Date(s): Sept. 20, 1999
Day: Monday
From: San Diego, CA
To: Potrero, CA
Lodging: Potrero County Park
Segment Mileage: 16
Cumulative Mileage: 16
Actual Riding Time: 1 hr. 30 min.
Average Speed: 10.8
Weather: Temp: High 80's, Cloudy early, sunny and hot later
Monday was the first real day of the tour, which turned out to also be the real shakedown day. People got their first taste of what the coming hot and sunny days will be like. The morning was mild as we made our way through rush hour traffic, luckily most of it was spent on a good bike trail along Harbor Dr from Point Loma and along the dock area.
A group of 6 of us started, which later broke up into a group of 3 of us; Todd from England, Suzanne from the Netherlands, and me. Our paces didn't match that well but we agreed to ride as a team throughout the day. As we climbed the mountains outside San Diego, the clouds burned off and the sun beat down on us. Drinking enough water was critical. We stopped at a restaurant in Dulzura for a bite to eat, but when we left we didn't refill our water bottles, which left us with too little water to make it to the next water stop 11 miles and several hills away. That stretch seemed to take forever as we would ride a bit, find some shade and cool down, and drink our rationed water. Luckily Bob and Jimbo both gave us a little water and Jim rode along for moral support. It is difficult to acclimate to hot weather and hills in England and the Netherlands.
We finally made it to Potrero and loaded up on gatorade and water. After a short ride into camp that included another steep climb, I unloaded my panniers and headed back to the store to help haul groceries back to camp, enough for one day's worth of food for the group. Our allowance is around $120./day, which is hard to spend day after day. When we have a surplus, we will either eat out or splurge in some way. Dinner that night was late as everyone arrived late in camp. The cooks didn't even have time to shower or set up their tents, as we try to eat at 6:00 and it gets dark at 8:00, and we didn't get the food back to camp until around 5:30.
The campsite was filled with beautiful live oaks under which we camped. The quite of the desert was a refreshing change from San Diego.
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