Is it still winter? Hasn’t felt like it all in sunny Southern California. It’s been in the 70’s, no clouds with a little bit of wind here in Orange County for the past week. No complaints here.

“Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's”…ok ok you get where this movie quote came from. Anchorman ranks pretty high in my comedy movie list and Will Ferrell (born in Irvine, CA) is hilarious. I’ve shared a lot of laughs watching Will on SNL, Step Brothers, Zoolander, and most recently Elf during the holidays. Alright, enough about this comedic genius. Let’s get back to the “birthplace of California”.

Living just 30-50 miles north of San Diego, we’re pretty lucky that we can visit another major city along the coastline. It reminds me of San Francisco but not as hilly and cold. Downtown has its benefits with the Gaslamp Quarter just outside of the Convention Center. Plenty of bars, restaurants, hotels, shops you name it. It’s a fun town to get lost in just a few miles from the Mexican border. I remember driving down from OC with a high school buddy to catch the first-ever exhibition game played at Petco Park. The Padres played the Mariners and we sat in left field. Not a ton of fans in attendance but a cool experience being in a brand new ballpark in downtown. My father has lived in San Diego for many years. I think 20 years now so I know North County pretty well. From Del Mar, La Jolla, Vista, Encinitas the list goes on. I’ve taken the Pacific Surfliner train many times from Irvine to Solana Beach to visit. A really nice way to enjoy the ride without worrying about traffic on the 5 freeway.

So our group ride began on Coronado Island. It’s a tied island connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land called the Silver Strand. The weather couldn’t have been any nicer that day for a ride. When we showed up, there were about eight to ten riders unloading their bikes waving at us. Sometimes we don’t know how many riders will actually show up until we get there. We all met near the sundial at the Coronado Ferry Landing. It has plenty of parking and a good location to take the group shot with the San Diego skyline in the background. We unloaded our van with our bikes and put them on display while we chatted with fellow Super Squad members. Someone counted 32 or was it 35? That’s a pretty good amount of riders from all over SoCal. I finally got to meet Danny from Sunday Ronin in-person. A San Diego group formed by him with like-minded riders in the area. Very cool to see this group grow as it reminds me of when we started forming the “Super Squad” back in 2018 with, whom I consider, some of my really good friends.

We followed the Bayshore Bikeway / Silver Strand Bikeway that hugs the coast with views of downtown, Coronado Bridge, and the Naval Base. Riding with a group this size it’s important to have comms and some experience. The group navigated through a busy part of the bikeway where we saw tons of cyclists gathered near a park as well as people walking and enjoying the weather. The bikeway took us along Glorietta Bay and then onto the Strand where we passed City Hall. The Strand is about a six-mile stretch with water on both sides. Pretty heavily trafficked with some cyclist groups not too keen on our electric bikes. There were two cyclists that would draft and slingshot each other passed groups. They were easily going 25-30 mph at times keeping up with us no problem. I think a bit aggressive at times but we all need to share the road. Once we got to Imperial Beach it was pretty crowded. I’ve never been to this area before and I think we’ll make it stop next time as it was a perfect location to regroup and grab a drink or hit the bathroom during the ride. The bikeway did get narrower with fencing on both sides and with a group this size it can be a little challenging. Yes, we did get yelled at by cyclists because they have a cadence they don’t want to break which is understandable. But nothing major happened and everyone carried on.

The group is now about 12 miles into the ride. Entering the Chula Vista area we had bike lanes and some areas where we needed to share the road with vehicles. This side is very industrial and not as picturesque as the westside but we’re almost halfway through and the S1’s and Z1’s are still ok with range. The GPS wanted us to ride along this certain street but we found a brand-new paved bike path that gave us a bit of a shortcut. Shortly we found out it was still heavily constructed with fencing blocked our way to the joining bikeway. Luckily we found a detour that put us back on our path. Never a dull moment on these rides. There was a part of the ride in National City that went alongside a small marina. Definitely notable as it was a very pretty site coming from where we just were.

The next four miles were nothing to write home about until we finally got to the downtown area. We’re now on Harbor Blvd. near Petco Park in downtown. Heading north through South Embarcadero we made our way slowly on the bike path towards the Marina District. For some reason, a motorcyclist joined us crossing the street onto the bike path until he saw SDPD and went back on the street. Definitely odd but to each his own. We shot up towards Broadway and the Ferry Landing to get back to Coronado. In a perfect world that sounds easy. Welp, while stopped at the train tracks we had several flat tires just a few blocks away from our destination. Nothing to worry about since we had tools and spare parts to help those who ran over some debris along the way. Once everyone was good, we finally made our way to the Ferry. We just missed the 12 o’clock when getting our tickets but the attendant let us know that the Convention Center Ferry was leaving in 20 minutes. We announced this to the group and everyone made their way down. The ferry there was much smaller and could only handle half of our group. It still worked out because it ran every 20 minutes and the whole group didn’t have to wait until 1 pm for the Broadway Ferry. The water was choppy with the number of boats and jet skis out and about. Enough turbulence that some of our bikes tipped over but no damage. It was a nice way to end the ride by being on the water with friends and talking about how the ride went.

Overall a fun and exciting ride. Got to meet some new and local riders in the area that I have been chatting with online. Stoked about the growth of this community and can’t wait for our next adventure.

As always, have fun and ride safe.