Simi Valley to Solana Beach 400k

This is an account of a 400k brevet hosted by Greg and Lisa Jones of the Pacific Coast Highway Randonners.

On Saturday March 3rd a group of  about 16 riders left Simi Valley Amtrak station at 6am and rode to Filmore, Ventura, Santa Monica, Oceanside, and Solana Beach for a total of 250 miles (400k). I'd ridden this ride once before in 2010. I was riding with my daughter, Amber. We were hoping to finish in about 23 hours to catch the 6:45 train back to Simi Valley.

We started with powerful tailwinds as we headed West, then some climbing and headwinds as we headed to Filmore to the first control. Fortunately we turned around in Filmore and had strong tailwinds all the way to Ventura. From there we pretty much headed South on PCH with more tailwinds. I rode a lot of this section with Debbie and Paul.

Santa Monica beach path would have been a lot more pleasant if we'd had it to ourselves, Constantly dodging people stepping onto it without looking or wandering down the middle oblivious to everyone else got a bit stressful. Both Paul and I got a little frustrated I think. The only time I've ridden this path when it wasn't crowded was about 2am. One bright spot - I passed a young lady jogging in the same direction as me wearing a short black skirt and no underwear. Every step she flashed me. It reminded me of that famous poster of a woman playing tennis in a short white skirt with no underwear. Thank you, whoever you are.

As we exited the beach path I bonked massively. Funny thing is I did the same thing two years ago to at exactly the same place. Paul gave me half a sandwich and I had a little trail mix which got me to the 7/11 at mile 144 which was the next control. Had a tuna fish sandwich and got more gatorade. I was beginning to get sick of gatorade by now.

My energy came back strong and we continued south down PCH through Huntington Beach and made a stop at a Circle K at Newport Beach. At this point my stomach was bothering me as if food wasn't being digested. Then some homeless guy lit a foul smelling cigarette and I found myself utilizing a trash can for an unapproved purpose. My apologies to the guy who empties that trash can next. I think that tuna salad sandwich is the prime suspect. Now I just didn't want to eat or drink. Gatorade was not appealing. All I really wanted was water.

Laguna Beach (mercifully light traffic), through Dana Point, San Clemente (another control but I just didn't want to eat). Amber was getting sleepy so she had an iced coffee and I had a red bull, Interstate 5 for a few miles, then Oceanside where I finally started to think about food again. Fifty miles is a long way to ride without taking any calories in so you can imagine I'm crawling by now.

After Oceanside there's Carlsebad, Leucadia, and Encinitas. The section of PCH through Leucadia is normally one of the more dangerous sections of PCH with lots of parked cars, rough road, no shoulders and aggressive drivers. I was planning on using Vulcan if this stretch didn't feel safe but at 4am there were no issues at all.

Finally I dragged my sorry self into Solana Beach. Our official time was 22:40 which is better than my target. Lisa gave me some ginger ale which did wonders for my stomach. I must remember that trick. We showered and changed and rode back to the Amtrak station one mile up the road. Our butts did not appreciate being lowered back onto our saddles, especially as we had changed into day clothes with no padding. Thank goodness there was a cafe on the train because all of a sudden I was starving, and on the drive back, and when I got home :-)