National Bike To Work Day This Friday

Feel like trying out bicycling to work for a day but also a bit scared of riding in traffic? This Friday (May 16th) is National Bike to Work Day and there will be lots (more) of other people on bike out and about. A good time for a try out if you are bike-commute curious!

Get on your bike for a day and join a happy commuting crowd this Friday!

Aside from there being more cyclists around (there is more safety in number! Drivers see more bikes on the road and look for us more), many local business and bike advocates are putting up free pit stops on cycling routes around town to make your bike commute even more pleasant! Check out the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition page for map of pit stops in San Diego area. Some pit stops even offer bike repair & tune up to make sure your machine runs properly!

UPDATE: 15 May 2014: Due to conditions of the local State of Emergency and the wildfire situation, all official Bike to Work Day events are POSTPONED to May 30th.

Why drivers should tell cyclists to NOT ride to the far right of the lane

The next time you drive down the street and see someone cycling up ahead in the lane and you start to get annoyed at the prospect of having to slow down a bit and change lane to pass a bicycle (even though you wouldn't be half as annoyed if you have to do the same thing for another car), and the voice in your head goes; 'look at that inconsiderate biker! There are 3 feet between him and the parked cars. Why can't he scoot a foot or two closer to the car so that I can just squeeze by without losing any speed?' Watch the videos below and be glad that the bike rider is riding outside of the 'door zone' rather than in one, and tell the next cyclists you see on the road who do ride close to parked cars on the right side of the lane that they SHOULD BE riding closer to the middle of the lane instead. The cyclists you can easily see near the middle of the lane are the ones you can easily avoid getting into a collision with. It's the cyclists riding nearly invisibly (obscured by parked cars) to the far right of the lane that have the potential to suddenly get bumped into your path with little or no notice at all.



Do you see what happens when a cyclist is hit by an opening car door? Here is another look...



What happens to the cyclist when she is hit by an opening car door? She gets deflected into the next traffic lane, doesn't she? Now... imagine yourselves the driver of the car just innocently passing by in the lane to the left... Do you see what I'm talking about now? It isn't the idiot that opens the car door without first checking traffic that will end up delivering the fatal blow to the hit cyclist. It's YOU!

You will be the one that ends up with recurring nightmare of a helpless cyclist suddenly landing on the pavement right in front of you with no reaction time at all. You will be the one that feels the thump of the impact (and probably also the sickening sensation of the wheel rolling over a human body). Your car will be the car with almost all the damages and all the blood splattered on it. Yes, you... all because another person opened his car door when traffic isn't clear, and because another person was riding his bike close enough to the parked car to be hit by its opening door.



Also, to my fellow cyclists, you actually need to ride a bit further away from the cars than the length of their doors. You need to be far enough away to not instinctively swerve away from the opening door because there's no time to check for passing traffic! It's much better to get honked at by impatient people than to end up dead and making a manslaughter out of another innocent road user. Don't ride in the door zone where you can end up a human ping pong ball or be screened (by parked cars) from view of any car coming out of the side roads! This is especially important when you are riding in a group (where if you get hit by a car door you could end up sending the cyclist to your left flying helplessly into the next traffic lane... not to mention causing many others behind you to crash into the wreckage, of course)!

Cabrillo National Monument in Santa Ana Wind & Sun

We are on our third straight day of heavy duty Santa Ana condition here in San Diego. It's a bit of a bummer since I'm having an easy work week and had been eying a few delicious roads up in the mountains to the east, but there is no way I would head east of the city limit in this sort of weather (being crazy for adventure is one thing, being stupidly suicidal is another).

Having spent the whole work week inside was driving me silly, though, so I compromised and headed out for a short ride, with a friend, to Cabrillo National Monument instead. Cabrillo is at the south tip of the Pt Loma Peninsula just a few miles around the San Diego Bay. My $15 Cabrillo Pass had just expired at the end of April, so renewing it gave me quite a good extra excuse to stay on the coast. I'm afraid morning commitments meant that I couldn't start until 10am, so the morning was already quite warm and getting moderately windy when I rolled into Moment Cycle Sports' parking lot in Liberty Station to pick up Kim, my cycling co-conspirator for the day.

A rather bad bike lane on N Harbor Dr approaching Scott Rd. Naturally we rode in the 'buffer zone' rather than in the door-zone bike lane.

Taking Rosecrans south into La Playa.

We had planned to follow my Utterly & Horribly Unnecessarily Steep Pt Loma Tour route, but by the time we got to the Shelter Island turn off the wind was starting to get unfriendly. Luckily for me, Kim raised no objection to my skipping the packed dirt (and amazingly scenic) Bessemer Path and headed into La Playa on Rosecrans instead. We turned uphill on Owens and followed San Elijo Ave to the secret neighborhood path that connects to picturesque Armada Terrace, where we slow-rolled for a bit to shake the lactate off the legs before scaling La Playa's resident ogre, 23% grade first block of Lucinda St.

