Day 38 76 miles 2824 feet of climbing 13.8 ave

Julian CA to Oceanside CA

totals:

3493 Miles
171,415 Feet of Climbing!

When you are riding in a long bicycle race the last 50 miles or so is the most painful. All you want is the finish line and the suffering to end. That is not the case with touring.

When we reached the “50 to-go” point we wished there was more. We all miss being home of course but we know we will miss the adventure.

The weather gods that had dished out beatings in the last month surrendered and gave us a perfect day. Winds of less than 10mph and bright sunshine was the forecast. We were still at more than 4000 feet so the temperature was a pleasant 65 degrees.

From this point on there would be some hills but we would loose altitude until we reached Pacific and sea level.

Julian is a beautiful mountain town with inns and great places to eat. We were told this was an anomaly for this part of southern California. There were plenty of expensive cars parked along the streets. Aston Martin, Jags and the first Ford GT 40 I ever saw on the road. What a bad looking machine that was.

As we headed down the hill and out of town we came across what looked like a police roadblock. There were at least eight highway patrol cars and twice that many cops outside of them with assault weapons drawn. This looked serious. They gave us a passing glance as we rode by. A mile or so later we spotted another SWAT team with guns drawn. Here they had some kind of military looking personal carrier with an armed officer coming out of the top of the large vehicle.

This would not be all the police presence we would see. Around every corner tucked into the weeds the black cruisers and SWAT teams could bee seen. Guns poking out everywhere. This must be some sort of police practice maneuvers or something. But why would they have their guns drawn?

Near the bottom of the hill we pulled into a convenience store for liquids. We asked the clerk what was all the police activity as another fleet of cruisers went by. He told us the Mongolians Motorcycle Gang was camping up on the mountain. They are archrivals of the local chapter of the Hells Angles and they did not want any trouble. I guess they did not realize that the Infamous Connecticut Biker Gang is more dangerous than both the Mongolians and Hells Angles. Maybe our spandex shorts scared them off.

As we got closer to Oceanside we knew soon more of the Race Across America riders would be coming by soon. The race is from Oceanside CA to Annapolis MD and we have followed most of this route. Then just in front of us one of the teams in a tight draft started approaching. Before we could cheer them on the lead rider yelled to us “ Hey we saw you guys on the road…you're awesome” …. We were flabbergasted. They must have spotted us on their way to Oceanside earlier in the week. The guys we look up to, the ultra riders calling us awesome…how cool is that?

The final leg of our trip was on a long paved bicycle path that led us to the beach at Oceanside. We pulled our bike across the sand and let the waters of the Pacific touch our bike as we did with the Atlantic just over a month ago. Our journey has ended.

Our next order of business was a shower and a good meal to celebrate. Ken’s mom had our dinner covered in spades. We ate everything on the menu along with a couple bottles of great wine and a rack of beers. A BIG thanks goes out to her.

The ride may be over but the work is not. We need to rent a car, package and ship our bicycles back home book airline tickets and get to the San Diego Airport. We will be busy. Hopefully we will have a couple hours to relax before we leave the west coast.

This has been a ride of a lifetime for us. Something we will never forget. The difficult winds and weather just made it more exciting. We would not have wanted it any other way. We did not forget that our families and friends helped us get to this point. They sacrificed also….we had the easy part all we had to do was pedal.

We saw a few RAAM riders on the road today.

Also today was the Finish!