As we headed home from an evening with Ryan and Julie, we talked about doing a ride together this morning (Memorial Day). I passed along my wisdom that the optimal start time for any ride is prior to McDonald’s stopping breakfast service. Ryan called this morning to say they were loading up the car to come up and do a ride with us. We didn’t get out the door until pretty late (11:30). The wind had already picked up, but it was still nice and cool.

We introduced Ryan to the loop up past Lake Hodges, through Rancho Bernardo, and back along Carmel Valley Road. He was much faster than us. I think we were still a bit sore from our big ride just 2 days ago. Ryan was nice enough to wait for us to catch up from time to time. It wound up being a fairly nice recovery ride. I pushed a few times on climbs here and there, but mostly just took it easy and enjoyed the scenery.

After lunch we left Ryan to watch the kids and took Julie on another ride along the 56 Bike Trail. She’s still very new to biking and has only done 3 or 4 rides total. She didn’t want to have to ride from our apartment down to the trail (or back up) next to the fast traffic, so Charmaine and Julie packed their bikes on the car and met me at a parking lot along the trail.

The trail ride was extremely relaxed. We made Julie ride further than she had ridden before, and she seemed to handle the hills better than ever. Hopefully she had fun and wants to keep riding.

When we were done, the girls packed their bikes onto the car while I raced home. They passed me on the final hill, but I took a short-cut from Carmel Country Road directly to the apartment and wound up getting there first. That was pretty cool. I wound up getting two PRs going up the hill, despite having to stop at a red light during the first climb.