The secret passage to Armada Terrace.

Living on Armada Terrace in La Playa means you're never short of spectacular view!

Lucinda St's ouchy first block at Harbor View Dr.

Kim had spent a lot of her winter cycling miles on Palomar Mtn, and so it was Lucinda St that cried at their encounter! I haven't been riding much in the past 1 1/2 week (tho I ate as if I had been doing back-to-back brevets), so I was pretty surprised that I managed it up the hideous block without having to get out of the saddle. We stopped to enjoy the view from the leveled out intersection with Golden Park Ave, of course. As horrible for cycling the Santa Ana Wind is, it also produces really nice clear skyline all the way to the mountains!

View of the bay from half way up Lucinda St.

Kim rolling past Rosecroft House.

We took Golden Park to Charles and Gage Rds and weaved our way through The Wooded Area while goggling at the neighborhood's over-abundance of gorgeous houses. Rosecroft House is, of course, an attraction worth a little detouring to see. Eventually we made our way to the main road and headed south on Cabrillo Memorial Dr to Cabrillo National Park where the super nice ranger at the entrance booth sold me a new annual pass and wished both of us a good ride.

The view of the bay from Cabrillo visitor center on a clear Santa Ana day is worth getting off the bike for!

Hotel Del Coronado with Mt San Miguel in the background.

Kim was sort of caught between Juan Rodrigo Cabrillo and the Old Pt Loma Lighthouse...

The park was relatively busy! We made a beeline to the soft-drinks vending machine at the visitor center, though arrived to find it in the process of being resupplied (so the drinks weren't cold yet). Luckily I had taken the measure of half-filling my 2nd water bottle and freezing it overnight, so the slightly salted water in that bottle was still nice and cold as we walked around admiring Cabrillo's drop-dead gorgeous bay view.

San Diego Bay view from Ft Rosecrans National Cemetery.

Hot weather and I really don't get along!

1st block of Bandini St in Mission Hills.

We loitered around at Cabrillo for quite a while until the wind started to feel like we were stuck in front of a giant blow dryer with the cooling effect rivaling a blow torch, when we made our escape north on rolling Cabrillo Memorial Dr/Catalina Blvd to Chatsworth Blvd down to Liberty Station. Kim's ride was done there, and I had a nice and easy roll back up the Uptown mesa by way of Old Town and scenic Bandini St where I was once again cheered up the 25% first block by a nice local driver.

It was a nice little 30 mile ride! Yes, yes, I went up a few ouchy steepies unnecessarily, but streets like Lucinda and Bandini are so much more interesting and so less trafficky than things like Canon or Catalina or Juan or Washington Sts. Besides, I've got the granny gear... and why have the granny gear (and all its extra weight) if you aren't going to find a good steepie or two to put it to use?

Palm fronds are getting blown everywhere. If you can, move them away from handicap access ramps!

On another note, the Santa Ana wind has been blowing a lot of tree debris and palm fronds onto the roads and sidewalks. We able-bodied folks don't think about it much, but it would be great if my fellow cyclists and pedestrians would take the time to, when they come across debris & fronds that block the handicap access ramps on the sidewalk, stop and move the obstacles out of the way so our wheelchaired neighbors can get from place to place. It's just a few seconds of your time, and the fronds aren't heavy at all. A bit inconvenient, perhaps, but really good good karma building opportunity!

Today's riding route: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/405801850

Guest post: Wheel Women San Diego (formerly LUNA Chix San Diego Cycle) inaugural ride 2014

Hello riders,

We are excited to announce that the San Diego LUNA Chix Cycling Team is now the WHEEL WOMEN OF SAN DIEGO. Our cycling season will start next weekend. We will continue to focus on the beginner women riders, but are also offering longer rides for the intermediate participants. As always, our beginner rides are "no drop,” which means that even the slowest rider does not get left behind. However, we require any rider to have previously ridden at least one 15-mile ride. Team members will lead and sweep the intermediate rides as well, but these are NOT “no drop” rides. We will still be fundraising for the Breast Cancer Fund throughout the season.

Cabrillo Tidepool climb

Here are our offerings for April:

April 13   Inaugural Ride from Moment Cycle/Liberty Station  8:00am. Enjoy the beautiful San Diego Bay on this mostly flat 20-mile, no drop ride out to Shelter Island and Cabrillo Monument. This ride includes some gentle rollers, a climb up to Catalina, and optional hill repeats from the tide pools. **Be sure to bring your "National Parks" card if you have one.

April 19   Ride in the Ranch 8:00am. Ride with us through beautiful Rancho Santa Fe. Two distances will be offered: a 20-mile no drop ride and a 35-mile ride.
 
April 26   Alpine Challenge Ride start times depend on the distance. Distances are 25, 50, 62, or 100 miles.  You can register at www.alpinechallenge.com

May 10   North County Ride from Del Mar Pearl Izumi: 8:00am.

May 25   Chula Vista Road Ride from REI: 8:00am.

Hope to see you next weekend.

