Najib's New Ride

Najib's new carbon ride.

Najib Azzam is a friend who sort-of wants to get into cycling more. He has two 7-Eleven stores in San Marcos that keeps him busy. Several years ago, I hooked him up with Joe Morgan @ Nytro for a order-in on a new SCOTT Scale 710+ MTB. That's the 3" tire, 27.5 MTB hard-tail that weighs in at 27#.

Najib was having back problems, so his new FELT road bike didn't get much use. He decided to get a more "comfortable" road/bike path bike. Thus, he followed Joe up to The Bike Shop in Temecula and ordered in a new 2019 Specialized Diverge Expert X1 carbon ride. For a week, we planned on a short ride to check out his new bike.

Rando John Fry (recovering from foot surgery) would join up on this easy route, along with Sam Thomas, driving down from Sun City. Sam needed the training miles, since he has been lax with cycling over the last few months. Easy ride for him. Also Keith Olsen, groin pull, sounded interested in this too, since he was looking for something easy, not to aggravate the pull any more.

I needed to get in some "rando" mileage, so I rolled over to Escondido early. Picked up a few donut holes for the guys at Peterson Donuts on Escondido Blvd. Met Sam as I was leaving. He had the same idea as me. I gave him my donut bag and headed over to the San Marcos start at Najib's Mulberry 7-Eleven.

Sam rolled in last, and with some hoopla, Najib, John Fry, Sam Thomas and I rolled out around 11:30 to bright, sunny skies. light winds and coolish temps.

Sam ate all the donuts!

Easy route over to Escondido via Country Club and then up old Hwy 395. Najib was already
struggling on the small hills, even though we were soft peddling. We turned onto Camino del Rey, where Najib stopped to answer a cell call. Some job emergency. Then another stop.. etc. I mentioned to him the need to take time in your life to leave the job at home and enjoy the ride!

We had some chit-chat at Bonsall AM/PM, before deciding to ride toward O'side via the Bike Path. Normal easy route for us, not for Najib. Stopped at Mance Buchannon Park and decided to continue on to the ocean. By that time Najib has a sore butt from sitting. We needed another option to get him home.

Ahhh. The Sprinter Train. The group split up and I prompted Najib onto the next train eastward. It was a little crowded in the bike area after a few stops, but we finally made it to San Marcos. After the short ride to 7-Eleven, I parted ways and continue on with my mileage ride. Sam's car was still in the 7-Eleven lot, so I left a card on his side window.

This VIDEO somewhat depicts what happened.

- randorides