[CR]San Diego Vintage Ride report

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From: <"brianbaylis@juno.com">
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 07:39:08 GMT
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]San Diego Vintage Ride report

Fellow Listmembers:

Thank you, Rich, for putting up some photos of our little gathering toda y. Nice to have you and Charles and Carmen from out of town down for our ride. In addition to those out-of-towners I had a special guest along t oday to ride with me on my tandem. He would be the person in the group p hoto (wearing the black jersey) who is obviously younger than the rest o f us. That would be young Ben, a 19 year old Bennington College (in Verm ont) student who is serving a 5 week internship at my shop for school cr edit. This is a very busy time for me, with the framebuilders show only weeks away, and there could be some distraction in this; but I am findin g things for him to do to help me make things happen. So anyway, young B en joined us on the ride today along with locals Rob O', Peter Brueggema n, and Carlos Martel. I forgot to mention it to Sterling, so there may h ave been a few more had I done that, but those who saw it on the list go t the message. We totaled a group of eight, with 2 tandems included. Eve ryone had vintage iron except for Carlos, who was riding his snazzy Japa nese KoF lugged steel fixed gear road bike. Peter rode his 1954 Bates, R ob rode his Pogliaghi, Rich rode a Bianchi. Charles and Carmen rode thei r 80's Jack Taylor and the kid and I rode my 1982 Salsa/Baylis tandem.

The weather started off looking a little "iffy" in terms of possibility of a small amount of rain and it was a little chilly as we stood in the parking lot getting ready to ride. But I figured it would get warmer as the day progressed. It didn't take long to warm up once we got rolling a nd it did indeed turn out to be a perfectly fine day. A little wind out on Point Loma, but that is pretty much they way it always is. The View f rom up there was very nice, as one can see from the group photo. This ri de is quite scenic with a variety of terrain. The distance is not to gre at but enough to get a workout. A nice lunch spot (where the tourists ma ke for good people watching) is near the end of the ride. Chomp down a c ouple of fish tacos and some coffee and I'm ready to head back to the pa rk and head home to catch what's left of any football games.

Thanks to those who showed up. We had a great time on a magnificent day. I may have put the fear of God in the young boy as we hammered on the P oint Loma downhill in 60x12 gears, passing automobile traffic. Rich ment ioned that he found the route entertaining, and I think we showed the yo ungster how the old people ride and have a good time while giving him a tour of some of the finer points in San Diego. The kid actually digs old bikes and has an interest in bike building; so I think he ended up in t he right place.

Thanks again to Rich Pinder for putting up photographic evidence of our exploits. We wouldn't want people to think we make up all those reports about our nice weather in San Diego. The Kid is from Rhode Island, so he 's REALLY counting his blessings!

Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
Another beautiful day in paradise.