WHEEL WOMEN OF SAN DIEGO

__~O
  -\ <,
(*)/ (*)   

Creating a Cycling Community for Women in San Diego

 

Support Wheel Women of San Diego the Breast Cancer Foundation. Learn More and Donate.

Car-free Pacific Beach: CicloSDias 2014

I meant to post this earlier, but it's been a busy work week. Sorry! Anyhow, if you are in San Diego this weekend and would like to experience Pacific Beach without having to deal with cars, come to CicloSDias on Sunday March 30th from 10am - 3pm.

Ride your bike, roll your skateboard or just walk along Cass Ave & Garnet Ave while enjoying the neighborhood and its many cool shops and watering places for an afternoon the way people were able to do before the world went mad with cars. Please check out the event website for more info!

Cuyamaca Peak by Road Bike

At 6, 512 ft (1985 m), Cuyamaca Peak is the second highest point in San Diego County (second only to 6533 ft tall Hot Springs Mountain near Warner Springs), and its distinctive wave shape in the middle of a rectangular mountain block is easy to spot from afar. As there is no paved road all the way to the top of Hot Springs Mountain, Cuyamaca Peak is the highest point a road bike could go in San Diego... and it was the main objective of my adventure bike ride a couple of weeks ago.

A friend and I started riding from Santee Trolley Station and picked up two more accomplices in Alpine. I'm afraid my plan was a bit more ambitious than prudent as I didn't quite realize how relentlessly steep Lookout Rd is. We all crested the Hwy 79 climb at a good clip, but the 3.5 miles from Paso Picacho Campground (where we stopped to refill our water bottles and to use the excellent restroom) to the top of Cuyamaca Peak took a whole hour in itself (running into stiff headwind about 200 vertical feet from the top sure didn't help). Lookout Fire Rd is a popular hiking route to the top of the mountain, so we ran into quite a few friendly hikers on the way. They are quite awesome about making way for us and were full of encouragement.



As you can see from the video, the view is quite spectacular both along the way up and from the top. We were also lucky about running into a lot of wild birds and deers. My friend Dezary even almost got rammed by a very cage-free chicken as we rolled up Hwy 79 through Descanso. It came tumbling out of the bush on the bank of the road as if chased by a coyote and made quite a racket... just a few yards from the 'honor system' basket selling eggs for $3 a dozen.

By the way, the stretch of I-8 between E Willow Rd and Hwy 79/Japatul Valley Rd is open to bicycle because there really aren't any reasonable alternate surface road between the two exits (we fit lycra crowd on lighter bikes might not have much trouble coping with the Japatul Wall or Viejas Grade Rd detour, but not all on bikes are light or fit!).

My riding buddies called it finished when we rolled back into Alpine and I spun on alone back to Santee. I had meant to detour into Crest and Granite Hills to check out a couple of enticing-looking roads along the way, but the afternoon was getting old and my legs were insistent that I shut the &%@% up about more double digit grade climbing after all they had put up with up the big mountain, so I settled for a very minor side trip around Lake Jennings before catching the trolley home in Santee.

It was quite a good trip. Only 80 miles, but with a decent elevation gain of 7920ft (most of the climbing were done in the first 40 miles). From Santee to Alpine and then through to Paso Picacho is really a long drawn out gentle climb (nothing steeper than 6%). The Lookout Rd up Cuyamaca Peak, though, is very gnarly. Once it starts kicking in earnest about a mile up it averages around 17% in endless series of very steep ramps, some in the high 20's grade. The last 2 turns had to be walked due to the very unfair combination of very steep gradient and very gravelly chopped up pavement. Unlike Mt Woodson Rd, however, you can carefully ride down most of Lookout Rd (you can't let the bike run, but the turns aren't as tight as Mt Woodson Rd and there's a bit more room for error if you skid off the pavement).

Souvenir from a ride: Otay Lakes Rd with the LUNA Chix

I think this was from August 2012, my first time heading east on Otay Lakes Rd toward Honey Springs Rd climb. I was with the LUNA Chix group ride and took this shot from the back of the group... and I wasn't progressing toward the front. It would take me another 20 miles before I thought to check if my tires could free spin and found that the rear brake was rubbing... Having ridden in to the ride from North Park area, I only made it half way up Honey Springs Rd and had a hardest time on the little rollers on Otay Lakes Rd and Olympic Pkwy on my way back to town, seriously questioning my fitness just a month shy of my first epic century ride.

It was a very humiliating experience and a very educational one. Aside from squeezing the tires to check air pressure I always spin the wheels to check for rubbing brake and/or wobble before every ride now (and even during the ride, whenever I stop I'd check the tires and wheels again before remounting and continuing). I'm also eternally grateful to the LUNA Chix ride leadership. The day's sweep rider, Ellen, refused to leave me as I fell further and further behind the rest of the group on Honey Springs Rd and all the way back on Otay Lakes Rd. Ellen carried extra water and energy bars with her and was full of encouragement. Then ride leader Barb came upon us struggling up a little hump just before Wueste Rd turn off and actually gave me a push.

