We didn’t plan our big Saturday ride before we went to bed on Friday night. That meant we slept in and acted all morning like we were not going to go on a ride. When we neared the final edge of the ride launch window (when McDonald’s stops selling breakfast items), we snapped into action. If we were going to go, we had to go now.
Charmaine planned a nice little route that took us up Rancho Santa Fe Road, through San Elijo Hills, the Elfin Forest, around the edge of Escondido, and then down Del Dios Highway. We had alawys gone up Del Dios Highway, but never down. There were always a lot of riders coming down, and we knew we needed to try it. There were several ways we could add on to the route if we felt we needed more miles or more climbing. It sounded like a plan. Charmaine called Ryan to see if he wanted to go. He couldn’t go until sometime in the afternoon, so we were on our own this morning. We decided to keep the morning route fairly small (no add-ons) so we could do a second ride with Ryan in the afternoon.
The ride up Rancho Santa Fe Road was nice and easy. We turned at San Elijo Road and cut up through San Elijo Hills. That’s a really pretty place. From there we turned on Elfin Forest Road and cut down to a beautiful stream with lush vegetation. I expected the whole road to be like that, based on the name, but we didn’t really hit the lush part until we turned onto Harmony Grove Road. We rode past the creek a little ways and suddenly found ourselves in Escondido. We followed a couple riders through the edge roads and headed down Del Dios Highway.
It didn’t feel like we were going down; it felt like we were doing a lot of climbing. There was a massive headwind forcing us to pedal hard just to keep going. And, of course, there were a couple actual hills to climb. When we got back to San Dieguito Road, I turned left instead of right, leading us up and over the 3 Witches. I think Charmaine thought I would be a little smarter than that and just head home, knowing we would be riding again later in the day, but she was wrong. I’m a sucker for punishment. I expected the headwind on Carmel Valley Road to be extreme, based on what we had coming down Del Dios Highway, but it wasn’t that bad.
We made it home and had a good lunch before Ryan and Julie showed up for the next ride. The goal of this ride was to ride along the coast and have a little fun, then meet Julie down on the 56 trail so we could all ride our bikes with their oldest boy who learned how to ride a bike recently and has been asking to go on a ride with his dad ever since.
I found myself pushing north pretty hard. It was one of the first times I had ridden north along the coast without a headwind. It was pretty fun. Of course, that meant coming south would be without the usual tailwind. On the way back Ryan and I pushed through the headwind that had developed. We took turns drafting and made really good time. Unfortunately, we dropped Charmaine right at the start when she missed a light and had to wait. We didn’t realize how far ahead we were until we descended from Solana Beach into Del Mar. By then it was too late to do anything about it. I thought about texting her to let her know where we were, but we just kept hitting every light green and there was never a chance until we stopped at the appointed meeting place at the end of our ride. She had wondered if we had taken a different route and were waiting for her, so she called and left a message letting us know where she was. That’s what we should have done at some point, but we never did. In the future I think it’ll be better to wait and call/text if we ever get separated so we get back together as soon as possible. It’s no fun to ride alone.
As it turned out, our average speed for that second ride was almost 18.5, which is pretty good considering I had already ridden 50 miles that morning. I’m happy about that. Now to recover.