What is your excuse?

Too early?  Too Windy?  The chicks that stayed home really missed a great ride.  It was a beautiful morning.  I woke up a couple of times during the night and could hear our front porch wind chime which meant "Santa Anas" were blowing.   But it seem to get less and less noisy as dawn approached.  I couldn't decide if we were going to regret riding.  But I knew I would regret NOT riding.  I checked the weather channel first thing and it showed LA as being calm.  This was decision time. Let's do it.

We planned on an early start, so that a certain someone could make it back in time for a family commitment, but she had some kind of "excuse".   We could/should have slept in and started a little later.  Jessy said that we should just drive to her house and make her provide us breakfast.

Since Jeri and Jessy had joined us we all decided to do the shorter 11 mile route through Strawberry farms.  Pat did an awesome job videoing our trip.   Enjoy!

The actual normal speed video isn't shaky, but we sped it up and edited quite a bit, since we didn't want to bore you with 7 minutes of similar scenery, but it gives a great example of one of our regular rides.  The microphone worked great, but Pat refused to narrate the whole ride, so it got a bit boring.  Thanks to Jessy for the editing and finishing touches.

The early chick gets.....

COLD!!! Brrr... was it cold. I was going to say the early chick gets breakfast, but there was an unseasonably drop in the air temp this morning.  Since this brunch ride was sort of inspired by the Chicago area cup cake ride group who ride in the snow, I guess having cold weather in Southern California was appropriate.  When I hopped out of bed, the outdoor thermometer said 45 degrees.  Ahhhh, we live in Southern California, I thought, when the sun comes up, it will warm up.   However, for good measure I grabbed my running jacket, figuring that would be better than arm warmers and pulled out my running tights intending to pull them over my cycling shorts when I got to the ride start.

As I loaded my bike in the car, I thought, I really ought to look for my long-fingered fitness gloves, but with my dear hubby still sleeping in the dark in the warm bed, I figured, I could "tough" it out.   As hard as it was to get up so early on a weekend morning (6:20 a.m.), I enjoyed the treat of a pretty sunrise on the freeway on my way to the ride start.   The group had elected to start earlier, so that we could get our ride done, have breakfast and then get back to our families while it was still morning. That worked for me since I had an appointment at 10:30 a.m.

Everyone was at the start (La Quinta Inn, Sand Canyon and the 5 Fwy) on time so we could roll by 7:30.   Our friend Jeri joined us on her husband's Trek Mountain Bike with knobby tires.

  Jeri is athletic, so we knew she would be a good addition to the group.  I noticed everyone else was in shorts or knickers, so I decided against pulling on my tights.  Everyone kept on their warm up jackets and smart Jeri even had a fleece vest.   We pumped up the tires and headed out of the La Quinta Inn parking lot for our ride in search of Peter's Canyon trail.

We rode South on Sand Canyon and took the Barranca bike trail West to meet up with Peter's Canyon trail. The first thing we noticed was a bit of cold, but what really made an impression on me was that we did NOT see any other riding groups out for quite a while.  Maybe it really is too cold to ride?  I have been known to skip riding on a very windy morning, but I've never skipped for a cold day.  I just knew I would warm up, in a bit.   I increased my speed, thinking if I brought my heart beat up, then I would begin to warm up.  All that did was increase the feel of the wind against me which made my hands even colder.  I tried to tuck one hand at a time into my pockets or into my arm pits, but they were really starting to ache.  I was beginning to think about telling the group that we may just need to cut our ride short (I'm sure there was hot tea waiting for me at Knowlwoods, our planned breakfast place) Then I remembered that we are going to ride right past a Target off of Barranca.  I wonder what time Target opens; I wish it was still holiday hours.

Since Chris, Becky and I had put a bit of a distance between us and the rest of the group, Chris said she would wait at the trail to let the others know of our little stop and Becky came with me to watch my bike.  As I rounded the side entrance of Target, I could see the open time as 8:00 a.m. - Yay!; it was 2 minutes ‘till,  I could see the rack of 2-for-$1.50 stretchy gloves calling out to me.  I wonder how fast I can get in, choose colors and make it through the register line?  Normally I would pull off my gloves, helmet and cycling mirror before going into a store, but this was going to be such a quick trip that I headed in the minute the door was opened. 

Within 5 minutes, I was exiting the store and was met by Becky and Pat. We were able to pull on the stretchy knitted gloves right over our cycling gloves and felt immediate relief.    Then we headed back to the group at the trail just behind the store.  I didn't want anyone to get discouraged and think they couldn't ride in the winter since we weren't use to it -- gloves for everyone!

Thawing fingers!

As we continued on the Barranca trail we begin to see other riders.  Most of them were dressed appropriately with full-length tights and long-fingered gloves.  The majority of the ones that greeted us did address how it was definitely cold.   When we made it to our normal park starting point, we headed North up Harvard so we could join the Peter's Canyon trail again.   It became obvious that other groups start at 8 or 8:30 as we start seeing pelotons and groups beginning to move along the roads.

