We had a gorgeous day of riding on Point Loma. We found a route with bike lanes to reduce the pressure on us from traffic. The point is a Navy base but the road is open to the public down to a lighthouse and a national monument. It is very scenic being on a high overlook with one side to the open ocean and the other overlooking Coronado Island and the city.
Point Loma. The orange lines are designated bike paths, green are signed for bikes and blue are bike lanes.
We stopped at a National military cemetery and then biked out to the point. We could see Navy ships out in the ocean and a helicopter doing some type of exercises.
My recumbent bike gets lots of attention as apparently they are rare out here. A National Parks employee was very excited about my bike. A few days ago when we biked on Linda Vista Avenue, about five pre-teen aged boys very excitedly whistled and hollered "nice bike". And yesterday, prior to boarding the ferry, a guy with a tricked out shiny chrome plated recumbent cruiser said the same thing. We returned the compliment of course!
After being out on the point we biked back toward the mainland to stop at a Subway for some lunch. Just as we were walking out of the shop we heard a crash and the sound of metal. Ugh. A car turned left into the path of a motorcycle.
Luckily the motorcycle driver seemed unhurt but he was furious at the driver; an older man who tried initially to argue with him which just infuriated him further. He loudly demanded that someone call the police so since I had my phone in hand I dialed 911. They patched me to the paramedics who wanted me to tell him not to eat or drink anything. Uh yeah, I didn't really want to interrupt his tirade and have him mad at me! But another guy handed him a cigarette and he sat down and calmed down. Within minutes the fire department was there and further calmed things down. It took the police and paramedics about 15 more minutes to arrive.
You can easily see who is at fault here.
This type of accident is all too common in city traffic. A woman in an SUV was right behind the motorcycle and Dave thinks the at fault driver was intent on making the turn before the car and disregarded the smaller motorcycle. Luckily the biker wasn't going very fast or he probably would have been catapulted over the vehicle.
As bicyclists the sight of this shook us both up. We would hope that since we don't move as fast as a motor vehicle that the impact wouldn't be as hard but we are still vulnerable in traffic. It makes us very grateful that we live in a rural area and usually don't have to ride in dense city traffic. We will also be riding coast to coast on mostly isolated roads.
As soon as I verified that I could leave we went to find some lightly traveled neighborhood streets with hills to do our practice riding. I am e-learning the finer points of shifting, planning ahead so I'm not caught on the ascent in too high a gear. Since I've spent so much of the last 19 years on the tandem I haven't need to use this. I also found out that I do much better when I use my inhaler before starting out to ride. I have exercise induced asthma which used to only bother me in sub-zero weather. It now seems to happen when biking as well.
By going down some STEEP hills (cautiously) we discovered a beautiful park, Sunset Cliffs, where we watched some surfers.
We finished up a great day at a bistro. I found this funny cartoon in the bathroom which perfectly describes our dog, Corkie.
The weather report this morning warned of "winter storms". Down at this elevation the storm prediction is 2/10's of an inch of rain. Really!? However of more concern for us when we start riding next week is the possible six inches of snow at 4500 feet. Hope it melts by March 7th!
I saw on Facebook (see The Recumbent Duo) the couple from England that we met has made it to Alpine. They have another day of climbing before they start their descent to the desert.
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