{"id":285,"date":"2009-02-23T09:35:46","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T17:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=285"},"modified":"2009-02-23T09:35:46","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T17:35:46","slug":"a-skinny-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=285","title":{"rendered":"A skinny weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tires not my waist<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0\u00a0 This weekend was pretty darn cool\u00a0in a very uncharacteristic manner for me in that\u00a0it did include any fat tire action.\u00a0\u00a0 Saturday a bunch of the LA bike messenger crowd were doing a century+ ride from downtown LA to the Stone Brewery in Escondido.\u00a0 By buddy Jerry from the OC was going to do the ride with themas well and asked if I wanted to get in on the action.\u00a0 Normally I would have balked at the idea of giving up a perfectly good\u00a0 Saturday to skinny tires, but since there was a good friend and what would be my first trip to Stone, what the hell.<\/p>\n

Saturday was really pretty and after a few phone calls to time thingsjust right, I left my house on a bit of a wandering route over to Oceanside to join up with\u00a0the group.\u00a0\u00a0 It had been months since I was last on the road bike, but it did not take long to get the road reflexes reengaged.\u00a0 It only took one pothole that nearly knocked by fillings out my teeth to drive home that I am was not\u00a0on my 6″ travel plush-o-rama\u00a0 mountainbike and\u00a0I had to look where the tires were going.\u00a0 It was about a 19 mile route over to Oceanside and I had plenty of time to kill before the rest of the group got there.\u00a0 Jerry split a little early from the last rest stop and was the first one to roll in.\u00a0\u00a0 He needed hit the ATM and\u00a0grab a snack.\u00a0 It was not long, before the lead group was in sight.\u00a0 We hopped on our bikes to join them.\u00a0 This was a bit of a wake up call, as I had to put some effort into staying with this group.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m glad they already had 80 miles on thier legs at this point as I would have been\u00a0struggling otherwise.<\/p>\n

While it had been quite a few months since I had been on the road bike, it had been years since I had ridden in a group.\u00a0 It was was a little scary at times being so close to other riders.\u00a0\u00a0 Over the course of the next 22 miles or so I got a lot more used to it.\u00a0\u00a0 We soon found ourselves at the brewing company and over the next 45 minutes we chilled while the rest of the group made it in.\u00a0\u00a0This was a pretty entertaining and talented group of folks.\u00a0\u00a0 Soon we all piled into the Brewery<\/a> which is freaking huge.\u00a0 The Bistro\/restaurant area we really cool and they had great food and brews to boot.\u00a0\u00a0 We had a good time there and I eventually gave the wife a call to come pick Jerry and I up.<\/p>\n

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Of course I could not leave empty handed.\u00a0 A 2-liter growler of the Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.\u00a0 Yummy!\u00a0\u00a0 Jerry and I worked a little on this the rest of the evening.<\/p>\n

Sunday we bummed around most of the\u00a0morning and then heading out towards Palomar Mountain to watch the final stage of Tour De California.\u00a0\u00a0 The plan was to drive up and what the racers coming up the 5,200+ foot mountain and then let my youngest son (Jake)\u00a0and Jerry bomb down Nate Harrision Grade <\/a>while I followed in the truck.\u00a0 Jake has not done this route yet so I was a little concerned, so I had him bring along all of his hockey arm and knee\/shin guards.\u00a0 My oldest son, Will had climbed the mountain<\/a> back in April of last year.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Conerns over Jake handling the ride\u00a0ended up not\u00a0being an issue as the road was already closed by the time we got there so we went for Plan B and setup to watch the race from\u00a0Cole Grade Rd.\u00a0 There were cars lined up all along the route through here and there was a festive mood on the mountainside.\u00a0 Cowbells were bountiful as fans were cheering on the many amateurs who were riding along the route in the hours before the pros would come through.\u00a0 There was a breakaway of four riders and there was a parade of cars, motorcycles with flashing lights and sirens that preceding them.\u00a0 It was amazing to see the pace these guys were climbing at.<\/p>\n

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About a minute later the first group of chasers where in view and headed up the grade.\u00a0 Lance Armstrong was right up in the front helping to push the pace and\u00a0ensure that teammate Levi would maintain his 36 second lead in the tour.<\/p>\n

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I have watched many of the Tour De France stages on TV and always liked that look of determination on Lance’s face when he was “working”.\u00a0 It was really cool to see that look in person, even if it was just for a few second or so.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh yeah, the chasers were ripping up this hill and they were looking so smooth in the process.<\/p>\n

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After the chase group, there was a long train of the support cars following with lots of expensive bikes on thier roofs.\u00a0 I probably saw a quarter of a million dollars in bikes go by.<\/p>\n

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Some minutes back came the rest of the peloton<\/p>\n

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There was some suffering being done in this group. (They were still ripping!)<\/p>\n

After the final folks went by we spent a long time in stop-and-go\u00a0traffic out of the area.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u00a0stopped at a near by taco shop for dinner but the traffic was still pretty screwed after that.\u00a0\u00a0 We did not mind the traffic too much\u00a0as it was good to see so many people out supporting cycling.\u00a0\u00a0 This was the Tour’s visit time in San Diego County and judge from what I saw and the TV highlights, I think we represented well in the fans catergory.\u00a0 We\u00a0eventually made it back to the coast were\u00a0I dropped Jerry off at the train station and headed home.\u00a0 This was a pretty cool weekend even if it did not include any fat-tire time.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Quick Weekender \u2013 Guacamole<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n<\/div>