For the third year in a row I spent almost 2 weeks in the beginning ot February staying at my daughter’s house in Claremont California and riding my bike.
The weather was beautiful. I had one rain day when I could not ride at 8am but got out on my own a couple hours later. Mark at Competitive Edge in Upland and Rancho Cucamonga rented me another wonderful machine. I had NO flat tires. He even provided a rear cassette with a 34 sprocket ring that allowed me to get up the steep hills, usually without the kind of huffing and puffing that makes my fellow riders review their knowledge of CPR.
This trip is the most riding I have ever done. I really averaged 200 miles a week for 2 weeks. Two days I road alone up to 2500ft on Bald MT but usually I ride with a group and often they pull me along quite quickly. I am on the bike for longer times in Portugal, where I always ride alone but I go a lot slower. I stop for a FULL lunch with bottle of wine! Even here in Claremont, I do enough eating off the bike to come back at 190 instead of my normal riding weight of 180-185.
I ride most days with CSBG, Claremont Senior Bicycle Group. On Mon-Thur and usually on Saturday they leave from a Claremont location and ride 20-30 miles, sometimes up steep hills. I very much enjoy the group. There is often someone willing to ride a little slower and talk. They always stop for food. On Tuesday and Thursdays, it is in the middle of the ride and at the very end on Monday and Wednesday. CSBG offers several different levels of rides. I go with the power group to get a little more exercise but there are slower groups that may ride a reduced course with less hills but still end up at the same food break stop.
In 2017 I road maybe twice with another group, Psycho-list. It is fronted by Trish Mayo. In 2018 I again road with them twice. Usually Trish heads for even steeper hills than CSBG. She is famous for finding them along the way. This year I lucked out. I road with Psycho-list Friday and Sunday. On Saturday some of them did a Century ride called Tour of Palm Springs. So on Friday, they were resting up and on Sunday they were in recovery. My lucky days!
Also in 2018, for the first time, I did 3 rides with Claremont Cycling Connection. I think of it as being headed by Cecel and his family. I did a Sunday ride, a Monday night ride and then a Saturday ride. Cecel had had a fall, so he only came on the Sunday ride. This group is probably the slowest and does not really do hills. However, they can really crank it up on the strtighaway. My guess is that they did block after block at 22MPH with me just hanging on.
I spend a great deal of my off the bike time at a wonderful bar/restaurant called Back Abby. Eric is the manager and Steph and Janet take wonderful care of me at the bar. There are also 4 breweries in easy walking distance as well as restaurant after restaurant.
I’ll add more details to this report in the coming weeks. I ended the trip with 3 days in Salt Lake City at the home of my son-in-law. We had a wonderful tour of the church, Park City ski resort, a park on The Great Salt Lake and lots and lots of restaurants.
As I keep saying: it is a hard life but someone has to do it!