The first bike race of 2025 happened in Temecula, California, at Vail Lake. Calvin rode down with his buddies in the Maybird van, and Wyatt and I flew down to see his race.
We flew in to John Wayne airport – just minutes from where Olivia lives. But . . . we did NOT go see her (tempting as it was). We remembered when we were her age and how indignant we would be if our parents intruded on our adventures. So we let her do her work, and instead headed the opposite direction, to Newport Beach, where it was raining too hard to even bother with anything more than a quick photo standing just outside our car.
Then we made the beautiful drive down to Temecula through the winding southern California countryside. It was really lovely (and also rainy on that particular day).
The next morning Calvin had two races – first, a qualifier, and then a short track race (instead of 20 miles or something for a XC race, it was only like 7 miles or something easy). After the qualifier he had the actual race and did great! It was fun to watch a race in a different format. COOL!
The next day Calvin had his regular XC race. He had a really good showing at that, and I was happy to be back in the swing of bike races!
After the race Wyatt and I took of to San Diego for the rest of the afternoon. We just went and did the Midway museum. It was a good time. We thought about getting dinner there too, in the Gaslamp district, but in the end we couldn’t find parking, so we just headed back to Temecula.
The last day Calvin signed up for an amateur race, and had a really strong showing in that race. He was a little nervous because the next weekend he had True Grit – and endurance race in St. George. But I think overall he had fun. The best part about these races was the course. It was crazy with jumps and drops and all sorts of technical stuff. It was so fun!
After his race the van packed up and hit the road, and Wyatt and I drove back up to Newport where we spent a couple hours until it was time to head to the airport to catch our flight home. It was a fun weekend!
