This was the weekend. Pat, Chris and Theresa started at o'dark early on Saturday, September 10th at the Irvine train station at Barranca and Alton. Along with Theresa's husband, Steve and with an easy warm up through Lake Forest and Mission Viejo, the chicks travelled South. They were well prepared and well trained.
The day started out overcast and a little on the brisk side, and before we knew it we were at the first rest stop in Dana Point and enjoyed some cut up fruit and some muffins and cookies. Then we continued on Camino Capistrano where it started to sprinkle, then it started to rain. We pulled over under a building canopy when it started to rain hard and then hail. That is when we learned why bike commuters use fenders on their bikes. The wet roads picked up all sorts of grime and dirt on our front tires and sprayed a layer of dirt on our shins. The back tire sprayed the back of our seat, shorts and jerseys.
We made it to the San Clemente and San Onofre campgrounds and the weather broke. Still overcast and not hot, but at least the road was dry. We enjoyed the great bike path along the ocean on the old Pacific Highway and drove through a tunnel under the 5 FWY where you could see tank treads where they scrapped high along the tunnel walls. We made it to the 2nd rest stop at Las Pulgas Road just before the San Clemente Marine Base.
Most of the rest stops had triathlon type bike racks so you didn't have to figure out where to try and balance your bike while you refueled and refilled water bottles. Volunteers even grabbed your bike from you put it up on the rack and filled your water bottle. The second rest stop had fresh cut pineapple along with trail mix, Bristol Farms fresh baked cookies, oreos, and other fruit.
Then we headed toward the Marine Base gate, showed our ID's to the guard on duty and wove our way through the base past the marines marching and trudging through maneuvers. There were a few rollie hills through the base, and we were starting to feel what seemed like a headwind.
We exited the base on Harbor Blvd. and kept pedaling through Oceanside to our lunch stop at Buccaneer Park. Here we took our helmet and gloves off and actually sat down to eat sandwiches. Pat had her peanut butter and jelly. We took a quick rest room stop, Pat and Chris downed some Alieve along with Gatorade and we were on our way up a very steep hill to get back on track.
The route took us back to the coast once again and we followed the coast down toward Del Mar, past Swaimi's, San Elijo State Beach and toward the dreaded hill. Theresa stopped in Encinnitas to take a phone call from work, Chris and Steve went on ahead and Pat decided to take a small detour. There is an impressive downhill just before the climb up Torrey Pines and it makes a great photo op (but none of us stopped to take photos) to see the line of bicycle riders slowly moving up the curve of Torrey Pines hill like a colorful train. As we waited for Pat to climb to the top, a city bus came by and dropped off some passengers including some bike riders who decided to take the bus to the top instead of riding it. It was pretty funny. All riders were rewarded with an assortment of ice cream and Popsicles at the top which was much welcomed as the day had warmed up and we worked up quite a sweat on the grind up the 2 mile hill.
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| Pat arriving at the Torrey Pines stop. |
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| "I made it, where is the ice cream?" |
Pat did show up and impressed a lot of riders with her determination on her flat bar bike. Everyone that passed us (and a lot of them passed us up the hill) were encouraging. We barely let Pat finish her 50-50 bar and get some cheese nips, before we had her back on her bike as we still had 17 miles to go and a train to catch.
The headwind was miserable and Theresa couldn't remember a time down the San Diego Bike trail and Torrey Pines road where the downhill wasn't at least 26 mph, but against the headwind it was hard to keep 20. We kept plodding along and made it out to Mission Bay Drive winding our way toward the Amtrak station. Finally we ended up on Pacific Highway which seemed almost like a freeway. Then just when we were wondering how much longer the street names were named after trees. We were looking for Ash street and knew it couldn't be far.
On the corner of the block where the finish was, people were banging cow bells and clapping. We turned our last corner into the parking lot and were able to dismount the bike knowing it would be at least a day before we had to climb back in the saddle. Cold soda and water, along with chips, guacamole and salsa awaited us along with a DJ playing fun upbeat songs.
We changed our clothes and did a quick clean up. Loaded our bikes in the trucks and located our coolers for the party home on the train. Once the train left the station we popped the cork (Ok, took off the pop top) of our champagne and did a toast to a great ride. We shared some munchies as we headed back up north to our cars left in Irvine looking forward to doing the ride again next year with some of our other Chicks that Ride.
