Friday, March 8, 2013

We're off - San Diego to Alpine, 18 miles

An interesting day, educational too.  Started off in sunshine to get to the beach, where it promptly started raining.  We dipped tires, took lots of pictures and headed down the bike path toward Florida.  And the sun came out.  Yayyy, sunshine.

The dedicated bike path was nice, but soon gave way to an object lesson in urban cycling.  Merging left across right turn lanes is ........ stimulating, to say the least.  At least drivers here are aware of  bikes, they may not like them, but they are aware.  We climbed slowly but pretty steadily for a while and I was pleased with how things were going.  

As we started to climb for real, my rear derailleur decided not to cooperate (Chris, the back fender is coming off tonight) - pretty hard to ride up a 6% hill in the highest gear of the big chain ring.  The 6% turned into 10% (I was walking by then) then flattened out to 6% again.  I made it to the SAG stop just as it started pouring.  I was debating whether to take the fender off there and keep going or just hop a ride.  Then the lightning started - bag it.

A fortuitous set of circumstances gave three of us a direct  ride to the hotel and we  warmed ourselves in front of the lobby fireplace until our rooms were ready.  It would be SOOOOO nice to take a hot shower - but then what, the van with the dry clothes was still on the road.  We settled for warming our hands with coffee until the supplies arrived.

Lots of kinks got worked out today and we are all settled down and better prepared for the 
journey ahead.  It was a good day.

12 comments:

Ken said...

WooHoo!!! So awesome to finally get to live one of your dreams! For some reason the posted picture isn't posting and since it is probably the Pacific Ocean in the background and involves the dipping of tires I wanna see it! Congrats the start you certainly earned it!

Janice in GA said...

Hooray! Is it your front fender that's giving you a problem? Hopefully your derailleur just got jostled around in shipping, and it's straightened out now.

Hope tomorrow is better!

(I could see the 1 second video of the wheel & and ocean, btw.)

tombetz said...

As I ride locally in circles, I shall vicariously get my endorphin rush through your exploits. You go girl!

susan said...

Tomorrow is a new day!!! we are thinking of you!!! this is from dan, susan , mike and jessica!!!

Lisa S_CT said...

Hoping that the tailwinds continue, and that the mechanicals get smoothed out. Lisa

Judi said...

It's the back fender, the crud catcher is keeping the derailleur from moving over. I'll just take it off and maybe work with it when I get home. Skunk stripes up the back are very fashionable these days.

Judi said...

I can't see the video on my tablet, so I don't really know how to fix it. If I get access to a computer I'll try again. It is just a short burst - on accountahow I didn't realize I was taking a video,I thought it was set on camera. And it was raining. And cold.

Judi said...

It is very cool to end the ride 40 miles from where you started. Circles are overrated.

Judi said...

We'll need tailwinds tomorrow, we start climbing right out the exit from the hotel.

Judi said...

So nice to have a hometown cheering squad!!

CAT said...

I can see the video... it is one second long and shows the ocean washing up against your tire :)

AWESOME!! Hope your day goes A LOT better today!!

Janice in GA said...

I had my husband out with me handling the shifter while I looked at the rear of the bike. In one shift, he managed to highlight a possible problem with one fender stay screw. However, it's a problem I've NEVER had while I rode the bike. :) But apparently when my husband is at the controls, it's possible to shift to the smallest cog on the rear and MAYBE have the protruding screw for the fender mount interfere with the chain. If that happened while I was pedaling it might be dire. O.O

Actually, it probably says more about how seldom I ride in the smallest rear cog!