Fabless

You can say there's something slightly insane about getting up shortly after 5 after a few hours sleep, jumping on your bike and riding into the cold dawn; but as with many things in life, this view discounts the payoff. It was a 35 minute ride down to Paul's house on 5-slab. Which is OK because it gave time to wake up, and the bracing temperature swings as one drops into the valleys and lagoons along the 5 helped with that. Arrived on time at 6:30 and waited for other people to not show up; left at 6:50 and headed south to Brown Field where Ken was waiting in the lot of Chevron. The night before I'd installed wiring for the 2-way radio Paul is a proponent of, thinking that it would add significant annoyance to mounting/dismounting. From there we rode east along a road just south of Otay County Open Space Preserve. This is a somewhat rocky road with some erosion ruts that you wouldn't want to slide into ;-) but not difficult riding and well-suited for nubbish riders like me. The radios work quite well. 146MHz diffracts nicely around the deep canyon switchbacks so that we were able maintain contact almost throughout. Managing the wiring was also pretty hassle-free in a way I wouldn't have expected. After a few miles we headed further south (not figuratively) toward the border. The fence is an impressive sight, an undulating, rust-orange serpent hugging the forbidding terrain (evoking in me memories of similar barriers in other parts of the world); the roads along side are sufficiently maintained without having had all the fun taking out of them. The morning sunlight coming straight at us was the only thing that made things a bit unnerving at times. We stopped at marker 250 and this is one of two places I had a chance to take photos. For those who like taking photos, god-light is one of the payoffs for getting up early. I could have spent another 15 minutes shooting the fence and environs, I think. PMB-ride Descending on switchbacks we dropped into a wide valley which let us open the throttle a bit. We ran through what was my biggest water crossing, about 30 feet of water that was probably only a couple feet deep at the most. The straights didn't last long as we were back to climbing a ridgeline loaded with switchbacks leading to 94 and Tecate. Due to radio interference from Ken's motorcycle, I took over sweep somewhere around here. I don't know if our being able to traverse the border unmolested is related to the time of day we were riding there. Just out of Tecate we made a stop at a railroad tunnel crossing the border. Here, Paul hails down a passing train. Rust + wood + clear sunlight = rich colors. The stretch along before Campo is a wide straightaway with rolling hills where we passed a lone dirt biker puttering along, shot passed our turn, and backtracked, heading north to Campo where we took a detour on S1 past a gated section of Campo TT to Cameron TT reconnecting with our original route, then to Thing Valley. I remember this being a particularly fun section of the ride as we climbed up into cooler weather and forested terrain. We had lunch at the Blue Jay Lodge off Sunrise in near Mt. Laguna. (Credit for the photo goes to Google.) The place was deserted and I felt bad for the owner but it was probably because it was well past noon by the time we arrived. Burgers and cokes all around, very nice venue with good food (though I'm still thinking about what we had at Frosty Burgers last weekend post-Lark Canyon). Climbing up to Mt. Laguna took us above 5000 feet and the air was brisk despite the ample sun. I was just about to pull over to throw an extra layer on when we took a hard right east on to dirt, dropping our speed and our altitude as we followed rocky switchbacks to the desert floor and Rodriguez Spur. On this day at least, this part of the ride was not as difficult as expected, with some rocky sections as we climbed back up to Banner. This put us back on 78 --> Wynola, which is a beautiful winding graded dirt road that most riders know about. From there we took Mesa Grande to Black Canyon back to Ramona, where we parted ways. Back in Carlsbad my odometer stood at 243 miles, with the reserve light turning on moments before returning, so I had about a gallon to spare on 6.5 gallons. This was a fantastic ride. I had not been on most of the roads we were on, the weather was perfect, the terrain varied/interesting and mostly dirt, and we had no mishaps. Apologies for the few photos -- with the temperatures warming and my extra layers removed, all the stuff in my camelbak plus the radio wiring made the barrier to accessing my camera too great, and cut down on the photo ops; I'm fixing this. -Fabless

Thanks to everyone for a great morning of riding. Here's a group shot, courtesy of Paul. Really enjoyed the trails, sand and whoops out there. -Fabless (the noob with the enormous... gas tank)

Looking forward to it, even if I have to ride out to Primm. If anyone leaving from San Diego or OC has space for one rider and his thumper, please contact me. -Curtis