First Day is a Success!

Day 1. On Wednesday Sep 3 at 7:24 AM we took off from Ocean Beach in San Diego after a coffee warm up at Starbucks which was right down the street. Tod Vedock (volunteer), Barbara and I met Al Heath of the San Diego Bicycle Club. Al had volunteered to join us for the first part of our ride through San Diego and boy did we need it! Al is also 71 years old (but 13 days younger than me) and rides his bike 3 or 4 times per week. It was really helpful to have Al guide us through a strange city with lots of morning commuter traffic.

THANKS A LOT AL !!

Then Tod and I proceeded for about 5 miles alone over my first mountain pass which was about 600 ft of climbing. Once over the pass, another San Diego Bike Club member passed us on the road. He stopped and said Aren't you the 71 year old guy bicycling to Florida? I saw you on the web site. I immediately pointed to Tod who is 37 and said Yes, that's the guy. His name was Carl Ebert and he rode with us for about 10 miles to Alpine, California.

THANKS CARL AND TOD FOR THE HELP IN GETTING ME STARTED.

It made for a much better start for me (More about Tod in a later message). Once in Alpine, about 40 miles out, Carl headed on with his ride and Tod headed back to his family waiting for him in San Diego. I proceeded another 15 miles to Pine Valley for the evening. It was about 55 miles in total and the peak was about 4000+ feet elevation. But it was up and down and up and down to get to the 4000+ foot mark. It was a great start for me as I had the cool weather of San Diego in the beginning along with the morning traffic and then it heated up into the high 90's as we traveled inland and then hill to Pine Valley.