Coffee At Peet's Populaire

After some WD-40 Dry Lube. Nytro was sold out today!

Tour de France 2nd day! Shortie ride to the bike shop and maybe I can catch a little of Stage 2 on NBC this
afternoon? Switched the HB bag over to the SOMA for todays ride. Planned to arrive in Encinitas well after 10:00 for the bike shop replenish of supplies. After a little of this and that, returned home to get my mini backpack and finally arrived at the 7-Eleven START at 7:20. Already warm at 65F with the humidity over 50% this morning. Wore the classic purple-blue and gold NCCC jersey. One of the older and best designs! Large size, so it hung down a lot. Couldn't put bananas in the pockets on this trip! Larger seat bag held the bananas OK.

Heavier bike felt like it this morning! I stretched out some before leaving, but not enough! "Cycling in mud" climbing up Nutmeg and Centre City Pkwy. No traffic to speak of. Picked up the pace some on Camino del Rey. Nice riding through there. Met several cyclists, one looked like Len Nathe! Stopped at the usual McDonalds to refill the solo bottle with ice and get a Reece piece receipt of .40 cents!

Lezyne XL Superdrive Light ,Good package price

No tailwind westward on Hwy. 76 today. Started to pick up the pace a little (of course on the downhills!). As I turned into the Bike Path entrance at No. Santa Fe St. there was a blue jersey rider doing a U-turn back onto the bike path ahead of me. Probably doing a out and back from Oceanside today. I figured I might catch him later. Soon he latched onto a lime-green helmeted rider ahead and they dueled it out past College and westward on the SLR. I figured I would catch up to them if I kept after it. 18mph wouldn't do it. 19 mph I was starting to close the 100 meter gap a little. Blue jersey rider finally passed the other guy. Limey boy kept working hard to remain close. As they were racing it out, I was still hanging back sucking wind. At 20mph the gap remained the same! I was finally closing @ 21mph! Whew. I caught the lime-green helmeted rider after Douglas Street. He was riding a nice new TREK carbon bike. Said he was working hard trying to catch the other rider! Rode up from Del Mar this morning on a round-trip ride. I suggested I pull him up to the other rider. He complied and I took off. I caught the other rider, but TREK couldn't maintain the pace. Blue jersey was a 25 year old on a older Lemond Titanium bike. Younger guy said he was "racing" the other guy. We chatted a bit @ 22mph, before I went back to the TREK rider. We rode together back to Oceanside. Gave him a rando card as he turned off at Surfrider. I continued on to Carlsbad, where I stopped at 7- Eleven for a receipt. Great workout so far at speed!

Took my Smores and sat along the Carlsbad Strand. Busy today just after the 4th. Lots of cyclists and skin around here. After 10 minutes headed south on 101. Soon these 2 racer girls passed me. I latched on and the race was on. Slight tail wind as one jersey-less stud joined in. Tall and thin, I wished I looked like him! One heavy guy on a new bike tried to keep pace. He had all kinds of electronics on board, surprised he didn't have a TV too! The girls couldn't climb well and Leucadia traffic split us up. I stopped at Nytro for some info and goodies.

Cygolite 800. Good specs with extra battery.

July 4th & 5th Nytro had a big BMC demo day. All these super carbon racers were still stacked downstairs. Also on Saturday the 5th, it was WD-40 demo day too! Seems they sold out the store and warehouse of the nice WD-40 Dry Lube! Just what I was after today. Joe gave me a handful of the small samples to get me through the week. I do carry 2 of these ampules along on each ride, just in case. I also picked up a bag of Carbo-Pro, Shot Bloks, a few Carmel-Salt gels and some Fizz Tabs. I needed some info on a HB battery light... hi-lumen, removable battery, rechargeable with extra battery. Lenzyne and Cygolite were the ones of choice. Best bang for the buck! Now to compare the lumens vs run time, etc. I'll check them out this week. Hope to get a deal on one of those. Lenzyne make only quality stuff.. a bit overpriced. The Cygolite 800 packs a lot of lumens for the money. Need something for the shorter night rides where the dyno hub isn't needed. Also for dirt riding at night.  Put the goodies in my string-backpack and off I went.

I hung around a while before taking off for a stop in Solana Beach 7-Eleven. I see they offer the Vitamin Water in cans now. Nice, but too expensive vs the bottle. Picked up a bunch of wanna-be racers heading to Del Mar. Nice fast pace till we hit the climb. I proceeded ahead through the busy Del Mar and turned off at Carmel Valley Rd. SR-56 Bike path was busy over to Camino del Sur. No stop at Circle K as usual. Rode north to Escondido feeling much better than when I started this late morning. Took the usual route through Escondido and hooked up with the Inland Rail Trail at the Transit Center. No Gamble Lane for me today. It's a nice option for this route! After a short stop for a .20 cent Reese Piece at the San Marcos 7-Eleven, rode home to watch stage 2 of the Tour.

Finally a good workout today after a sluggish start. Nice hi-speed (for me) riding on the SOMA along the SLR and down the coast! Stage 2 of the tour was interesting too as the pros climbed a near 33% grade toward the end! Italian Nibali took it at the end, as the other were looking around and not chasing him. Go figure.

Clear skies
Hi:  88F     Lo: 64
82 miles

-randorides