400 km weekend

I rode a quick 35 miles on my exercise bike on Friday night, then rode my Anaheim to Oceanside 120 km permanent on Saturday with Amber.

It was overcast as we climbed Santiago Canyon. Something happened to me that has not happened in a long while. I passed someone on a climb - in fact I passed six people. Wow that felt good. We got to Cook's corner in only two hours which is quite a bit faster than normal. The sun came out as we descended the Alisal Creek bike trail but it got overcast again once we got near the beach. Kaylani coffee was as good as usual except I put the dregs of my iced coffee into my empty water bottle and topped it up with cold water. It was good.

While climbing up the bike route out of San Clemente we were riding on the shoulder and a cyclist passed us in the lane which is marked with sharrows. As he went past a motorist started yelling at him because he was in the lane. The cyclist chased him down yelling at him. I doubt it did any good, but it's scary how many drivers don't know what sharrows are. That's why I think they're not worth the paint.

The cyclist joined us a few minute later and he was headed our way so we chatted for a while. He was riding a wooden bicycle. Very pretty.

Novaro

He turned around at Las Pulgas but before he did he warned us that the Camp Pendleton police were aggressively harassing cyclists lately. Sure enough, a few miles into the base Amber was cycling about ten feet behind me and a police car came by and had the gall to say "Single file" on his PA. What an ass! If you don't know what single file means just keep your mouth shut. We noticed about six police cars pass and re-pass us as we rode through the base. I seriously think they are looking for excuses to ban cyclists completely.

We finished the ride at 3:30 but still had to wait for the 5pm Amtrak. There really isn't much point to riding this route quickly. To kill some time we checked out a triathlon store called Endurance House. Lot's of fun things there for cyclists.

On Sunday I rode my SART 200 km permanent with Stacey. Greg is sidelined right now with an arm injury but Stacey wanted her 67th consecutive R12 and I was curious to see how I would feel after the 120k.

We headed down the SART from San Bernardino and started passing a very large group of people running/walking with backpacks. They were completing the backpack challenge which requires you cover 10km while carrying a 35lb backpack.

I was feeling great but Stacey likes to ride slow and talk. No problem, she had many great stories to tell. I got caught up with Greg's epic single-handed yacht trip back from Hawaii (and I mean single-handed). Also their PBP and 100 Cols ride and their LEL and Land's End to John O Groats plans.

We stopped at the Starbucks at the top of Green River hill Stacey pointed out a new 76 gas station that we will be using as the regrouping point about a mile after the top of Green River hill. We took amount five hours to get to Newport Burgers. I had their Mahi burger for the first time in about five years - it was good. We had a nice tailwind on the way back and stopped at the Lucky Greek. We finished in about 11 hours. My only real problem was a sore backside.

Today I went hiking with the wife. Ouch. I'm taking tomorrow off.