Road Ride Report Pasadena to San Diego RRR

This past Friday I did a ride with a few fellas from Pasadena to San Diego. The plan was to ride from Pasadena to the San Gabriel River Trail, then PCH basically the rest of the way to San Diego, take the trail back to Union, and the Gold Line to Pasadena. We would pick up Krisztian (Berstieger) in Lagune Nigel on the way down.

I met Nick (Good Ol' Slappy) in front of my place at 6:00AM, just before sunrise. We headed east on California to Rosemead south. We met up with Brad, a co-worker and new biking friend, at Huntington and Rosemead. Brad was the one who convinced me to do the Death Ride. We flew down Rosemead and hopped on the Rio Hondo Bike Path.


Heading south down Rosemead


That's not a marine layer, it's smoke.

The Rio Hondo Trail quickly deposited up on the San Gabriel River Trail just north of the Whittier Narrow Dam. From there it's a straight shot down the trail to PCH.


Artsy photo of the three of us on the river bed trail.

We rode 33 miles in 2 hours to our first break at the McDonalds in Seal Beach. Not bad. From there we rode PCH south with a few side roads through Surfside and Bolsa Chica.

We arrived at the former Starbucks by Ritz Laguna Niguel to meet up with Krisztian. This was our second refueling break of the day at roughly mile 60 something.


Second break of the day

Back on PCH for more miles of goodness and on to our third break at San Onofre State Beach. A bit sooner than I would have liked but I was feeling a strong need for calories.


Riding through San Onofre is nice but it's basically one big false flat

After San Onofre is Camp Pendleton. Probably the hottest part of the day and always the hardest part of the ride for me. It's really a mental thing but I just know to suffer through it and get to Oceanside to refuel.

Forth break of the day is at the Chevron just outside Pendleton. I pretty much always stop here. Not because it's great or anything; it just gets the job done.






How can you argue with those photos. God bless California riding!

I really enjoy riding the parts south of Oceanside south to Torre Pines. Today was as good as always, just a bit warm.

The ride up Torre Pines really kicked my butt and the group has to wait for me at the top.


Getting ready for the big climb

The quality of the scenery goes downhill a bit after Torre Pines. We headed past UCSD then down the railroad path and on to In and Out for our last refuel of the day (five in all).

We rolled into In and Out basically all out of water and I was pretty tired after a nice little push past UCSD. We realized we had totally missed the 4:00PM train as it was 4:30PM and we still had to ride through Mission Bay and down to the train station. We had better get rollin' if we were going to make a 5:00PM train (or at least what we hoped was a 5:00PM train).

We flew out of In and Out and mashed our way to the train station. We missed almost every light on Pacific Highway but still managed to roll into the train station at about 4:50PM. Turns out the next train was at 5:50PM and not 5:00PM.

The beauty of this is we had plenty of time for food and beer at Karl Strauss! After some calamity getting necessary storage for our bikes we were off on the train heading north.


Sunset from the train

The train stopped twice to let other trains pass so we got into Union pretty late. Then the Gold Line stopped to let a train pass because the track we were on was closed because someone decided to drive their car on the train tracks. Nick and I exited the train about 9:30PM.

Departure at 6:00AM. 133 miles of riding. 10 hours, 36 minutes of total ride time. 3 plus hour train ride home. It was a long day but a great day.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12110276
http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=27388

 

Thanks for the RR Brian. Kick arse! I hated the fact I was at work getting distance updates from Slappy and not riding with you guys. Im in for the next one come hell or high water.

 

Awesome!

 

Me too!

 

Best thing to do in Pasadena these days is to get out to the beach instead. I'd say you did it perfectly.

Thanks for the RR. I didn't think San Diego was so close. How much was the train fare?

 

133 miles isn't exactly close Train fair was like $36. I understand the fairs are higher in the summer. When the summer rate ends I'm not sure. To me $36 is the cost of doing business for a good day of riding.

My hope is the next big road ride is from Pasadena to Ventura or Santa Barbara once the temps cool down a bit. That is a great ride!

 

This kind of post is why I'm finally buying a road bike. Nicely done. :clap:

 

Awesome RR Brian! That was a great ride...you know I'll be in for the next one.

 

wow what a long ride.

 

Great to see you all got the bug. This new company is really killing me to get any riding in through the week but hopefully when I move the company in a couple of weeks things will change (it's close enough I can commute). I'm doing Amtrak Century in 2 weeks and it'll be my first century of the year big difference from last year when I had over 5,000 miles in by this time.

Brian count me in for the northern tier century. Hopefully we can do it in October? Post it up sooner then later though so we don't make plans.

 

See I like living in SD when I do this ride when I'm done I'm home

 

nice article MTBMaven, thanks for sharing...

 

:clap:NIce and great job!

 

Great ride as always. It was nice meeting you Nick(Slappy).
I enjoyed the harassment on the Torey Pines climb.
As we said, come down this way and we'll do 14 Sisters. That's 7 Sisters both ways, it would be about 90 miles with 12,000 feet of climbing.
My ride was only 80 miles but it was the best place to be on that hot day.
Good ride, good Jalapeno Burger, and cold beer topped off by a sunset train ride home, for me San Juan Capistrano stop.
Nice work for the 135 milers, and thanks to Brian for inspiring me to buy a road bike 2 years ago. 5000 miles later.
:wave::wave:


How long is this train ride? Son of a #$%^!!

 

Hey now! Let's start off a bit easy...7 Sisters first. Though I know you want to get back at me for Torrey Pines.

 

I love the new signature there Bergsteiger! I love Adidas too!

 

Sweet RRR and looks like you have a great time Brian!

 

Nice...long day in the saddle