June 3 ride reports...

[tprevost]

I managed to harrass Bikerchick68 long enough to get her to let me tag along for a ride and today was the day! We started in San Marcos at Restaurant Row (IHOP) and headed west to the beach.... Here are some pics en route:

Mac, Kathy (purepink), Bill, and Jennifer (BC68)

A view from the road

We stopped at this cute little coffee/bagel etc. place in Leucadia and sat down for a while... this is us getting back on the road



It was only 26+ miles but a little hard for me as they are a bit faster than I'm used to riding. I managed to keep up without holding them up too badly but it started getting pretty warm as we finished (coming out of the fog at the coast)... here's a picture of us before we left for home (btw, it was 103 when I got home today!)

That's Jennifer (bikerchick68), me (tprevost), and Kathy (purepink) on the right.

Thank you ladies (and Mac & Bill too!) for letting me tag along, what a great ride! AND, thank you SOOOOOOOO much Jen for the help w/decents!! YEAH!!!

Tracy

[caligurl]

hubby had to work OT.... so i was on my own for a ride.... took off later than i wanted to (6:21).... and knew i was going to head "up the hill" into the national park to get some hill riding in before next weekend....

when i was climbing the hill to the entrance kiosk... i was thinking to myself that i wasn't going to make it all the way to jumbo rocks (campground) or that it was going to take me a long time to get there.... but then somewhere along the way... my legs woke up and i felt much better! i got to jumbo rocks and decided to keep going... (it's rollers once you get to jumbo... at least for a while)..... well then i got to ryan (another usual turn around point) and decided to go just a little further... perhaps key's view turn off.... well i got there and turned.... so i'm thinking... hmmmmmm i should climb to key's view (highest point in the park)..... so i keep going..... then i realized i probably didn't have enough water to make it back out of the park... uh oh! but then.... it's mostly downhill... i should be ok! so i climb and climb to the top! now my brave/stupid comment comes from not having an cell phone signal in the part EXCEPT at the very top of key's view.... nothing else the whole way til i hit the kiosk/entrance again..... i had called and left a message for hubby that i was going into the park.. but he would have had no idea i would have gone up to key's view on my own! i did call from KV and told him "guess where i am!"

i did run out of water just before getting back to the entrance.... i had told hubby i would call him if i did (he had gotten off work just before i called from KV).... well DUH... remember i said no cell phone service! fortunately the ranger at the gate had water for me... plus.... as i was descending the hill from the gate on my way home... hubby was on his way to bring me water (awwwwwwwwwww)

so note to self: don't leave or deviate to a long ride in the desert in the summer without plenty of water or a camelback!

i ended up with 55.6 miles and 4226 feet of climbing!

[Nanci]

I rode 40 miles on a paved trail. Animal encounters included the hitchhiking anole, a deer who crossed at a leisurely pace about three feet ahead of the rider ahead of me (I resisted saying, Hey, Velvet, did you see that deer?) and a hatchling Gopher Tortoise (VERY EXTREMELY rare to see a hatchling) which I resisted, although I did have a short visit with him. Oh, lots of river cooter turtles- they must have been out looking for egg-laying spots. We then went to a restaurant for lunch, and it began thunderstorming the minute we were back in our cars on the way to lunch. Perfect timing!

Nanci

[betagirl]

Did 45 miles, 42 of which were with Fuji Girl and some other ladies that ride as a group up north of the city. There was 1 guy, so it was the complete opposite of what I'm normally used to with group/club rides We rode up through the affluent north shore suburbs, on a crappy road for part of the way. Once we got beyond the patchwork, it was great.