Coming Out of Retirement on the Pacific Coast Highway

I went for my first "serious road ride" on Saturday morning and it was a very enjoyable, although severe, shock to the system. A fast seventy-five total kilometers from my front door north on the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu to a little place called Trancas and back. The weather was lovely and sunny, but cool by the water. Perfect for cycling. I warmed my old bones up riding to Temescal Canyon Road on the beach path, and then as chance would have it a mixed men's and women's group road by. I thought "there's a good way to learn the ropes around here." So I decided to follow along. They had about a one minute lead on me because of the light at Temescal, and so it took me 16 minutes of pretty hard riding to catch them up. By this time I had realized that I was following a far too fast, far too fit group, and I was already tired from the sprint to catch up. This thought was confirmed when I started to chat with one of the dudes at the back of the group who casually dropped the following line "oh yeah, I have been to Spain too, when I road the Vuelta de San Sebastion." This is a notoriously difficult one-day early season professional race on Spain's north coast that features prominently in the book about Lance Armstrong. So I struggled along happily keeping up to these fit folks for the "out" portion of the journey, but they removed all pretentiousness of compatibility on the "back" portion where even the women (especially the women?) showed me the meaning of "I have another gear you only dream of having big boy." But, there were so many road riders out there I had no trouble hooking up with another couple of mid-thirties grey beards like myself for the better part of the return trip. All in all a fabulous introduction to what I am hoping will be a regular event here this year - La Vuelta de Malibu!