I’m not normally a morning person. The big Seattle to Portland ride starts way before anyone should be awake, so I need to get used to riding early. Today I decided to try it. I made a few key mistakes like not eating before I started, but it was still a pretty good ride.

The winds tend to blow toward the ocean in the morning and from the ocean in the afternoon. I’ve done plenty of rides where I end up riding east into a headwind right around the time the winds change direction letting me ride back west into yet another headwind. That wasn’t the case this morning. This morning I only had a headwind going east, and I may have even had a slight tailwind coming back home. That tailwind probably saved me, because I was wasted (see my earlier comment about not eating before starting).

I wasn’t just riding against the wind, I was riding against traffic. That’s the way to do it. As soon as I turned onto Paseo Delicias there were cars just sitting there, waiting to come west. I was on the opposite side of the road heading east, happy that I wasn’t heading west. I had considered just riding to the top of Del Dios Highway and then turning around and heading back the same way, but the longer I rode past stopped traffic, the more convinced I became that I needed to ride all the way over Rancho Bernardo and back down Carmel Vallery Road instead. The traffic was constant all the way to the lake (about 5 miles). I didn’t want to ride home in that.

So I followed the same route from Saturday. I crossed through Rancho Bernardo right as people were heading to work. The traffic wasn’t bad, but I hit most the lights red. I also had a guy in a car cut me off and slam on his brakes. He completely blocked the bike lane directly below a “No Parking – Bike Lane” sign. I slammed on my brakes but couldn’t stop as fast as he did, so I had to either hit him or cut into traffic. The car next to me saw the whole thing unfold and stopped in the lane to make sure I had room to get around the idiot. I yelled “Hey!” as I went by and he honked at me. I looked back to see him open his door wide and almost lose it to the traffic that had resumed moving slowly past him. I’m very glad other drivers had been paying attention or I would have been forced to ram the back of that car in the bike lane. And I wouldn’t have had a way home if that broke my bike. I thought a bit about that prospect as I finished the climb up Black Mountain.

The ride down Carmel Valley Road was great. I did hit one or two annoying red lights that made me come to a complete stop when I had been going really fast, but I was feeling good and pushed it most the way home. I’ll have to try another morning ride sometime, but I’ll be sure to eat before I head off into the headwind.

Someone told Charmaine that his favorite ride around here was up through Rancho Santa Fe and past Lake Hodges. That’s not too far from where we live, so we decided to try it today. The ride up was amazing. I’ll definitely be doing it again, probably during my lunch break one of these days. There was a decent amount of climbing, but it was never too crazy.

When we got to the top, we weren’t sure if we would be able to go south and connect to any roads we know, or if we would have to ride along a section of I-15 on our bikes (not a fun sounding option), or just go back down the way we came. I had spent a long time looking at maps trying to find a way south, but it seemed the only road that went from Escondido to Rancho Bernardo (without a 20+ mile detour) was the freeway, so I was voting for going back the way we came.

Luckily, we caught up to a group that knew a lot more about the area than we did. They knew about a pedestrian underpass across the freeway and a pedestrian bridge that crossed the bottom of Lake Hodges. It was great. We connected up through Rancho Bernardo and made our way back along Carmel Valley Road and Del Mar Heights Road. That makes the loop very doable.

Unfortunately, I thought we would only be outside about 2 hours, so I wasn’t wearing sunblock and I got sunburned. Hopefully I have learned my lesson, but somehow I doubt it.

I don’t know why, but I decided to skip swimming today and do a quick ride along the 56 instead. It was a bit windy, but I figured that would just add to the workout. I wasn’t wrong. There were several times when I actually yelled at the wind, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”. It seemed no matter which way I turned, the wind was in my face. And sometimes it was really howling. Going through the occasional underpass nearly picked me up off my bike it was so strong. At one point I almost stopped to take a picture of some of the trees bowing to the wind, but I didn’t want to mess up my time on that segment.

Despite the wind, I managed to set a bunch of new PRs and make it into my top 3 for almost every segment I rode today. It’s hard to ask your body to do more than that (other than ride more segments). I’m pretty happy. I guess it was worth skipping the swim… this time.

Charmaine got home from work a little after 5:30. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, filled our water bottles, and headed out for a short ride up the 56 bike trail. We were on our bikes by 6:00. We took things extremely easy on the way up and mostly just coasted on the way back. It was a lot of fun and provided a great opportunity to get a little more time in the saddle.

Charmaine is in Arizona this weekend, which meant I slept in and missed the optimal window to start a bike ride (which just happens to coincide with the hours you can get a Sausage McMuffin with Egg). It’s actually a miracle I was able to get myself out there without a visit to McDonald’s. I fired up the stove and fried a few eggs, made some toast, sliced some cheese, and poured myself a tall glass of orange juice. It wasn’t the perfect pre-ride meal, but it wasn’t bad.

It felt warm and windy outside. Weather Underground said it was a 14 mph wind from the west. I thought it might be fun to ride up through Oceanside and take advantage of that wind to push me along the bike trail. My legs were still feeling a bit sore from my long run on Thursday, so I thought I would just take it easy today, get some time in the saddle, and call it a recovery ride. But as soon as I started heading toward the beach I knew it wasn’t going to be a recovery ride. It was serious work to go west and my legs were not happy about it.

I decided I would ride the Torrey Pines hill and see how I felt after that. The hill itself wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. There are quite a few people that get off and walk their bikes up, but I was never tempted to stop, even with the worn-out condition of my legs. It seemed a lot easier and shorter than the ride up Sun Crest, for example. I rode a bit at the top before turning around and heading back down. The way back down is fast and rough. I don’t like roads like that; they make my bike shake and wobble. I’m always worried that I have a flat tire. Today was no exception. I stopped in the middle of the hill on the way down to make sure I still had air in my tires. I really expected to find my back tire flat, but it wasn’t, so I got back on and went the rest of the way down.

At the bottom I caught up with some skinny guys that had flown past me when I was stopped. I was worried that if I passed them on the flat, they would have to pass me again when we climbed up into Del Mar. That turned out to be a mistake. I was way faster than them, even on the climb. It seemed like it might be tricky to pass them with the construction, so I turned back up Carmel Valley Road instead. I thought about just riding back home, but that would have made this my shortest ride in years. I wasn’t going to have that, so I cruised over to the 56 bike trail.

I went back to my original plan to take it easy and just get some time in the saddle. I coasted to the bottom of the bike trail and ran into a couple guys getting ready to sprint up the trail. I wondered if I could stay with them. They continued getting ready and I didn’t want to just sit and wait for them, so I headed up on my own. I was pushing it, but my legs were screaming at me, so I probably wasn’t going all that fast.

At some point one of the guys caught up to me. I don’t know when, but he was content to just draft behind me for a while. I pushed hard down one of the hills and pulled away from him, but he caught up and passed me during the final climb up to Camino Del Sur. The light was red and he didn’t want to wait. I only had to wait about 10 seconds before it turned green and I decided I would try to keep him in my sights. He was pretty far ahead, but I thought I might catch up again. I did, but then he pulled away again during the final climb to Black Mountain Road. We both coasted down to the light at Rancho Peñasquitos. I decided to turn around and head back at that point. My legs were fried.

I cut off the bike path at Rancho Santa Fe Farms Road, which is where Carmel Valley Road and the 56 are the closest together. As soon as I turned onto Carmel Valley Road I knew I had made a mistake. The wind was directly in my face and made it tough to ride down the slight hill to Del Mar Heights Road. The wind continued to be in my face the rest of the way home.