I woke up Sunday am to round up Kenny to ride Palomar and further. I pedaled my hog over to his house, pounded on the door at 7:30am. He said he was going to have an hour run under his belt before I got there.
He opened the door looking like a complete wreck. Hair messed up, smelling like booze, and carrying his morning wood. He was up with a friend of his til the wee hours (5:35am) with 18oz of Gin stirring in his veins. Only as a Souza could do, he was dressed and on the hog within 10min and we were off through the Elfin Forest heading to Escondido.
Kenny did not eat any dinner the night before. Wether it was for weight lose or to better deliver the alcohol, I do not know. He said he need some food in his stomach, so we turned into Starbucks. Kenny ordered a Venti coffee with 4 shots of espresso, and, oh…a small sandwich. I passed on everything because I was feuled up with my 200 grams of oats, 2 tablespoons of almond butter, topped with 3 teaspoons of flax seed meal.
While we were riding through the Elfin Forest a friend of our’s, Randy Clark, calls my house to wake up Noreen. She gives him Kenny’s cell to get in touch with me. Randy calls…Kenny answers. Randy is 30 minutes behind us and wants to join us. Beacuse Kenny was still drunk and literally could not hold a straight line the first 10 miles, he said “sure we can wait for you, call us when you get close.” 45 minutes later, with Kenny sleeping on the sidewalk and me stretching in front of La Salsa on Valley PKWY, Randy came rolling up on his Kestrel. I thought it was odd that we waited for a guy that was only going out another 30 min. I guess that’s what friends are for!
We made it to the base of the mountain. Kenny heads into the indian reservation store and gets 2 Red Bulls, while I am still satisfies with my organic breakfast!
Bottles full, helmets strapped to the bars and upward we go! Kenny says, lets “old school it.” Whenever he uses that term, it usually means something difficult and makes no sense. This particular time it meant that he used to climb Palomar in the big chainring. We both put it into our big rings and started to turn the cranks.
Our initial plan, the day before, was to ride a brisk 57min. As soon as we started to “old school it” I figured it was going to be a tough day for me. Then I started to do my math: we have a guy that really did not sleep the night before and had Gin for dinner. We hit the left to go up Palomar in 22:53, which is not bad. This is about when reality set in for Kenny. Hair flailing, spit flying, Kenny was really starting to suffer. He changed his riding style to “new age!” The 53 tooth was shut down for the next 7 miles. I told him to keep his head up and focused and we could still ride under an hour.
Palomar has half mile markers. It is really hard to think that riding 10 mi/hr to be anything of a challenge. With the first half being much faster than the second, it was fun getting half mile splits ranging from 2:38-3:20. Seeing that I had organic food and water in my system, Kenny’s fuel of choice had a much tighter grip on him. In the end we rolled across the top in just under an hour. Anything under 67 min on this mtn is very respectable. But then again, I respect anyone to make it to the top, especially if you have ridden a distance to get to the bottom!
At the top we chatted with** MIGHTY WHITEY**. He was a guy that had ridden his cafe bike to the top. He had gained his name from his colleagues he did 10 years of prison with down in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. He was the only white man in their population. Mighty Whitey let us know that he used to ride his bike 200 mi/week 15 years ago. As the conversation went on, I calculated he was in prison at the time. I was not about to call him a liar. I just listened to he and Kenny’s dialogue about prison drugs and rape.
We continued on to Santa Ysabell via Mesa Grande. We saw a man shoot his dog up there and looked at a few real estate sheets. Very pretty, looks like Zofingen.
We rode 124.8mi. I “old schooled it” 70% of the ride, giving Kenny a handicap due to the drinking. After a while, you really get used to the big gear.
I, again, finished my ride at my massage. Kenny??? He rode back to the house and drank Gin. Noreen watched. Mighty Whitey enjoys his freedom!!!
