Coronado 300 Brevet

Coronado 300 Route.

Not a too-early start on this one. John M. picked me up at 4:45 in San Marcos and we arrived around 5:40 at the start area. Lots of familiar faces there as I rode over and hit the bathrooms before the 6:00 start time. Of course RBA Dennis Stryker was signing in this little racer guy and we started 5 minutes late again. Weather looked good with overcast skies along the coast and temp of 62 F. Dave Horwitt & I did the ride out and soon we were all chatting about our Temecula 600 experiences on the Bayshore Bikeway at 19mph.

Catherine Shenk from Colorado was there too. John said she is a "celebrity" of sorts with some long rides and even started the Iditarod snow bike race in Alaska a few years back! One tough cookie and rides the real mountains in Colorado land. Sandy had his new TREK Domaine all dolled up. Black and white. Similar bike to Mike Shaw's ride.

Paced pick-up at a too fast 21mph as we rounded the Footage Road and headed east. Small group drifted back as we started climbing up Otay Lakes Road. Further past the lake, more small groups raced to Honey Springs. Seems there was some charity ride we got mixed into at the Hwy. 94 turn and rode with some of those riders up Honey Springs. Tim Sullivan had a water stop half-way up where a bunch of riders were. That's where the road pitches up to around 11%. Rode with John, Catherine and Brian T off and on through Lyons Valley Road. Brian would ride ahead and then pull off with some mechanical or something. Too bad he didn't waive us over for advice, we could probably fixed him up?

Bayshore Bikeway on sunny day

That section up to Descanso is a long haul. 6 or 7 the riders were there at the Descanso Store at the Hwy. 79 turn. I hit the Porta-Poty for a pee and discovered it was almost in gel form! We la-de-dah'ed around for a while and finally left with Dave, Catherine, racer guy, John and me. Tim Knowles came in as we left. I was riding with John today. He was having the almost cramp-itis here, so I paced him up to Cuyamacha Lake. Real nice riding around there with all the fishing boats there and the fact that the route just got a whole lot easier. We had a nice ride to Julian and through Wynola road. We had planned to stop for lunch at Don's Market in Santa Ysabel. I had told other riders about that earlier. Dave, Colorado Catherine, Linda, Bill, Mac, Sherman, Mac were there. Bill, Sherman and Linda left first. The rest of us left a little later.

Real nice fast ride to Ramona, where we waived the Daniels West Market stop in lieu of 7-Eleven in town. Most of us got a bottled drink. I chugged some Vitamin Water and put the rest of the bottle in my side mesh holder for later. Catherine was really showing the sun burn by now. She was packing on the zinc oxide all ride, but it didn't seem to do much good. She said the heat was bothering her too. I don't think it got to 90F all day. Hottest part was right there in Ramona in the afternoon. We all rolled out together (Mac, Dave, Catherine, John and I) Climbing on Hwy. 67 out of Ramona, my hamstrings were getting tight after sitting around.

We did a regroup at Poway Road and blasted down to Lakeside. John and I were doing an extra stop at BK before the climb up Old Hwy. 80. Catherine and Mac stopped to! Dave rode on to Carls Jr in Alpine. John applied some White Flower rub to his legs and it seemed to help some. Mac took Catherine up to Alpine, and John and I paced up a bit later. We all rejoined up at Carl's Jr. The service was awful! Only 4 people in line, but we waited for 15 minutes just to get a chocolate shake! Even John commented on the slow poor service. Dave, Catherine and Mac were walking around, not really wanting to ride on. John finally got his Green Burrito and me my shake. We said "adios" to the others and indicated they should make sure "Colorado" got back OK. We followed them about 10 minutes later. As we were leaving, Hector M. rode in. John chatted with him and noted:
Hector: " It's was all downhill now! No more climbing!"
John laughed and said "Really?"
Hector: "OH, it's only a Cat 4 climb"
John: "Ya, right, when's the last time you were out there?"

Off we went at a measured pace. Drew Peterson stopped and chatted with us on Tavern Road.

Lyons Valley Road with "cattle guard"

Japutal Valley Road is a nice downhill followed by some double digit climbing. Never did like that road, since I got "bushed off" by a car years ago. We were in the climbing section when Sherman drives alongside with Drew Peterson and girlfriend. The stopped up the road and took some pics of John and I riding up. We told them another group was up the road and they took off in pursuit. Lyons Valley Road never looked so good. Fast riding now and almost all downhill till the last section climb to Honey Springs Road.

We stopped at the top of Honey Springs to put on arm warmers and get our lights ready. Still good light out to see the long cool fast downhill. John did the lead out on the downhill. We stopped at Pio Pico Campground Store as usual. Outside machines weren't taking dollar bills. Warmish water at the outside fountain. We weren't there 10 minutes before turning on our lights and pacing westward on Otay Lakes Road. I soon discovered by batteries were a "used"set and didn't do much. Nice ride along there and temps were real nice for arm warmers, jersey and a woolie cap.

Catherine Shenk during the '09 Idatirod

Olympic Pkwy. was mostly a fast downhill ride. Just a few little climbs mixed in there with lots of traffic this time
of evening. Found the Hilltop St. turn and made quick work of the rough Main Street and over I-5 to the Bike Path.
John was feeling it on the loop around the Bay. Missed the correct turn onto 10th Street to the Finish. (I confirmed at home later that we just went past the turn by a short block, well before the tennis courts.) We rode around and I didn't know where the hell I was, since the streets all go in a loop. John asked some lady standing by a bus stop if she knew where Spreckes Park was. She said she was new to the area, was lost and waiting for a bus. I didn't know if buses ran that late on Coronado Island! After another 15 minutes, we finally found "C" Street and raced to the finish! Gary Kanaby was there with local help. Catherine and others were milling around.

Weather was nice today. No real big winds and temps weren't that hot. The only caveat to the whole route was that I didn't feel good at all about missing the turn into the Finish. In fact it really sucked! We loaded the bikes and were off to home, chatting about how lousy we did today and still finished! Hehe! Happy Father's Day  to John M. for the lift in and back.

Overcast to bright sun.
Hi: 87   Lo 62

188 miles

-randorides