I planned this trip back in November when the dire predictions of the Worst Winter in Chicago History began to circulate. I knew that if past was precedent, the weather in Chicago would sour about Dec 2 and bitter cold would settle in with unrelenting determination. The predictions so far have thankfully been wrong but I was still scheduled to make a trip to San Diego on 5 January.
The trip started out better than any I’ve ever taken. I checked in at the oversize luggage counter in terminal one at O’Hare and the guy behind the United Counter weighed the bike box and said, “You know what? You’re allowed one free checked bag…we’ll just consider this that free bag – save you $100″. Wow. I thanked him profusely and I certainly hope good karma is returned his way.
My flight was smooth and arrived in San Diego 30 minutes early. The sun was brilliant outside the terminal as I waited for The Rhino to pick me up. He came by and we stopped for lunch with his wife Laurie, had some sushi at Red Dragon where we ran into some friends of Laurie and The Rhino. Good times. We were on the road by 2:00 and got a nice 51 mile ride up the coast.
Day 2 we rode inland and tackled most of the large climbs up Dehesa Rd, Lyons Valley Rd, Honey Springs Rd, Japatul and Skyline. 5:30+ of ride time and 6800+ feet of climbing. This is my first real test of the new Leader Mark 1 frame and I have to say – it’s a rock star both climbing and descending. It’s easy for an inexpensive frame to hide on flat terrain but all bets are off when you’re descending at 50 mph with crosswind. A Chinese knockoff won’t cut the mustard and trust me – Leader bike sourced a top quality frame from one of the best factories in Taiwan to get the Mark 1.
Day 2 was supposed to be with the Suami’s group ride but we missed our connection and opted for the closer San Diego Bike Club ride. The ride was fairly quick but not extreme. Saw a dude that had been clipped by a car waiting for our ride to come by – dangerous shit. He was laying on the pavement on the far side of a Mercedes that had a dent just behind the head light on the passenger side fender. Looked like the driver pulled into an intersection as he was going through. Heard later that the damage was limited to a broken wrist. While not good, it could obviously have been worse. Near the end of the ride, we were joined by two team mates of Rhino’s Chris MacDonald and James Gunn-Wilkinson and Thurlow Rodgers. The five of us went back and did the loop through the Elfin Forest State Park and tackled a steep climb with a wicked fast descent at 15%. Again – the bike was rock solid. You can’t hide an inferior frame on 15% downward grades. Not a shimmy or a shake.
We went out Saturday night and drank a bunch of beer and ate fried food and Sunday I felt really nasty. We went back inland with Chris and James and were joined by Nick Onate, another good racer in San Diego. We climbed up Dehesa and Japatul to Alpine Rd and decided to cut our ride at that point. I climbed really hard trying to get myself feeling normal but it was useless. I had some really nasty bloats from the fried food. On the way down from Alpine we drilled it and I had a chance to really push the pedals in anger and had some surprisingly good turns of speed.
Yesterday (Monday) was my last day. Randall rode with me up to Suami Beach and then flipped. I continued up to Oceanside and turned inland for a few miles on Oceanside Drive before turning back and ended with an even 80 miles by the time I got back to San Diego.
I had dinner last night with Sal Lombroso, the owner of Leader Bike USA and his wife Dahlia. Sal is a great guy and he and Dahlia are expecting child #2. Sal tells me that he has a new TT frame on the drawing board and scheduled for production by early summer. He’s selling through bike shops and coghouse.com these days so if you’re interested in getting in on a great bike but not paying $5000 – check into it or ask your independent retailer to look into becoming a dealer.
Tags: Leader Bike USA
