Post Rain with OFR

Rain ready SOMA. Rides good on the wet stuff with G'skins 28's.

Did a short ride yesterday (Wednesday) on the Madison SS. Had to run a few errands in the rain or not. Wet and rainy all day in San Marcos. Over 1" of rain coming down nice and easy. Used the normal shoe bags, leg-warmers over and tried the Craft rain jacket (found climbing Palomar Mtn. last spring). Covered MTB helmet with the usual neato shower cap. Tail on jacket covered most, but not all of butt and got gritty wet down there. Took a full hour to clean up the bike and re-lube the chain after that messy ride.
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Put the fenders on the SOMA and am ready for a earlier start this morning (Thursday). Thought I would hook in a rando ride with the OFR gruppo. Good rain coming down in San Marcos through the early 5-6 AM range. I opted to wear just the shoe covers and the PI blue rain jacket today. Temps are in the mid 60's already.

Light drizzle when I left home on the normal northern loop. Drizzle let up the more I rode westward. Saw blue skies entering Oceanside. Just made it to Magee Park in Carlsbad by 0830. No riders there. Took time to take off my jacket and shower caps. Stored them on the front of the HB bag. No one riding on the coast today. Nice tailwind pushing me in the low 20's mph down the coast. Arrived at Swami's at 0910, normal time. Dr. Dan and Lisa were the only riders there. Blue skies were peeking through now. Dan called Bruce and he said he would be down at 1030!. Couldn't wait that long. Chatted with Dan about Ben Hassell accident earlier in the week. Ben crossed the angled RR tracks and went down. Broke his femur. His wife sent out a nice update on Ben's surgery and rehab in the next few weeks. I'm personally familiar with the femur/hip breakage and the rehab required! Takes a while to heal that up and it's real painful. He'll be back soon!

Some goodies in "Carry Bag": Only 1 #6701 Ultegra chain

Rode around a while to get in some miles and looped around for a stop at Nytro. Measured out my chain and confirmed by thoughts: DONE! Got a price-match deal on 2 Ultegra 6701 chains! Only one in stock. I'll get the other later. Joe also did a trick thing to check by cassette and chain-ring for wear. Fortunately, they both are OK. The chain is not. I get new chains on the Fuji and SOMA 2x per year. Usually around the New Year and mid-summer. They should last longer than 6 months! (Guess they last a year if you don't cycle much!) Also picked up some goodies and asked about the Garmin VIRB Camera. There are some deals on those in the $98-$130 range. Nytro only had the more expensive one called the "Elite" model. Out of my price range, even on SALE!. Filled my bottles and took off the arm warmers. Put all my stuff in another new freebie "utility bag" with drawstrings. Handy.

Warming up some now as I rode with a older guy riding a Bike Friday. Said he was from Minnesota. We talked about his Adventure Cycling Map he had attached to his front HB bag. Said he did lots of those rides.. Northern Tier, Route 66, Pacific Coast Route, etc. He is staying at a Motel 6 in Oceanside and was out for some ride mileage before heading north to Moro Bay tomorrow! Name was Dave. Same age as me! Said most of his trans-con riding buddies are dead.

Left Dave and finished up the route over to San Marcos. Skies cleared up nicely after noontime as the roads dried out. Good day on the road today. No real rain to speak of (not like yesterday) on the early part.

All system GO for the Coronado Express ride on Saturday. Not much interest for this one with all the holiday stuff going on in San Diego.

Overcast with clearing later
Hi: 73     Lo: 62
69 miles



- randorides