On Saturday Amber and I rode from Anaheim Amtrak to Oceanside Amtrak and took the train back. Amber finally has her generator hub and light installed so this was a test ride to make sure there wouldn't be any major problems on next week's 300k in SLO.
This is my favorite climbing ride and the weather was perfect. We modified the route to add 12 miles of bike path and bike lane at the front and take 15 miles of unpleasant PCH through Leucadia and Encinitas off the end. This is the section where Jim was killed by a drunk driver while riding Willie's 600k about two years ago. I much prefer our current route.
I was dismayed to see a new ghost bike at the top of the dump hill climb. Someone was killed there on Feb 2nd, just a week ago. There's no excuse for bad driving at this point. The road is wide and straight. It seems a drunk driver swerved into the bike lane at 7am while speeding and fled the scene. The sordid details are available here. Read it - may she rot in Hell. I pray she gets more than the normal 2-3 years for murdering a cyclist. How is this manslaughter? I'm getting sick of drunk or careless motorists mowing down pedestrians and cyclists and getting a slap on the wrist.
We got to Cook's Corner at mile 28 around 11:30. Service was even slower than usual and the food wasn't that great. I'll avoid the ham and cheese grilled sandwich in future. The downhill to the coast was awesome as usual but we had a strong headwind which was a bit worrying. However when we got to the coast and turned south the wind because a strong tailwind. The temp was smack in the middle of my comfort zone.
We got to Oceanside at mile 79 around 3:30 to catch a 4:59 train so we took our time at Angelo's. I had the steak sandwich - average to good for that kind of restaurant. Amber had the French toast which was massive and very good. I checked Amber's new front wheel - it was a millimeter out of true which is to be expected for a newly build wheel so she should get that trued this week if possible.
We took the train back which was great because it had to deal with the headwind instead of us. I still can't believe you can get two people and two bikes from Oceanside to Anaheim for just $42 - what a great deal. We had a nice conversation with an ex racer who had just started riding again because someone gave him a cruiser bike.
It was dark when we got back to Anaheim so we decided to take Amber's new generator hub and light for a couple of miles along the bike path. Her light is amazing - she is so happy. It's twice as bright as mine and has a really nice beam pattern which gradually brightens towards to top to a clear cut top line so the effect is event illumination with very little light spilled up and wasted into the air. It also throws some light out to the side so you don't turn into the darkness. I know generator lights are expensive but when you ride all night there's really no alternative.
She bought a Schmidt SON 28 and a Lumotec IQ Premium CYO, both from Peter White Cycles. It's pretty much the same setup as mine except for the Lumotec upgrade. I may need to upgrade too :-)
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