Day 1: Dog Beach to Mar-Tar-Awa

 Day 1: Dog Beach to Mar-Tar-Awa

Day 1 is over, and I had a good ride.  The ride was from the Pacific Ocean at Dog Beach to Mar-Tar-Awa RV Camp site above Alpine CA in the hills.   The site is mostly RV’s, but they let bikes camp if you tell them your riding across the country.   Dog Beach was full of dogs, surfers and people walking around.  We took the obligatory pictures - thanks to the nice lady who volunteered to help with pictures.   

Dog Beach Ready for Day 1

The next time I raise my bike
it will be in the Atlantic Ocean

Yes the water is cold!

Just a few thousand miles
to go...

The ride out of San Diego was typical city riding.  If your reading this for guidance on your ride, be ready for traffic.  The early part of the ride brought me back to one of California’s big problems – homeless people.  There were hundreds along the way bedded down and hanging around.  Maybe someday there will be a solution.  The path sent me through Mission Park which was the first scenic part of the ride.  After this I went through Lakeside.  Out of Lakeside the ride finish with about 15 miles of uphill for the last 2,500 ft. of climbing.   The road conditions were OK, I am glad to be riding my gravel bike. 

Mission Park

High Point of the Ride

The start of the ride was a bit rough.  Within a mile of starting, the path was close for construction.  Thanks to a local, I followed him around the area and continued my way.  Shortly after this, my chain master link came apart.  With the help of another biker we used a couple of rocks to pound the links apart and was able to get the bike back together. I changed my chain in Dallas and never road the bike due to cold and snow.  I learned my lesson one more time, don’t mess with the bike before a big ride.  Ten minutes of riding and two problems already.   I was thinking the worst, but the ride finished with no more issues.  

The weather was almost perfect the entire ride, full sun but it did start to get cold into the mountains.  I noted 70F early on and it was 58F when I hit camp with 15 MPH winds.   It will be cold tonight so plenty of blankets for tonight’s sleep in Bessy.  Early morning forecast is 49F at 9AM with 20+ MPH winds.

Sandy had a very relaxing day, since we were in a hotel she stayed until check out.   After a phone call with Courtney and a conversation with homeless guy she drove the 45 minutes to the camp site.  Not fair that I spent all day riding and she made it so fast on the highway.   

When I reached camp, we prepped for tomorrow and had a few beers.  Sandy cooked a wonderful meal of chicken with rice and a bunch of other good stuff.  I ate it in a few minutes, and she gave me some of hers.  I do need to give Sandy kudos, when I arrived the tent was setup.  I don’t know how she does this by herself – good job. 

 

Beer of the Day or was
that 2 beers...

For the ride stats: 

Start Time: 9:17AM                    Finish Time:  1:55PM     

Elapse Time:  4 Hr. 38 Min        Ride Time:  3Hr. 50 Min

Distance:  44.6 miles                  Average Speed: 11.6 mph

Total Climbing:  4012 ft.            TSS: 168

Average Power:  185 Watts         Normalized Power: 208 Watts

Calories:  2563                            Ave/Max HR: 140/165 bpm

48 minutes of stoppage time:  The biggest stop was fixing the chain.  I also stopped at a store for food.

I ate 1 cliff bar, several blocks and a banana nut muffin bought at the store.  I finish most of 3 bottles of drink.


Tomorrows plan is the try and reach Ocotillo CA.  The ride looks to be 65 miles with 5,500 ft.h of climbing.  The last 10 miles is down hill so hopefully the real effort is only 55 miles.   Sandy found a BLM (Bureau Of Land Management) location where we will camp for free.  The trade off is no services.

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