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.