Pictures from this Weekend

Training Rides

Saturday 100K "Populaire"

Here's a description from the Randonneur who created the route:

"This route was adapted from a training ride I do for hill climbing. It's basically a route where I'd ride from one steep hill to another. The ride will start in Mission Hills, and head up to Solana Beach, then head back south on inside Torrey Pines; instead of going back to Rose Cyn Bike Path, you peel off to the right at La Jolla Shores Drive for great (but brief) views of La Jolla. Then the hard part starts - one of the toughest hills in San Diego is Via Capri and that is the next section. Via Capri is 1.4 miles and has an average gradient of 9%. When you consider that there are some stretches of flat parts in there, then that makes the maximum gradient somewhere around 15%. So, bring your climbing gears, your walking shoes, or your enormous quads. After Via Capri, you descend Nautilus to Pacific Beach Drive and head south all the way to Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs. Then it's up Hill Street, right to the lighthouse, back to Canon Street, along Harbor Drive to downtown, then up another hill to get up to the finish."

I'm glad I had my triple chainring!

Sunday Climb to Alpine

On Sunday I climbed up Dehesa Rd. to Alpine. At the base of the climb a rider named Troy, who had just descended, turned around and slotted in behind me. He said he was recovering from a knee injury, so he was doing "intervals" - repeating the climb. I was serving to pace him up the climb for one of his SLOW intervals. Troy told me about his experiences on really long rides like the Furnace Creek 508.