Seriously, if it weren't for Ellen and Barb I might have just rolled off the uncomfortably hot tarmac somewhere east of Skydive San Diego and became coyote food before my friends could send out a search and rescue party. Instead, I went on to finish the inaugural Giro di San Diego gran fondo ride, have climbed Honey Springs at least 20 times now and other bigger mountains along the way. The LUNA Chix have been taking the winter months off from cycling, but I'm quite looking forward to more rides with them when their season starts again in a few months!

Update (11Mar2014): The LUNA Chix have re-organized! They are now called the Wheel Women of San Diego. More info on their new Facebook page (first ride of 2014 season coming up on Sunday April 13th from Moment Cycle Sports in Liberty Station).

Guest posting: What A Jamul Casino Would Mean for Local Cyclists

I average around 200 miles per week on my bicycle, riding in and out of the city of San Diego. Many of those miles are spent on Otay Lakes Rd, Honey Springs Rd, Lyons Valley Rd and bits of SR 94 in Jamul because they are often the shortest and least hilly way for me to take to go visit Black Jack the perpetually hungry donkey, the adorable Beacon Hill llamas, all sorts of cool mountain birds and flowers and a particularly adventurous and friendly pack of house dogs along Mother Grundy TT. 

The mostly shoulderless Otay Lakes Rd at lower lake.

These roads are mostly sleepy (the busiest of them all, SR 94, is still pretty sleepy compared to anything closer to the coast), but they are all quite unforgiving when anything happens. The more traffic on them, the more chance of things happening, however, and since there aren't many (and in some parts of Jamul, 'any') alternative routes to get to and through the area, when something like a crash or a fire or a stuck giant super semi-truck happens, it really causes problem both for the local residents who are just trying to get home from work (or work from home) and for passing-through traffic like me. 

SR94 east of Jamul Butte.

With the current (and apparently not-very-legal) construction of a casino off SR94 in Jamul that would increase traffic through it and the nearby feeder roads, I have been eying this project with alarm. So many previously cycling-friendly rural roads have been rendered nearly unridable post-construction of a casino (Pala Rd into Pala Mission, Valley Center Rd between N Lake Wohlford Rd and Hwy 76, Wildcat Canyon/Borona Rd, Dehesa Rd in Sycuan area). I wondered what can cyclists like me do about such a project... and so I decided to ask Kim Hamilton, a Deerhorn Valley resident and the editor of the Antlers, the area's newsletter, for a guest blog post on the subject. Here is her response:

  ..........................................................................................................  

JOIN WITH JAMUL & SAVE HWY 94 AND OTAY LAKES ROAD

A Chance For Cyclists And Drivers To Work Together

(...What A Concept!)

 

If you have ridden Otay Lakes Road or Rural 94 (Campo Rd) during the last couple of weeks, no doubt you have encountered large numbers of heavy-duty trucks plying the narrow roads. Double yellow lines are no deterrent to wide swings on tight (even blind) curves. In straight sections they push the 55 mph limit in a rush to dump off their tons of rock, dirt, and debris. And we’ve been told to expect this for the next 18 months.

Map of affected area.

The trucks are hauling excavated material from the Jamul Indian Reservation on Hwy 94 and Melody Rd (the Jamul terminus of Proctor Valley Rd). The tribe and their backers have launched a desperate attempt to construct a mega-sized Jamul Hollywood Casino on a tiny 4-acre parcel of disputed land. 

The problems for this big-city construction on this rural site are huge. Most serious for cyclists and drivers are the impacts on two-lane highway 94 (Campo Road) and rural feeder routes like Otay Lakes Rd. 

In a stark turnaround from normal protocol, Caltrans required no road safety improvements before it granted access to Hwy 94 for hundreds of daily trucks along two of the most popular and heavily used cycling routes in South and East County—part of the Great Western Loop that the Campagnolo Gran Fondo, the Olympic Training Center, and hundreds of cyclists use regularly.

One of the casino construction trucks was recently photographed having difficulties staying on the right side of the road on SR94 near Steele Canyon Rd. (Photo: James McElree)

Some history: Over the past two decades, four big-money corporations* bankrolled efforts to build a Jamul casino — to no avail. Tribal members collect monthly payments, but the legal, environmental, and safety issues are huge. The first three backers withdrew, losing millions in the process. The tribe itself is now more than $60 million in debt. A year ago Penn National Gaming came in with some (conditional) financing—and an in-your-face attitude. This is Penn’s first experience in California and they hope the Jamul’s proximity to San Diego might boost depreciating stock prices. So far Caltrans has made sure it hasn’t cost them much: a couple of flaggers and some caution signs. They approved the tribe’s Traffic Management Plan that included not one reference to cycling or cyclists. [*Lakes Entertainment, Station Casinos, Harrah’s Casinos, and Penn National Gaming]

So here lies an opportunity for drivers and cyclists to find some common ground—a chance to prove cyclists and rural drivers can co-exist and share the rural byways. The payoff could be in preserving access and improving safety for us all, and bolstering understanding that roads are for everyone. After all, they are shared public assets.

