Yesterday was another So Cal TE ride and this time I was joined by Tracey, Audrey, Nina and Nina's husband Alex. My friend Mike also joined us for the ride.

This is part of our training for the Cool Breeze Century. The day promised to get hot and it was warm by the time we started at 8:30a. After a too short warm up we started climbing into the hills of Lemon Heights. Thankfully most of the roads were in shadow so stayed fairly cool. After a quick descent we started climbing again up Newport Blvd. This is a long hot and tough hill. Yes the day was going to be warm.

After finishing the morning climbs we headed down towards the ocean to catch some breezes but unfortunately it didn't get much cooler. Mike took Tracey and Audrey up Newport Coast, a long but doable climb and I took Nina and Alex the long way and we all met up at the coffee stop for a quick break. After a refreshing iced coffee, we were off again for the last 10 miles, thankfully flat, back to our start.

By this time the sun was high. Taking the Peter's Canyon Bike trail we had a slight tailwind which means the air got stale and it got very hot. In the
90's it was tough to finish the last couple of miles (which was as light grade up). Several of us got alittle dehydrated. We did all finish the ride and were thankful to be done. Final tally was 44.6 miles and just under 2000' of climbing.

Today, I hanging in watching The Tour and will think about riding tonight when it's cooler.