[Submitted for Henry by Carl with a few edits]

The SAG support provided by Larry and Carl went beyond the revivifying ice water and bananas, making the 2014 edition of our San Diego Century memorable for nine good cyclists on an enjoyable SoCal summer day. At unscripted sites along the course, we were surprised by the SAGmeisters cheering for us from the roadside. We even found them providing other riders mechanical and hydration support on a muggy day. Particularly easy to spot at the side of the road was Carl’s hat (not shown) – but not exactly what the French are thinking when they say, “Chapeau!”, in tipping a helmet to a good ride.

The black-and-blue-and-white half-kit made its inaugural OC-San Diego trip on Team MDRCC, eight in kit and one first-time century rider in her Rapha kit (Tannaz, Mikki, Erik, Philip, Anna, Marvin, Mike S., Herwin, and Henry in random order).

We met at the Irvine Amtrak station and packed supplies on Larry’s truck, including what we thought was TMI – too much ice, even for the eclectic collection of Biermeister Karl.

The rollout and tour of Irvine leading to Mission Viejo were easy riding and a good 20-mile warmup for a century. Approaching San Juan Capistrano, some of us had fun with the moving bottle transfer, where riders gave water bottles (not beer!) to Carl in the SAGtruck for refills and got them back, all as both rider and truck traveled down the road. Seems like a small thing, but a cheap thrill! Something we see all the time in the pro peloton. We were wise to not attempt the more advanced maneuver of the free push during the bottle transfer. Besides safety concerns due to inexperience with the push for driver and rider, the CHP would have more than frowned upon it.

The first designated stop at 24 miles near the San Juan Capistrano Mission provided the initial opportunity to serve the most popular item of the day from the SAG pantry, water with plenty of ice, please! Revitalized, we hit PCH from Mile 27 in San Clemente at high speed, with Tannaz taking a flyer on the highway instead of the protected bike path. Following the fast 9-mile ride past the San Onofre nuclear power plant (not in operation, so we didn’t get irradiated) and state park, we came to a grinding halt at the Mile 45 checkpoint into Camp Pendleton, where IDs were required and checked. After successfully penetrating security, we infiltrated the 7 miles of rollers on the base and landed at Buccaneer Park in Oceanside for lunch 57 miles into the ride. Here we met the Peninsula Cycle Club doing their annual ride from San Pedro to San Diego, and they were gracious to give us some of their catered box lunches – the grapes were particularly refreshing. We also had our own prepared food and drinks, picnicking under a small tree (Herwin offered to bring his picnic tent next time).

The remaining 40 miles were through the beach cities of Carlsbad, Encinitas, Cardiff, Solano Beach (where our SAG team picked up dinner orders from Roberto’s Mexican Food), and Del Mar with splendid views of beach and ocean well worth the 77 miles to get to, before climbing the iconic 1.5-mile hill on Torrey Pines. Philip took the optional steeper climb inside the State Natural Reserve. Regrouping at the top and administering performance-enhancing ice water (popsicles next time?), we were ready for the less than 20 miles through La Jolla and into San Diego, where we detoured from the conjestion of Mission Bay (in which we lost a rider last year, who remained missing from this year’s ride – we should probably have him posted on chocolate milk cartons). The somewhat boring but straightforward 7-mile ride on Morena to Rosecrans delivered us to Nimitz and smooth sailing on Harbor for the final 4-mile run to the finishing train station parking lot that reopened this year.

Having finished her first century, a happy and contented Tannaz and crew wound down as Larry and Carl were hard at work getting the bikes safely secured for the return to Irvine.

We had seats on the train to enjoy ourselves with good conversation and recovery food and drink (that’s not chocolate milk) –

and plenty of beer for two of the Three Sisters of Paso Robles notoriety.

Despite the extra cars added by Amtrak for this busy Saturday, the train was crowded with Comic-Conventioneers and became SRO when 500 revelers from the Del Mar racetrack boarded. We arrived late in Irvine, with our exemplary and devoted SAGmeisters waiting to distribute the bikes for everyone to be on their way home after a fabulous, long bike adventure for MDRCC.

Photos provided by Carl, Mikki, and Marvin.