Places to Train: North San Diego County

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m starting a 3 month consulting gig for a company in Carlsbad, CA on Monday. I have not spent any time in North S.D. County since I was a young jarhead back in 1987, so I don’t know where the best places are to swim, bike or run.

Where’s the best place to ride in the early morning or late afternoon/evening?

Best weekend riding?

Which bike should I bring (that will be most useful) for local riding: Road bike (Orca) or tribike (P3C) ?

Best bike shop?

Best place to swim: Open Water, local gym and city pool?

Best place to run…along the beach I’m sure, but where?

Any suggestions for a good spin class or local gym would be appreciated as well

Thanks

2

If you do a search for san diego there have been a bunch of threads about this lately. Seems like everyone is coming here this month…

I’m starting a 3 month consulting gig for a company in Carlsbad, CA on Monday. I have not spent any time in North S.D. County since I was a young jarhead back in 1987, so I don’t know where the best places are to swim, bike or run.

Where’s the best place to ride in the early morning or late afternoon/evening?

Best weekend riding?

Which bike should I bring (that will be most useful) for local riding: Road bike (Orca) or tribike (P3C) ?

Best bike shop?

Best place to swim: Open Water, local gym and city pool?

Best place to run…along the beach I’m sure, but where?

Any suggestions for a good spin class or local gym would be appreciated as well

Thanks

3

P.S. If you need more info than what you find in the other posts LMK and I’ll help you out.

4

check out the san diego tri club website, there is pretty much a workout or three every day of the week.

in north county, pools a plenty - carlsbad community, encinitas ymca, solana beach boys and girls club … masters workouts and open lap times.

open water swim - refer to tscd - there must be 3 or 5 a week, nytro friday 7am swim at moonlight in encinitas …

if you have a triathlon in your near future, bring the TT - plenty of fast and flat riding up the coast. if you want to climb, bring the orca and head east toward palomar, pine valley, del dios … best of both worlds.

tri shops - nytro and b&l are both in north county ready to serve you and within 2 miles of each other … which can make for a beautiful thing, as they don’t carry too many competing brands so you get a lot to look at within a short distance.

trail runs - hit the lagoons.

your stay is long enough to get into the groove with tcsd, plenty of options for every interest and ability.

5

Where’s the best place to ride in the early morning or late afternoon/evening? http://www.socalcycling.com/Group%20Rides/weekly/reynolds.htm http://www.socalcycling.com/Group%20Rides/seasonal/fiesta_island.htm

Best weekend riding?
http://www.socalcycling.com/Group%20Rides/weekly/swamis.htm

Which bike should I bring (that will be most useful) for local riding: Road bike (Orca) or tribike (P3C) ?
Road bike

Best bike shop?
http://blbikes.com/index.cfm

(as for the rest, I’m a roadie so I don’t know but check out the SD tri club)

Best place to swim: Open Water, local gym and city pool?

Best place to run…along the beach I’m sure, but where?

Any suggestions for a good spin class or local gym would be appreciated as well

Thanks

6

Mojo Zen ~

Hey there, I’m in Oceanside so am right around the corner.

Best weekend riding? I like to head inland…there is some great riding into Bonsall, Fallbrook, rainbow and points beyond depending on how far you want to go. Here’s a ride I did recently to give you a flavor. http://www.mapmyrun.com/ride/united-states/ca/oceanside/395475878 . Of course, there is the coast, but you’ll find tons of traffic (both bike and car traffic) in the summertime. Also, heading north into Camp Pendleton is a great ride, just remember your ID.

Which bike should I bring (that will be most useful) for local riding: Road bike (Orca) or tribike (P3C) ? Truthfully, either is fine, IMHO. While there is some hilly stuff inland, no really long sustained climbs, unless you want to tackle Palomar. BTW, Here’s a post I wrote on Palomar (http://jpsjourney.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/palomar-mountain/)

But, since I only have one bike (a tri bike), I may not be the best person to ask. :slight_smile:

Best bike shop? Nytro (www.nytro.com) and B&L (www.blbikes.com) are both great.

Best place to swim: Open Water, local gym and city pool? Check out www.carlsbadmasters.com, they work out at Carlsbad HS Mon - Sat AM’s and Mon-Fri at lunch. A very solid group, lots of strong swimmers. Open water, I usually go off of Pine Street & PCH (just south of Carlsbad Village Drive). There is a little grassy area there. Walk down the hill, swim straight out and then north parallel to the beach.

