On Saturday, May 17, 2008, I participated in the San Diego Century 2008. Once again, the event coordinators did a fantastic job of marking the course and providing much-needed SAG support. Of course, the well-marked course didn’t deter me from taking a slight detour that upped my total mileage by a few.

The big news is that I may or may not have been smoked by a group of riders that included Floyd Landis. As I was heading back to Poway from Ramona, a very well-coordinated cluster of cyclists overtook me. I attempted to get on their wheel but only managed to pace them from about 20 yards back for a minute, then was stranded at a stoplight. At the next SAG station I saw one of the guys from the group and he was on his cell phone, saying “hey guess who I just rode with… FLOYD LANDIS!” I really wish that I could have caught that group but I can still take pride in being able to say that I may or may not have been smoked by Floyd.

Road kill report: one severely torn and mangled deer (luckily on the opposite side of the road – and let me tell you that the smell of death certainly preceded it), several snakes and rabbits, and saddest was a small ruddy-brown songbird just lying in the bike lane.

The heat was the biggest competitor on this ride. While the purple monster was a challenging hill, it paled in comparison to the climbs of the Alpine Challenge. But the purple monster had fire in its belly, and there was no cover to be found. I overheard several cyclists at subsequent aid stations commenting that they felt they were near the danger zone, and I know that I held back a lot of effort to keep myself from overheating.

I missed my goal of completing the century in under 6 hours by just under 4 minutes, but I feel pretty good about the close margin.

I do have a gripe to vent about red lights and cylists. I held back in my post about the Alpine Challenge but after what I saw this weekend, I am a little bit upset about cyclists running red lights. In the Alpine Challenge, there was a time where I was in a small group of cyclists on a main road with a traffic signal. There was cross traffic that had tripped the light, but there was a single cyclist who had already crossed the intersection and was stopped, waiting for his buddies who were in my pack. I slowed to stop at the red light, but the guy at the intersection put his hand up to stop the cross traffic, even though they had the green light and the right-of-way. His buddies crossed and the car stopped at the light missed his green light. This really bothered me, since we cyclists had taken over the Alpine area with our event and were causing a huge inconvenience to residents. This is not acceptable in my opinion.

This weekend, there were two close calls caused by cyclists running red lights. At the first, I was stopped with a group of cyclists in the left-turn lane, waiting for the light to turn green. One of the cyclists got antsy and decided to push ahead before the light turned green and almost got t-boned by two cyclists coming through the intersection. They had the right-of-way but almost met with disaster because of this guy’s bad judgment. The second close call was when I was stopped at a red light with another cyclist who also got antsy and pushed off before the green light. There was a straggling car in the oncoming lane, making a left in front of us, who had to brake hard to miss the cyclist.

I am a big supporter of cyclists’ rights on the road. But when cyclists refuse to adhere to basic traffic laws, they give up any hope of having equal rights with motor vehicles on the road. And guys, if you’re going to run lights, you’ve got to have a head on your shoulders. What I saw this weekend was just plain stupid.

Ok, enough of my ranting. The stats. They are coming.