This Hollywood-themed Casino is no done-deal by a long stretch. San Diego County is suing Caltrans over their approval to allow hauling trucks such unrestricted access to Hwy 94, Otay Lakes Rd, and other feeders. The Jamul Action Committee (JAC) is filing a separate suit, and expects support from the Rural Fire District—with its concerns about increased crashes and a slowed response time to wildfire and medical emergencies. In fact the land itself, JAC argues, was never taken into “trust”— a vital pre-requisite for gambling, and upheld by recent Supreme and lower court decisions. That suit is due to be heard in federal court beginning March 28^th.

I encourage the cycling community to stay informed and lend their voice and actions to this fight.  Rural roads are already the most dangerous in California, and Hwy 94 stands at the top of the list for fatalities and crashes. As the lawsuits wind their ways through the court system, it will take some organized action to keep the public informed. A mega project like this has no business being built without the space and infrastructure to keep roads safe. Period.

Here’s how the cycling community can help:

1) Register for email updates at: http://jacjamul.com. They won’t share your info with anyone else. 

2) Contact your county and state reps and share a cyclist’s perspective about Hwy 94 and Otay Lakes Roads would be impacted by casino traffic.

3) Consider joining together with rural drivers, pedestrians, and others to demonstrate the implications of thousands of trucks, cars, and buses added to Hwy 94.

4) Check out JAC’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/JamuliansAgainstTheCasinoJac

 

This needs to be a shared fight with a positive outcome for all travelers, riders, and drivers.

 

Thank you for this opportunity to reach out.

Alpine - Viejas Grade - Descanso and road rashes

Apologies for having neglected the blog a bit! After a slow slump work suddenly picked up to a frenzy pace the past couple of months and the few exploration rides I did make have been going a bit stale in my photo folders. [Right click fotos and open in new tab for full size]

Looking east on I-8 from Willow Rd/Alpine Blvd overpass. Viejas Mountain in left background.

Unseasonably warm and dry winter weather is now old news as March is knocking on the door, but back in mid-December it was still something of a surprise. After a weekend of high wind in the East County my friend Tim and I took a Tuesday off and carpooled up to Alpine Creek Shopping Mall on Tavern Rd in Alpine for a morning road cycling trip to Cuyamaca Peak. To get to Descanso from Alpine by bicycle without taking the long detour to Japatul Valley we had two choices, of course; taking the direct route by riding on the shoulder of I-8 to Hwy 79 (bicycles are allowed on this stretch of the freeway) or the more adventurous unpaved climb across the saddle between Poser and Chiquito Mountains on scenic Viejas Grade Rd. We opted to go east on Viejas Grade and return via the freeway.

A chimney is all that's left of one of the houses along Viejas Indian Reservation.

Now... isn't this a deluxe busstop shelter?

Heading east on Alpine Blvd before most of the business opened up for the day gave quite a nice warm up ride (it is mostly a gradual climb) and all our warmers were taken off by the time we crossed the freeway on W Willow Rd. At the Y-intersection we veered left onto Viejas Grade Rd and headed for the foothills to the north of Viejas Casino. The two-laned road is nicely paved blacktop there, though shoulderless. Residues of the last wild fire that passed through the area are still visible from the pavement; blackened dead trees, mostly cleaned up remains of a couple of burnt houses. We made a few turns to stay on Viejas Grade Rd and took a 'look around' break to admire one of the two or three covered busstops along the road. I, wondering out loud why we can't have as nice busstops in the city. I mean... these are really nice shelters with benches and even came equipped with a bike rack!

Viejas Grade Rd, dirt portion... with my little slide evidence on far left.

After a couple of miles pavement ends just as the climb starts.The dirt road is wide and well-graded, however, quite firm enough for my 25 mm Gatorskin tires to handle. There are a few sections where the top is looser than others and fosters attentive bike handling. It is quite fun, though skidding along on that alternating with the bumpy washed out sections of the road where any loose top had been blown off by the weekend's vicious wind gusts were pretty hard on the tires. I wouldn't have liked to descend down this road on my road bike, but climbing it's 4.4 miles of 5% grade slope was a fun challenge. The most important things, of course, are to look ahead and plot out a good line to follow (spot the firmest bit of the road from afar and aim for them) and to lay off from braking. I was having quite a good time filming and photographing as we climbed, and got myself into a not-so-nice little wheel-sucking slide in the process. Old mountain-biking instinct came to my rescue, though, and I pedaled my way out of it without having to put a foot down.

