Day 1 Re-Train Bike Ride

I've been super sick this past week with some weird summer cold. It's delayed my Bike the Bay training by a week but I am ready to hop on it today. Today's venture is the Mission Bay bike path. Easy peezy 12 mile flat loop along the country's largest Aquatic Park--Mission Bay.   I have a hard stop at work today at 2 pm so I can do my training ride and get back out there. Man, I remember the days where I would be riding all day every day and now there can be months without me being on my bike. Must-get-back-to-bike-basics.

In other news, I discovered the grade of the hill for the Coronado bridge is only 4.73% and the total bridge is really only 2.1 miles. Next up on my training schedule is to find a couple hills in San Diego that are 5% grade or more and 1 mile or more for training. I used to ride every day up Broadway which is about 7% so if I can get back to where I was with that hill, I should be golden.

Wish me luck, more to report in a bit.

Did you know that people drive their cars into canals--by accident??

When I was a little girl I saw a Ripley's Believe it Or Not?! where they showed people in some ass backwards town in Holland driving into canals, literally. It's like they missed the "Canal in 1 mile" sign and the road ended so they just drove right into it???  Water pressure, not escaping the car, people drowning.. the memory of this episode was horrific.  It has been cemented into my mind that at any moment, the road could end, and you too could drive into a canal. Now, Ohio does not have many canals and Lake Erie is pretty stinkin' big. It would be very hard to drive into Lake Erie with all those "watercraft" signs and "Lakeshore" drive signs. Never-the-less I was petrified to be in a car over a bridge ever since. I would cry, sob, hyperventilate and create all sorts of dramatic panic moments. My family dreaded getting in a car with me where there was a body of water within 50 miles of our destination.  Fast forward to the year 2000 when I moved to San Diego. When I first saw that bridge the Coronado Bridge, I was petrified. It's skinny, and curvy, and high in the air. It goes straight over the bay and into the ocean. Check this thing out:
I've combed the intrawebs and found this to be one of the best bike over the bridge moments. It's too long to watch the whole thing, start at 3:5

Bike The Bay--30 miles, no probs!

My dear friends Sandy and Andy Hanshaw run an amazing ride in San Diego called Bike The Bay. Every year I volunteer and every year I don't ride. My usual volunteer hub is the beer garden. My beer wenches and I arrive at 6 am, set up the beer garden, ice it down, sell it and celebrate. The view is amazing cuz it's on the Embarcadero, right on the San Diego bay with the curious buildings just observing us from across the bay. We also stare straight at the Coronado bridge.

It's nice to welcome riders back after their 30 mile jaunt but after 7 years of volunteering, I am finally going to ride this one. I've turned over the beer garden reigns to my trusty gal pal Tansy Woods and am doing the ride. 30 miles, spanning 5 San Diego neighborhoods, all on the water. I've done this ride before NOT including the Coronado bridge which is appx 24 miiles. It's called the Bayshore Bikeway.   My husband and I will typically ride from the San Diego Convention Center, around the path, land in Coronado, have a beer and a meal at McP's which has a rad outdoor deck and live music most weekends. We then hop on the ferry with our bikes and circle back home. Adding on the Coronado bridge is going to be amazing. San Diego only closes the bridge down twice a year and this is one of them. The view from that bridge is astounding and it always reminds me of why I live in San Diego. The water, the boats, the city skyline, it brings me peace every time I ride over it. So, I am gonna ride it. I have not been on my bike consistently for quite some time so I have between now and August 24th to train for it. Wish me luck, here we go, back on the bike brigade.