Category: California to Texas 2013

San Diego, CA to El Cajon, CA
Date: 01/02/2013
Distance traveled: 33.39 miles
GPS tracks: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/257328062

Setting out with the bike box strapped to the back rack.

I was all over the place today, mostly because I wasn’t in a rush. I didn’t have far to go and the elevation was minimal which made for easy riding, so I took my time. After saying goodbye to Walter and Pam I rode up the street a ways to grab a bite to eat at Panera Bread Co., wander over to UPS to ship the bike box, and then make a stop at Sports Authority for fuel for the camp stove. I think I was done with all of that by around 10am… and with only 30ish miles to go I had some time to kill.

I really should have gone for the 5 beer taster, not 8.

Killing time is where the San Diego Brewing Company came into play. They were along the route and Walter and Pam spoke highly of them. I would have rather gone to some of the breweries that Nate suggested, but unfortunately they were just a little too far out of the way. I had a relaxed tasting and lunch at SDBC, and even got to chat with Jeff the brewmaster for quite a bit – I think I was there for 2 hours total. :) I highly recommend the Infinitude IPA – it was spot on.

Mission Gorge was the highlight of today’s ride.

The ride was nice and mostly uneventful. Lots of urban and commercial districts with wide shoulders and low traffic. The highlight of the route today was Mission Trails through Mission Gorge. It’s a short but scenic stretch with nonexistent traffic. It also has a nice lil historical landmark along the way.

Old Mission Dam – Built in the early 1800s

Tonight I’m staying with Brittany, Jacques and the adorable 8 month-old Roman in El Cajon, CA. They have been incredibly warm and inviting and we had lots to talk about over dinner. It’s so nice to have folks to spend time with in the evenings. It has made the beginning of the trip so nice. Jacques and I spent a lot of time talking about family, bike routes, and his own incredible trip across the US to raise money and awareness for Beautiful Gate South Africa. Beautiful Gate is a non-profit organization providing care and support to vulnerable children and families in Cape Town, South Africa, many of whom have been infected by HIV. Brittany and Jacques have a real heart for this kind of service work – it’s inspiring. You can see an interview from Jacques’ ride in 2010 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzT_R6H8ac

Walter offering encouragement, support, tools, conversation and beer.

After a slightly rushed breakfast at Serious Biscuit, M and I said our goodbyes for the month and I hopped an uneventful flight to San Diego. I got to watch them unload my bike from the plane. They didn’t do a half-bad job handling it despite dropping it on its side pretty roughly. Good thing TSA repacked it reasonably well after they were done rifling through it.

Upon my arrival, Pam and Walter – who are awesome – picked me up from the airport in their VW van and we headed to their home in the northern parts of San Diego. With a Laqunitas IPA in hand, I set about reassembling my undamaged Kona Sutra. After getting it put together, we sat down to dinner, talked about biking, relationships, more bikes and biking. Pam & Walter had done a 100mi ride that morning (a tradition). Pam works at a local bike shop (Leucadia Cyclery – leucadiabikes.com‎) and teaches bike classes. Walter is an engineer after my own heart with an equal love for biking. My favorite quote from the evening goes to Walter – “our mission is to teach racing bicyclists that biking can be fun!” (in reference to bike touring). I loved looking through their collection of amazing bikes in their garage! Mountain bikes with 29’ers, ultralight weight road bikes, etc., etc. Color me jealous.

Pam and Walter are great hosts – the ride from the airport, the use of their tools, the delicious salmon dinner, the comfortable bed, the lovely conversation, and the great advice on how to navigate my way out of the city – I couldn’t have asked for more! They even had good advice on which breweries were along my route that I shouldn’t miss. Pam spelled backwards is ‘map’, and that’s no joke. She knows the area forwards and backwards and put me on a super easy route out of town. I couldn’t thank them enough for all that they did for me.

The assembled bike, ready to be loaded down.

The box the box came in.

Note: this is a repost, because I accidentally deleted the previous post on this topic. One day I’ll learn to blog…

My goals when boxing up the bike were straightforward:

1. Protect the box when flying on the plane.
2. Be able to fit most of the gear into the same box as the bike to save on checked luggage.
3. Reuse the same box to fly the box home at the end of the trip.

Hard cases would make it difficult to accomplish goal 2, since they’re so heavy that it is easy to be over the airline’s 100lb max. Also, it would be expensive to ship an empty hard case from San Diego to Austin (goal 3). So, a cardboard box would have to do.

ShipBikes.com makes a nice box called the “eBike Shipper” (http://www.shipbikes.com/buy.html) which runs about $55 shipped.

What’s nice is that it comes broken down into a small box. This enabled me to assemble the box that is inside the box, and then ship the box that the box was shipped in inside the now assembled box. Got that? That means I can rebox the box in San Diego to ship for cheap to Austin.

Half assembled box.

Packed box.

All boxed up and ready to go!