Lost in La Jolla
Christine dropped me off a little outside of Seaworld. My goal — Ride to our hotel in La Jolla. I had no map, but it seemed like it would be easy since the bike routes were well marked and La Jolla was only about 8 miles north. As long as I kept the ocean on my left I’d be okay.
The ride started out pretty well. I followed a couple of other cyclists out to Pacific Beach, did some people watching on the very crowded beach (first hot day this spring/summer apparently). Just as I was getting sick of the thick crowds near the beach I found a bike route sign pointing to UCSD (near our hotel) and followed it.
I either missed a bike route sign or the sign took me up a road called La Jolla Mesa. I realized that I was lost when I had passed the same intersection at the top of La Jolla Mesa two or three times. It’s really easy to lose sense of direction when surrounded by similar looking very expensive houses on roads with no right angles and fences tall enough to block the views of the ocean.
When I got to this view and could see my hotel hundreds of feet below I decided to check the maps available through my cell phone:
My hotel is down there, near the two white steeples in the upper right of the photo. The roads around me looked like this:
I was outside of Mount Soledad Park, about 800 feet above sea level. Not exactly what I had planned, but it was a fun descent down back into the La Jolla valley before the final climb up to my hotel. When I plotted my route out it looks like I went about 20 miles and climbed 1500′. Lots of great views, some good beach riding, and a fun climb. I was sad to check the maps, but I’d do it all again.
For a year I commuted from Pacific Beach to UCSD, and as I got in better shape, began taking the routes that had me humping over Mt. Soledad instead of going around. Still got lost plenty of times up there–the real fun part comes when you realize that over a dozen streets in La Jolla are named La Jolla this or La Jolla that. It is however worth it; I hit my all time high speed of 53mph tearing down one of those damn La Jolla’’s, with views of downtown SD and the Pacific Ocean alternating at every turn
Yeah, it was a really pretty route once I figured it out. I drove up there with my wife on Saturday night and she was surprised that I was able to find my way out too.
The hills were nice and somehow seemed steeper in a car than they did on my bike.
Downhills would have been more fun with full size wheels. I”m a bit more timid of a descender when I”m on 16″ wheels — you never know if there will be a wheel swallowing pothole.