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This one was hard. Most of the ride out is up hill. Particularly the last two and a half miles. I thought it would never end. In the middle of it, I considered never doing it again. Why in this gods world would anyone willingly put themselves through so much pain? It sure would have been nice to find an ice cream stand, or anything at the end. Nope, just the scrag of the hill country, with nothing to do but catch your breath, and turn home for a beer.

Or so I thought. The trip home was a real blast. It might even make up for the difficult climb. 30 to 40 miles per/hour is really fast on the bicycle, and I literally could not contain my exuberance during the flight down. I sounded like a cowboy, whooping and hollering like a mad man. I can only imagine the thoughts of the other cyclists and motorists as they passed.

So, I guess it was worth it. That’s not to say I’ll go out and do it again today, but, I’ll do it again . . .

I do this one often. Of course, it requires another ride to get home. Overall, the route descends about 560′ from my house, which makes for a more challenging trip back. While I’ll probably never match my decent heading home, it would be cool, if some day in the future, I could match this one in particular. . . California dreaming . . .

This ride seemed a bit easier than the last.  It has a long tough climb from Del Mar beach to Torrie Pines.  I managed the climb while staying in the saddle (39/25).  Having trouble with the lower stem height.  My back protested loudly.  It was startling, so I gave it some Vicodin and went out and bought a Delta stem extender (thread-less 1-1/8, black), and a 12-27 cassette to replace the 12-25.  More on how that works out later . .

What a difference a day makes.  Had to retire my old Panasonic (28″ DX2000) bicycle after cracking a weld near the bottom bracket.  So, I bought a used Leader (65cm 735R, w/mostly DuraAce components).  I miss the head height (handlebars), and the granny gear ratios.  Otherwise, it’s slammin.  I underestimated the steep climbs on the back half of this run through Fairbanks Ranch, and wish my granny gear was with me, but I managed.

Scott, from General Atomics, turned me on to this great site called Bones In Motion.  In short, they provide you with a solution to turn your cell phone into a personal fitness monitor.  That includes GPS tracking, speed, heart rate,  elevation, and few other goodies packaged in neat maps, tables, and graphs (see below).  The whole idea of being able to take a nice wandering bike ride through the hills, come home and log in to find all of the details of the ride complete with maps really appeals to my geek side.  My paraniod, big brother side, not so much, but hey, I’m the only one that cares.  I’ll be posting my rides on the Cycling page till it’s not fun anymore.