Lucky for me, Tim is a wonderful bike touring partner in crime and enjoys stopping to take in the view as much as I do. The view southwest from Viejas Grade Rd is pretty smashing from various bends as we snaked our way up the WE flank of Poser Mountain. Beautiful Viejas Valley where the casino lies framed in by Viejas Mountain to the west, and all the prominent peaks in the coastal range looks rather different when seen from the east. It is still easy to pick out McGinty Mtn and Lyons Peak, however (if you squint you can still see the latter' fire lookout towers). I'm afraid we were a noisy pair and scared the local birds into hiding, though I did spot a couple of bluebirds and at least one meadow lark.

Collection of road signs at the top of Viejas Grade.

After a while we topped out and took another 'sight-seeing' break looking around the eclectic collection of road signs and railroad ties at the crest of the road... and couldn't help wondering how they were collected. Viejas Grade remains unpaved for a further mile or so beyond the crest, so we made a careful descent until we got to the black top. A few spunky local horses tried to race us down the hill, and a couple of black-headed Steller's jays escaped into tree canopies before I could fish out my camera.

We opted to descend down Oak Grove Dr instead of continuing on Viejas Grade Rd. Tim had gone on a bit ahead as I stopped to attempt to photograph a kestrel that was hunting near the fork of the road. I soon caught up, however, and opted for an inside line into a fast right curve in order to avoid a series of potholes in the middle of the lane when I saw white patch on the pavement around the corner. Sand! The thing had at least 3/4 of the lane covered, it was a fairly blind curve and I was doing around 30 mph on the inside line. Braking was not an option (the worst thing you could do that would guarantee a skid out) and changing the line at that speed while taking a 90 degree curve was not much of one either, so I weighed down my outside foot, aimed as far left (away from the main patch of sand) as my momentum allowed and mentally crossed all my digits... and nearly made it across when the front wheel suddenly gave way and deposited me on the bumpy and sandy pavement.

It was about as mild a crash as the situation would allow. I'm afraid I didn't manage to tuck in and hold on to the bike, however, and I found myself skidding along with right arm stretched across the pavement acting simultaneously as head cushion and a rather expensive brake pad. It is a wonder how fast acting a painkiller adrenaline is when you hit something hard like that. Nothing really hurt, though the perpetually bored voice in my head did, in the few long and drawn out seconds that I spent skidding across the road, chimed in its sincere hope that an evacuation by ambulance wouldn't be required (when I crashed face first in Pt Loma last year the 8 miles long ambulance ride had cost me $2400... aside from doctors and radiology and emergency room fees) and how I will have ruined another good pair of arm warmers by the time I came to a stop... Then, of course, I realized that I had taken the arm warmers off before we started climbing, so I came to my stop half way across the opposite traffic lane with a mouthful of sand and gravel, wondering if my poor right arm still had any skin left on it. Before I could properly inspect the damages, though, Tim, who had screeched to a stop just beyond the cursed curve, yelled out, 'Car!' So I ditched the thought of damage inspection and the bike and hopped clear off to the high side of the road.

Not from this ride, but same sort of 'sand washed/blown onto road behind a curve on Torrey Pines Park Rd.

The car was carefully driven by a nice local lady, however, and she stopped for Tim to retrieve my bike from the road and even asked if she could help. Luckily for me I didn't hit my head (some dirt swallowing not withstanding), was sure that I didn't break any bone and none of the cut looked too ghastly for my first aid kit to deal with. Tim proved a good medic and we swiftly rinsed dirt and sand off my plethora of road rashes and had the worst of them bandaged up within a few minutes (if you ever crash and end up with open wounds, it's best to clean them while you're still numb, of course).

After straightening out the banged bent right hood and inspecting the frame and wheels for cracks I thanked prudence again for having opted for the sturdy aluminum bike rather than a lighter carbon one, and we remounted and headed on down the hill to the Perkins' Store in Descanso. A couple of nice Avon salesladies were set up in front of the store there and we had a good chat. Perkins' is to Descanso what Lyons Valley Trading Post is to Lyons & Deerhorn Valley, I think. The best place to catch up on local news and stuff. By now my wounds were stinging quite a bit, so I decided to abandon the day's ambitious objective (Cuyamaca Lookout Rd) and head back to town.

Smooth descent on westbound I-8.

Alpine Castle.

We had a nice smooth roll down I-8 westbound shoulder to E Willow Rd exit and through Alpine before making a short (tho hilly) side trip to photograph the elusive Alpine Castle from Eltinge Dr. It was a good thing we turned back! Tim dropped me off at Cal Coast Bicycles on my way home, where Todd the super-mechanic found both of my tires quite a bit beyond moderately flat and the rear derailleur a bit bent. No major repair needed, however. I'm telling you, my Giant Defy aluminum bike performs quite much more than I had expected from a $700 road bike!

