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.
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Sweet also because 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 to 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. Thanks to a little help from my yellow friend.
The SL isn't a powerful ebike — just 240W peak mechanical. But with enough assist to keep reasonable speeds at rider powers well below the 150W limit I'd set. Also enough to keep a knee-friendly 80-100 rpm cadence at knee-friendly pedal forces without crawling along in a much lower than usual gear.
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. Too demoralized to take pictures.
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Carlsbad State Beach a year ago with a normal sand cover. Yesterday, we saw over 75% of that sand gone, leaving much of the underlying cobble exposed.
And nothing left but cobble just south of there at Tamarack State Beach. Sadly, similar sand losses all the way to our south turnaround at 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.
Problem is, our tropical cyclone season isn't over, a super-El Nino event is due here in October, and we have a customary winter storm season ahead. Gulp.
Make no mistake, cobble beaches are WAY better than no beaches at all. But I'll miss our beautiful sand — probably for years to come.
I just stopped the recording at 63.0 mi by Gdański Bridge
