San Clemente Ride

Since Covid hit Amber and I have not done the ride from Anaheim to San Clemente over Santiago Canyon but we thought we'd give it a try and we brought Edgar along with us because he's never done much climbing before and we thought he'd enjoy it 😈

We started from Anaheim at 9am and fortunately it was cool because the climb was harder than I remembered. This is the first time I've ridden this route with the Wahoo head unit and you might be pleased to know it's 8% near the top. I did a little psych with Edgar and when we reached 1000' elevation for the first time I told him the top was at 2400'. Then eight miles later, when we reached 1200', I told him it was only 1400'. So we were practically at the top already. Hopefully that made the climb easier for him.

Here's us summitting cheerfully.

On the descent, just as we slowed for the turn onto the Aliso Creek bike trail, Edgar said he had a flat. I put Schwalbe Marathon tires on his bike so it's not supposed to get flats. Here's the culprit. As you can see, it's a machine screw that would probably have flatted a truck tire.

I booted the tire, slapped in a new tube, and we took off none the worse.

We ate at Ballpark Pizza at mile 43 which is a long way to ride especially with the climbing. We ordered cheesy bread and a medium pizza. I was going to take a photo but I was too hungry. It was amazing.

From there it's an easy 12 miles to San Clemente Pier Metrolink station. We arrived ten minutes before the 2:58 pm train which took us to Anaheim Canyon. We had the whole carriage to ourselves. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the smell.

Once at Anaheim Canyon we rode back to the bike path and then to our cars. Now we know to use the sidewalk instead of fighting the 91 freeway on and off ramps, it's a nice, safe five miles.