Fantastic Weekend

As Tuesday was a holiday I decided to take Monday off too and make it a four day weekend.

I started with a 30 mile ride on my exercise bike on Friday night, then rode 40 miles with my wife on the upper SART on Saturday. On Sunday I rode the 56 mile Backbay loop with Amber, eating at the wonderful Champagne Bakery for the first time in too long.

On Monday I rode with a lovely couple from Kansas - Mike and Nancy Myers. They've ridden 12,000 sanctioned km so far this year. That's more than two years worth of riding for me!

Mike and Nancy Myers

They had chosen my Lucky Greek 100k permanent populaire to get their California brevet. They have ridden brevets in about 30 states now. After this ride, they were driving up to Las Vegas to do a Nevada ride tomorrow.

We met at the Panera at 6am which meant I had to get up at 5:00am :-( We got started at 6:18 under heavy cloud cover but with no wind and no chance of rain. We reversed the course because I was worried about rush-hour traffic, what with it being a week day. The upper SART was lovely and the recent storms meant there was actually water in the river. I joked with them and told them the river only flowed three days a year, but in California that still counts as a river.

They (especially Nancy) told me about the seven trans-continental rides they had done, and the different bikes they had used trying to settle on one that addressed all their different medical issues. They currently have a stretch limo of a recumbent tandem. Their license plate is [TANDUMB].

Before we knew it we were at the end of the SART and the traffic on Arlington was unpleasantly heavy. We got off after half a mile and onto River road through Norco which was nice and quiet. Traffic on Rincon, Smith and Railroad was heavier than usual, probably because it was a week day.

We got to the Lucky Greek and I decided to make the brevet an out and back to avoid traffic. We got pretty much the same number of miles either way. A gyro and fries later and we headed back. We talked a lot more about the people we had met and the kinds of things that randos like to talk about - how eventually every road reminds you of another road - how 300k rides always seems so hard. We talked about family and how lucky I was to be able to ride with my wife and both daughters in the same weekend.

I learned about slugburgers (seriously) and discussed how lucky we SoCal randos are with so many RBAs putting on so many rides for us.

About ten miles from the end the sun started to come out but it remained a pleasantly cool 65-70F.

It was a very special ride and I am honored to be part of Mike and Nancy's epic adventure.

I finished up my long weekend with a 23 mile ride on the upper SART with my youngest daughter and my wife. In the evening I virtually rode the first 43 miles of a new Utah 200k brevet that I am validating as part of my new duties for RUSA.