First 50-Mile Bike Ride!

In this post: Bicycling, Billy's At The Beach (Newport Beach), La Palapa del Mar (Long Beach)
Note: This post is a follow-up to, "Beach Bike'n Fandango" (Dec. 5th) 
Map

Weather

WE DID IT!  Our first 50-mile bike ride!

The night before, the weather forecast sounded perfect; sunny, warm and no typical afternoon headwinds.  A.R., Kathy, Janet and I had never ridden our bikes further than 40-miles in a single day, but we felt like we were ready to push our "personal bests" up.  With a perfect day in the offing, we planned to get an early start, ride at a slow-to-moderate pace, take plenty of breaks, make a day of it and push our previous high mark up by 25% to 50 miles.

When we got to Newport, we decided to take the ferry across
the bay & ride to Billy's At The Beach for lunch.

After fortifying ourselves with our favorite "big day" breakfast of oatmeal, fruit and sugar-free Red Bull, Janet and I met up with A.R. and Kathy in Long Beach and started riding down the coast at 9:30.  As predicted, it was a beautiful day. The beach trail in Long Beach wasn't too busy yet, but we anticipated we'd be sharing the beach trails in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach with throngs of our fellow Southern Californians.

Sure enough, clusters of senior surfers and families staking out fire pits lined the bike path going through Bolsa Chica State Beach (in Huntington Beach). A little further along, K9 lovers swarmed the path at "Dog Beach." As we approached the Huntington Beach pier, the surfing crowd crossing the path got younger, buffer and included more ladies. The usual caste of local characters, street performers, tourists and people watchers were gathered near the pier and the motorhome set was well represented south of the pier.

The bike path in Newport Beach, which was narrow to start with, was divided in half by a painted line defining north and south bound lanes. Sharing with everyone that wanted to take in the beach scene made for some slow going. Nevertheless, it was a fun place to be and we still managed to arrive at the Balboa Pier well before lunchtime and a little shy of 25 miles (our halfway goal).

We decided to take the Balboa Ferry across the bay and ride over to Billy's At The Beach for lunch. The Crab Louie looked like a good, lite lunch too me... and it was.

Back in Long Beach, we celebrated our
first 50 mile ride at La Palapa del Mar

Back in Long Beach, we wanted to celebrate our 50-mile achievement at La Palapa del Mar, our favorite beach front bar/restaurant, but we didn't want to celebrate prematurely. Before parking the bikes at La Palapa, we racked up a few extra miles on the bike odometers by detouring to the end of the peninsula and back. Good thing. We ended up watching a beautiful sunset from La Palapa and had just enough time to make it home before dark with a total of 51 miles behind us.

Polar Fitness Stats
Group: 2 women, 2 men
Ages: 53 - 64

Activity: Bicycling (Queen Mary to Balboa Pier & back)

Time (moving): 4 hrs 8 min

Distance: 50 miles round trip

Elevation: 10' - 40'

Calories: 1,511 - 1,948 (average 1,717)

Average Heart Rate: 108 - 122 (average 117) 

Max Heart Rate: 159 - 160 (average 159)