As lucky as I was not to bang up my head or come off the mountain with a broken bone, the road rashes were quite awful. It always hurts a lot more on the day after, of course. The first three or four nights were quite terrible. I had managed to spread the road rashes around and there simply wasn't any way I could position myself so that none of them were touching something. I was grateful that we were in the midst of a Santa Ana weather pattern then, though, so long sleeves and blanket weren't required as it would have been much more miserable peeling wounds open every few hours to unstick clothes and bed sheets. My right arm took quite a beating and my right shoulder still hasn't regain its full range of motion, 2 1/2 months later, but it could have been worse. For much of the first week I really wondered if the whole arm wouldn't fall off or go septic on me. The upper arm had lost so much skin and was quite deadened and sore. It got much better once all the road rashes had dried out. Then, of course, the itching began a bit later as the scabs dried off and start attaching their corners to things.

After-ride photo

And here is a series of unappetizing (but hopefully educational) photos in case you're curious about what happens when you get a road rash.

The day after.

One week after.

One month after.

Everything heals in the end and you eventually do regain range of motion and stuff. Just have to put up with the uncomfortable process for a bit. My arm has benefited from arm warmers and coolers to shield the fresh scar from the sun, of course, though my right knee has fared a bit worse. The deep gash is right at the apex of the join and so I have had to let it burn in the sun when out riding since knee warmers keep pulling scab off it and tearing it back up... so that wound still looks pretty hideous in mid-February. It's all cosmetic now, though. The least of my concern. Hopefully I will have enough time to start training again next week for another go at Cuyamaca Lookout Rd before warm weather arrives!

In the meanwhile, here's a little video from the day's ride.

Musing: You can wait. A few extra minutes waiting to accomodate others won't ruin your life...

... And if it does, well, what does that really say about the life you are living?

When I got to college back in the late 1990's the internet was still just a few years from its birth and yours truly still spent most of my study time researching stuff using library index cards and checking out thick textbooks. It took hours to gather enough information to write a decent A-worthy paper.

Do you remember what a real book looks like? Me, too!

I still remember the first time I used the library computer to look up something from the NCBI database. There was no WiFi then, and the connection was slow. You'd click on a link and count off (sometimes more than) a few seconds before the new page would load. But it was still so much faster than sifting through the pile of library index cards to find the right books and then going to fetch the books and combing through them to the pages with the info you wanted. I didn't mind that the pages were taking a while to load. I was just happy that it took me minutes instead of hours to get the info I wanted.

I also used to drive... a lot. I bought my first car in the winter of 1993, and, because of my then job, I drove that thing 30,000 or so miles a year until I went back to college and became half-way normal, so to speak. It was great being able to get somewhere more than 15 miles away and back in hardly any time at all and without breaking a sweat. Before I bought a car I spent two years at a school in Southern California and lived on campus. I was too young to have a car then, so I got everywhere by bicycle.

Yes, it's narrow and steep, but Presidio Dr is still the mildest of all the other roads that lead from Mission Valley to the uptown Mesa. On some of the other roads, many of these guys won't be able to pedal up at all.

Two years of bike-commuting often in 95+ degree heat or in sub-40F cold and sometimes in thick wet fog or nasty stingy rain while hauling grocery and other types of load over rolling hills of varying degrees of steepness is an experience that stays with you a bit. It was relatively easy for me to chill and not get annoyed when I found myself 'stuck' behind a slow tractor (there were a few of them around out in the country) or a cyclist on narrow uphill bits of the many rural highways I drove on. A few extra minutes (if it takes that long... a lot of time you'll be presented with a break in traffic that would allow you to pass in matter of seconds) is a small inconvenience compared to what the tractor driver or the cyclist is going through. I remembered what it was like for a 12 miles commute to take a whole sweaty hour. It's easy to dismiss strangers' validity to justify being annoyed at them, but others' motive for doing something or being somewhere often is a lot less evil than you'd like to think it. Why are those slow cyclists riding up this narrow road and slowing me down? They should be banned from the street if they are too slow to keep up with cars! How selfish for the cyclist to be riding on this road! Even when they are doing the 25 mph speed limit, I could still be going faster if only they aren't in the way!

He's wearing lycra and riding a racing road bike, but he is also only commuting to and from work.

But what if bicycling is their only way of getting to places? And what if they are there because this narrow road is the least terribly steep way of getting up this particular hill, the top of which could be where the cyclist lives or where his workplace is? What if the cyclist can't afford to just up and move from his current house or apartment just to make his commute less hilly? Not everyone has the same choices that you are presented with. Not all cyclists are out on the road just for an exercise or for fun. And not every cyclist that ride in lycra are 'recreational' cyclist either (if you have ever ridden a bike 30+ miles in unpadded jeans, then you would understand why many would weigh down their backpack or paniers with additional clothes just so they can ride in lycra!). If you are willing to risk someone else's life and limbs just so you could get to where you want to go a minute or two faster (or not... if you then run into traffic lights), then who exactly is being selfish?

That someone else is somebody's kid or parent or brother or sister or friend, too. What if one of your daughter is out there riding her bike to get to work right now, what would you like the drivers that encounter her on the street to do? Real life isn't like the movies. If you hit someone, they get really hurt or die. And then what happens to the people that depend on them? All that just to get to drive a little faster? Is that really the kind of person you want to be? Just think about it a bit.

