Sunday, July 25, 2010

RDO to Bagel Shop and back

To access ride information you can click on the title to this blog.

This ride was fun and longer than I anticipated. I only planned on riding to San Onofre, but felt like it was going to be neccessary to eat before I headed back home. I was going to stop at Carls Junior, which is the first restaurant that you come to on the southern end of San Clemente, but decided to go a little further to find something that wouldn't be counter productive for the ride back. I have heard from other cyclist about the "Bagel Shack" about 2.5 miles further north to find it and it didn't let me down. I got a strawberry/banana smoothie and a cheddar cheese bagel that really hit the spot and gave me enough to make the ride back home. Other than the need to stop and tretch a couple of time to get the blood flowing in areas that were having a difficult time, it was a nice relaxing ride. I made the hills coming back home with less difficulty too which is really the whole reason for starting and finishing from home and that is to see how I do on the hills after a long ride. I have to say they are getting easier and easier. I also had the grade feature working on my Garmin computer as well and was happy to see the grade % push to 12%, which is pretty steep. I was hearing how difficult the riders have it in the tour on grades that reach 10% on the Col d' Tormelet. Of course it is much harder when you are reaching speeds of 15-20 miles per hour over 12-15 miles over those grades, but it was nice to know that we have some road grade % right here in So. Cal. that rival those in France. I'm just looking forward to the day when I can tackle longer hills over a longer period of time without losing too much and suffering for it afterwards.
One item on my most do "bucket list" items is to ride from San Francisco to San Diego. I may do one leg of this ride over two days after the MS ride in October if some additional pieces fall in to place before then. I want to ride from Santa Barbara to San Diego. I won't do this without a partner/s because of safety reasons, so the search is on. I have a few leads. Anyone in?

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