Best place to run…along the beach I’m sure, but where? Anywhere is good. I like to start at Pine Street & PCH and head south along PCH. If you want some trails, check out Calaveras Hills, not a huge area, but enough for a 5 mile run or so. http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ca/carlsbad/9369518

I’m in Baja for the 70.3 this weekend, but PM me afterwards if you’d like to get together for some rides or runs or just want some more ideas.

7

It’s pretty simple in Northern SD:

  1. Exit front door.
  2. Ride, run, or swim depending on mood.
  3. Recovery meal.

PM me if you’re up for towing me around on a ride.

8

Some sustained local climbs: Palomar (12 miles); Wohlford (2.5 miles); Laguna (up to 30 miles depending on approach); Soledad (2.x miles). Lots of 1-2 mile long climbs including Couser Canyon, Torrey Pines, Old 395 up to Lilac, Del Dios up to Lake Hodges. Good steep Leg-burner climb: Mt. Israel.

-Marc

9

Hello Mojozenmaster and All,

A fun ride is to start on Pacific Coast Highway at Carlsbad and go south. It will take you along the ocean to La Jolla and past Nytro Bike Shop and B&L Bike Shop and some others.

The San Luis Bike Trial is a good place for intervals (7.2 miles along the river - no stop signs) and the trail head is about 6 miles from Carlsbad. You can do the 6 miles to get there on mostly side streets.

A couple of miles from the San Luis Bike Trial is Camp Pendleton USMC base (from when you were a Jarhead) and that is a good ride through there (bring your drivers license or picture ID) up to San Clemente. There is a bike route through San Clemente that will take you to Hwy 1, Pacific Coast Highway, that has a zipper strip bike route near the RR tracks and beach up to Dana Point.

Here is a bike route (it would be fun to do at 0900 this Sunday) from Oceanside to San Luis Bike Trail and on East:

http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/...irections/Parade.pdf

and for some vertical continuing Eastward: http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/.../directions/ts01.pdf

Good luck and enjoy your visit.

Cheers,

Neal

10

Never ridden Mt. Isreal, Soledad, Wohlford or Laguna…but have ridden the others.

A few other good ones are Rice Canyon, Old Castle, Rainbow Canyon/395 heading south from Temecula, and Rancho California heading west from Temecula into De Luz Canyon.

I guess there is some good climbing here… :slight_smile:

11

Once a “jarhead” always a “jarhead”…even if you are older!

12

jp pretty much hit everything, the bike course he listed the map for is pretty good and a lot of those roads are also my favorites, Circle R, Couser and RIce Canyon, W. Lilac, Deluz Canyon, also Cole Grade Road from north to south is a good little climb. You can also head out of Escondido and go up bandy Canyon Road and Hoghland Valley Road for some good climbing.

Running is pretty simple, running along the coast is always nice. Tuesday nights I coach an open track workout at 6pm at the Carlsbad High School track.
Swimming from the beach at Pine and PCH is popular. If you go in the early evening (5 - 6:30ish) you can swim with the dolphins, they are usually moving noth to south around that time about 200 yards out. Carlsbad Masters is open to anyone at noon and 6:15am on weekdays, 8am on Saturdays.

13

Thanks JP, Gary, nealhe, mike, tribub, ryan and all for the great suggestions. I’m driving away from the Phoenix heat tomorrow and I’m looking forward to spending a cool summer in San Diego. I’ll have more questions once I arrive, but in the meantime, thanks again!!

14

if you can train during the day on weekdays, let me know, I do most of my training during the week and work most of the day Thursday thru Sunday. Also if you golf and want to go play a round, let me know, that is my second passion (next to my SO and triathlon in that order).

15

I’m driving away from the Phoenix heat tomorrow and I’m looking forward to spending a cool summer in San Diego
You Bastard :wink:
.

16

I’m not much of a golfer, but I’ll take you up on the training. I’m like to ride on Saturday. Let me know, or I’ll be in touch.

17

Dude, I’m in Carlsbad and it’s 70 degrees at 2PM!! I still need to get back to AZ every other weekend or so, but I think I’ll like it hear over the summer. Maybe get in good enough shape to do Superfrog;-)