Mt Soledad by the steepest route: Country Club Dr

When someone tells you that he has cycled up Mt Soledad without specifying which route he took, he hasn't told you much. La Jolla's little-mound-by-the-sea can be ridden up by many different roads at varying degrees of physical brutality; from the gentle and roomy Soledad Mountain Rd on the southeast side to the relentlessly steep (and trafficky) Via Capri on the north side, but the most monstrous of them all is also one of the least well known; Country Club Drive.

Country Club Dr just past Mar Ave.

The proper climb begins as you head south on Exchange Place south from Torrey Pines Rd in La Jolla and ends with the left turn onto Upper Hillside Dr. The tally is 0.8 mile at 11% average grade (max grade 16% for a couple of patches). 

As Exchange Pl curves left to become Soledad Ave, veer straight (or slightly right, if you will) onto Country Club Dr and be prepared to shift to lower gear. Sufferingville begins at Mar Ave intersection until the first left curve with maximum grade of around 16%. This stretch of the road is also very narrow, which makes its usual lack of traffic quite a blessing. There are some really nice houses along the road if you can manage to take in their view, though. After the left curve the golf course appears on your right side and the road mellows out for a short stretch. Take your time! This is the only real break in hard climbing you are going to get before the top.

Country Club Dr at the golf course. The only 'rest' stretch on the climb.

Romero Dr switchback.

At Fairway Ln the steep climbing recommences. Stay left on Country Club Dr and then make the next left turn onto Romero Dr. More gorgeous houses, gardens and driveways abound as the road carves itself up the slope in a stylish S. If you are already suffering, take a wide line at the switchback curve before turning left onto the brutally steep and straight ramp that is Brodicaea Dr to allow your legs a mini-break before the 16% grade ramp (don't stop, though. It gets more reasonable toward the top).

If you aren't here to set a new Strava PR or to snag to much coveted KoM, though, take a break at Encelia Dr curve and go check out the gorgeous overlook on the left side. The road dead ends but a paved trail continues a bit down the hill and around a left curve to a water tank. On a clear day the view of La Jolla Village and the shoreline is drop dead gorgeous! I wouldn't ride a road bike down that trail since it's full of broken glasses and other debris, but a little hike into such scenic solitude never hurts anyone!

Encelia Dr trail to water tank.

Encelia Dr up toward Upper Hillside Dr.

If you are trying to snag the much coveted Strava KoM on this leg chewing climb, however, turn right with the road and go straight up Encelia Dr to the left turn up Upper Hillside Dr, the official 'top' of the steepest route up Soledad Mountain... Via Capri Dr included. It is a charming climb lined by houses I could never dream of affording (if you manage to register anything but the pavement in front of you on your way up). Traffic-wise, you'd have to be the most unlucky rider on the planet to have to share the road with more than a handful of cars along the way. That's something that can't be said about Via Capri Dr

Yes, yes, I've gone up Via Capri a few times. It is relentlessly gnarly, but what turns me off about it is having cars speed by on left while dodging parallel-parked cars on the right while trying make snailish progress up the steep slope. Country Club route is a much more serene and personal climb where the handful of cars that might drive by go at 15 mph, with the drivers noticing everything on the road (because, on such a narrow and curvy road, they have to!) and are much more keen on a friendly wave or even a verbal cheer to urge you up the hill.

Turning left from Encelia Dr onto Upper Hillside Dr.

Upper Hillside Dr to Via Casa Alta.

Once you've got to Upper Hillside Dr and the end of the official climb, however, you might just notice that you aren't yet on top of the mountain. The way is barred by a heavy duty fence and gate... If you are nice, quiet and discreet, a nice local may tell you how to get thru the gated complex to the other side where you'll remount the bike, go straight on the few yards remaining of Upper Hillside Dr and make the right turn up the 12-14% long ramp that is Via Casa Alta.

Spectacular view is earned by spectacular pain... or something like that.

The true top of Soledad Mtn. The TV antennae on Via Casa Alta (with a good view of Mission Bay & Pt Loma to boot).

Be sure to look to your left as you head up the cracky cement pavement! For all the pain and suffering you are paying to get up this hill, you might as well reap some scenic rewards along the way. Once you've crested the true top of Soledad Mtn, the view also opens up on the right side just before the television antennae. A good place for a photo op, perhaps?


Via Casa Alta dumps you onto La Jolla Scenic Dr between Via Capri Dr and Soledad Mountain Rd (turn left to go to the cross). There are many ways of descending the mountain, but if you need to go back to Exchange Pl at Torrey Pines Rd (or to La Jolla Village proper) by the least trafficky way without descending down steep, curvy and very cracky roads, I'd suggest hanging a right onto LJ Scenic Dr, then;
-R - Nautilus St
-R - W Muirlands Dr
-R - Fay Ave
-R - Pearls St
-L - High Ave
-R - Virginia Wy
-L - Exchange Pl

If you feel like climbing some more, though, more Mt Soledad back-road routes coming up in a bit!