Oceanside, Sleeping Indian and Twin Oaks Valley Road Ride Report-25 March 2017

by Bernie Bogard

The group started from 56/Black Mountain heading west to the coast. Rick W lead the group which included Jim W, Paul P, Flo, Bill, Andrey, Marissa, Hermann and Stephan. Jim led a painful push up the hills into Del Mar then some of the crew shared the load toward Oceanside ie Rick, Jim, Flo and Stephan. Stephan and Hermann dropped off at Starbucks. The remaining group gathered at the harbor, splitting into a group going back down the coast while Jim, Flo, Paul, Bill and I went to the 76 Bike path. After introducing Flo and Paul to Sleeping Indian (an audible gasp was heard from Flo upon his seeing that you’re not done after the "wall" that’s visible from the start of that portion), we followed our intrepid leader Jim down a hill leading us back down to Sleeping Indian. After thanking him for the opportunity to add some climbing to our coast ride we retraced our descent and got back on track, headed to Olive Hill. We said goodbye to Bill as we turned off Gopher Canyon to the rural Twin Oaks Valley road, with it’s own "wall". Pleasant ride through the north county followed until marred by a nasty trucker threatening the group along Twin Oaks Valley country portion. Altered the route a bit to go to Elfin Hills, RSF road to RSF to 3 witches where the remaining group split up at Camino Del Sur to head home. Jim definitely has gotten his legs back after limited miles for a while. Flo and Paul got introduced to a beautiful part of the county to ride bikes as well as having a bit of a work out from the looks of it. Yet another special day of Descenders riding. Congrats to the Dirty Devil participants, Hodges and Oleg that I could see.