We continued up the river trail passing Team-in-Training for Leukemia joggers training together and enjoyed watching the the quail meandering in the shallow river.  The path is as pretty as we remembered it from our summer-after work rides.  When we reached Hick's Canyon, Pat and Jeri took a detour as Karen, Chris, Becky and I continued up the long hill toward Portola.   We met up with Jeri and Pat where the Hick's trail hits Portola and started our well-deserved downhill.  Although Jeri and Pat were able to cut a couple of miles, they still had to climb the deceiving trail to get to the rendezvous point.

Once we began our downhill trek on Jeffrey, we knew we would soon be ordering a warm breakfast.  Everyone enjoyed shifting to a higher gear and see what kind of speed they could make between stop lights.  I heard Pat got up to 27 mph.  

We were able to find the San Diego Creek Trail to head back to our starting point.  When we had started our ride I didn't see any trail closed signs so I figured it was opened back up from the construction we saw on our summer rides.   As we passed by the parks, we did see a "Trail Closed" sign posted on the fence but since a lady was walking her dog and the path wasn't blocked, I thought that they just didn't want cyclist on it because the pavement hadn't been redone yet and there was some debris on the path.  It was still quite rideable through until......

we made it to a locked gate covering the width of the trail.   We looked through the chain linked fence and thought, no problem the path looks fine on the other side.  We could easily make it to San Canyon and the La Quinta Inn where we could see the tower just above the road in front of us.  So we did what any law abiding bicycle group would do.....

After all, there were no signs that said there was a penalty or that we would be breaking the law.  We took it to mean they didn't have an established path to ride on.  Certainly Jeri could make it along the dirt on her off road bike.  Once we passed the locked gate, we figured we were home free until we came upon the next locked gate.  Well it was too late to turn around, so we decided to lift each other’s bikes so we could compare bike weights (Ok really we needed to get the bikes over the gate).  Jeri said, "You didn't tell me we were going on an adventure."  I'm not sure what Pat meant when she said, "With Theresa, it's always an adventure,"  since we didn't take any wrong turns this time.

 

 

A short distance more and we were back at our cars, ready for a Knowlwoods breakfast.  Total distance for the long riders was 18 miles. We pulled off our newly acquired gloves, put our bikes in our vehicles and headed for the restaurant for the long-awaited breakfast.

Pat demonstrating how the bikes were lifted over the fence.

Chicks that ride into the new year

.....and on a new bike.   Our first ride of the New Year took us to our starting point in Sunset Beach for a ride along the multi-use pedestrian path to the Newport Beach pier and back.  Karen, Pat, Chris, Theresa and Becky (on her new steed) showed up and were ready to ride on a cold overcast morning.   We kept hoping the clouds would burn off and we would have some sunshine. It was a little tough to find parking but everyone found a spot and made their way over to the meeting area at the pedestrian entrance to Bolsa Chica State Park.   Theresa and her husband rode to the start from home. 

This was the inaugural ride on Becky's new GT sky blue road bike which she aptly named Sky High.  And did she appear to be "flying" on it.  We zoomed past all the morning beach goers and surfers, past the new year's resolutionist joggers out for their morning run and then sped up the hill past dog beach.  Before you knew it we were at the Huntington Beach pier.

Along the city beach, we wove our way around families with jog strollers and kids on new Christmas bikes and headed toward the Santa Ana river jetty, for a quick regroup before we continued onto the path into Newport Beach.

The lighter use winter season made for an easy trip on the board walk with inviting sand along our right side and expensive beach front rental homes along the left.  Before we knew it, we were at the Newport Beach pier.  We took advantage of turnaround point to take a few photos before we saddled up for the return trip.  We were blessed without a headwind and made great time back to our starting point.  Total mileage for the Sunset Beach to Newport Pier and back was 24 miles.  Becky said it was "easy".

Before everyone dispersed back to their individual cars, we stopped at Pat's Nissan, popped the cork on the traditional bottle of bubbly and toasted Becky's new bike.  A fitting end to a great ride and we are looking forward to the many rides that 2012 will bring us.

Ready to start the New Year? 2012 Here we come..

Our first ride of 2012 will be Saturday, January 7th in Huntington Beach.  This is a gorgeous route mostly all on bike trail along the beach.  The only hazards will be walkers, surfers, and runners.  It will be an out and back route, so you can travel as far as you like and turn around.

We will meet at 8:30 a.m. at the corner of PCH and Warner Avenue, just inside of Bolsa Chica State Park on the Beach Path by the sand.

Travel 405 fwy north, exit at Beach Blvd.. 
Head South. 
Turn right on Warner Avenue.  Stay on Warner until you hit PCH.
Stay straight on Warner crossing PCH and make a right turn just past the Jack In the Box on N. Pacific Avenue.
Park in either of the two free lots between N. and S. Pacific Avenue or anywhere along Pacific Avenue. 
Get your bike out and ride to the starting point just inside the state park (see illustration).

Mark your Calendars, our first evening ride will be Monday, March 11 after the time change.   Also how about a February weekend away to Arizona?

Be thinking of your riding goals for this year.   Will it be a century ride? Or a new Bike? Or get smoother and faster?  New Year, her we come!