Story for Ride the Point - Point Loma, CA, 11/12/16

Ride the Point – Bicycle Ride for Pancreatic Cancer

November 12, 2017
Diana and I decided to try a new metric century ride in November.  Because Diana graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University, this ride has been on our radar for a couple of years.  I had never ridden to Cabrillo National Monument or Point Loma so I was very interested to experience that as well.
The ride started at 7:00am from Liberty Station, just west of San Diego Airport.  It was a little chilly to start, mid-50’s, but promised to be a beautiful, clear day.  The ride assured us that we would “Ride the Hidden, Unridden, and Forbidden Point Loma in San Diego, CA. on EXCLUSIVE routes open once a year!”  From Liberty Station, we headed pretty much on a direct route to Point Loma.
One of the selling points, besides the great views, was the “open once a year” element of this ride - getting to ride through Point Loma Sub Base.  For this part of the ride, you had to have registered in advance so your name could be on the list to get past base security guards.  It was very pretty riding through the base on the east side of Point Loma, though we only saw one submarine docked there.
Upon reaching the south end of the base, there was a nice, windy climb up 300 feet in 0.9 miles (6%avg/10%max) to the top of the Point.  There was a great view of the water from up there!  From studying the route, I knew the next fun would be a long descent to the west side down to the tide pools, a U-turn, and then climb right back up!  Nothing like another good, 300 foot (0.7mi) climb to wake up the legs. 
Upon arriving back at the top of the ridge again, the route took us near the lighthouse and to the SAG stop near the Cabrillo Monument.  We had to get a few obligatory photos of the monument and San Diego skyline in the distance, before heading back down and through Point Loma.
The next part of the ride was a very scenic route around Mission Bay before the metric century ride headed inland.  We had a stretch for a couple miles where we didn’t see any other riders and started to think we had made a wrong turn!  The SAG stop at mile 28 had a nice view of Qualcomm Stadium, and shortly after that I was surprised when we made a turn at a light and we passed right in front of the San Diego Mission.
The eastern end of the ride was a nice trip on the Father Junípero Serra Trail through Mission Trails Regional Park.  A good mile-long climb started the trip back west towards Mission Bay and Point Loma.  The return route to Point Loma was the same route as we came out, not very exciting, but really perked up when we came out at Sunset Cliffs in Point Loma.
The mile and a half along the cliffs was beautiful!  THEN the last of the climbing began.  A right turn onto Hill St. brought us immediately onto a steady 16% climb for about 0.1 mi, then continued at 12% for anther quarter mile.  At least that was the last of the climbing for the day.  The route finally circled back down to Liberty Station ,then deposited us at the finish.   A beautiful day for a beautiful ride!  We definitely plan to do it again soon!
61 miles, 2600ft