.
So, it started out a little on the wrong side, with one too many people for the van that brought us to the top of Mt. Soledad, where the tour started. I refused to not have a seatbelt, so some other woman sat on her DH's lap . Oy.
We got to the top, as DH and I lovingly looked at the incline going up. Very, very, steep and curvy, probably 20% at least in places. Got to the top, where they gave us our bikes.... beefy, old mountain bikes, which was fine. Right away, I noticed my front brake was like mush, so I told the leader and asked if he had a hex wrench. I might be a mechanical dunce, but I knew what he needed to do. He tried to tell me not to use the front brake, but after I talked to him, he was, like, OK...
We descended down a different road, not so curvy, not as steep, but still a real mountain type descent. Being on a mountain bike and not on dirt gave me confidence and I was the third one down the hill. There was an assortment of "regular" people on the tour, with one younger guy with good mountain biking experience who rode with DH and I and the leader. There was a young couple, about my kids' age who were very annoying. The woman kept getting in front of me in places where I couldn't pass her, so I couldn't talk to DH, like on the bike path, but also on the road. After a couple of times of me saying "on your left" and sprinting past her, she still kept trying to drop me. It was silly, this was a leisurely tour and she clearly was not going to win. When we turned back to La Jolla, there were a couple of teeny inclines and then she got it.
The only really unnerving thing was at one point he had us riding the against traffic, in a bike lane on a busy road, rather than have us make lefts... DH and i were mortified and our bike leader minds were going into over gear. He also didn't signal. But, he did verbally tell us and we stopped and regrouped frequently. At the end we went down to see the cave in La Jolla after climbing a pretty steep hill. The young girl was breathing pretty heavy going up the stairs up from the cave and looked like she was going to cry after that.
We learned a lot of interesting things, especially about the coastal ecology. So despite the lack of safety precautions, it was fun. The shop rents road bikes, but maybe next time. Riding around here does not seem like it would be that fun; lots of multi lane roads, clueless drivers, etc. I've seen lots of male roadies, but no women.
I've been walking for 45 minutes on the other mornings, and given the eating I am doing, there will be a lot of riding when I get home.

[Blueberry]

Crankin-

What a trip!

There are good spots to ride out there - not all multi lane roads. We took our Fridays on vacation a few years ago (well, vacation for me, conference for my DH) and had a blast! Coronado has a nice, fast bike path if you want completely separate from traffic....

[Reesha]

I rode out at 6:30 for a 42 mile ride with one of my bike friends. What was meant to be fairly leisurely turned out to be pretty challenging-- Sara is in better shape than I am in general and I think our bodies' definition of leisurely is fairly different. We ended up missing our turn, thus extending our ride by five miles. That said, the ride was much harder than I planned for it to be... I was hoping to spin my way to a proper cardiovascular base, but nahhh.

It's a slow start this year... avg speed of 14 mph. I'm not going to complain though-- there were some good hills in the mix and a stiff headwind coming home. My *** and hamstrings are complaining.

I'm starving though, so I'm going to go pick up breakfast!

[jamijo]

Dragged DH out to the rail trail this morning (after dealing with an idiot at our apartment who backed into the open drivers-side door of our car while we were loading my bike... apparently his eyes weren't working yet this morning). He walked, since I haven't been able to cajole him into joining the biking world yet, and I biked for an hour. Nice 10 mile ride, my longest & fastest so far now that I've actually been able to get on the bike on a fairly regular basis. Definitely will be heading out there again later in the season, and dragging my camera with me for some bird and critter recording. Two woodchucks, a great blue heron, a bunch of goldfinches, and a ton of dragon flies were just the start of my watchlist from today!

No rides for the rest of the weekend for me though, checked the bike in at the LBS for the '30 day' tune up... even though it's been more like 2 1/2 months. Figured I finally have 100+ miles on it, it's better to do it now than it would have been with 2 or 3

[grey]

Just rode 17 HILLY but rural miles, really pretty.

[ivorygorgon]

Here is a photo of me and DH, basically at the top of Mt. Palomar - east of San Diego. We rode approx 52 miles and climbed about 5200. It was an incredibly beautiful day. The sky (at a little lower elevation than this picture) was sooooo blue. It was warm, but not scorching. We saw lots of birds, including pheasants and turkeys. We had just an absolutely wonderful day. I was toast though

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