Yesterday's 15 mi coast ride with neighbor DW was bittersweet.
Sweet because my !#$^&*! knees had finally calmed down enough to ride for the first time in over 2 weeks, and it was a beautiful day to be out in the saddle again.
Sweet also because I knew I really had to avoid pissing off my knees, and my Vado SL 1 was there to help. SL with DW's gray Trek above.
Yesterday's rolling route is normally an ECO and OFF ride with some SPORT thrown in when the zoomies strike. But this time, I rode SPORT with occasional TURBO on the steeper climbs.
And though the knees were tolerably sore for a few hours afterward, they're showing no ill effects today. Doubt that would have been possible without a little help from my friend.
The SL isn't a powerful ebike — just 240W peak mechanical. But that was enough to let me maintain reasonable speeds while keeping rider power well below the 150W limit I'd set for myself. The added assist also helped me keep a knee-friendly 80-100 rpm cadence without knee-unfriendly pedal forces.
But yesterday was also a
bitter ride. DW and I used the opportunity to inspect Carlsbad beaches for wave damage from Hurricane Marie, and we didn't like what we saw. Huge sand losses everywhere.
Carlsbad State Beach a year ago with a normal amount of sand. Yesterday, we saw over 75% of that sand gone. And just south of here at Tamarack State Beach, the sand loss was 100%. Nothing but cobbles left there. Similar sand losses at all the way south to the Encinitas city limit.
Waves from Hurricane Genevieve started this major sand loss event a month ago, and Marie's waves took even more. Some of that sand's now stored in offshore bars with a potential to return, but meteorologists are predicting more named East Pacific storms than ever this year.
And any beach damage our impending super-El Nino event and winter storm season bring will be on top of that. Cobble beaches are way better than no beaches, but I'll miss our beautiful sand — probably for years to come.
I just stopped the recording at 63.0 mi by Gdański Bridge
