Rosarito to Ensenada 50-mile bike ride

April 19, 2008

After almost three years of development, we were eagerly anticipating the Rosarito to Ensenada ride to make our first public distance test for the elliptiGO. Although Bryan had put in about 700 miles of testing rides over the course of the previous three months, the furthest he had gone at any one time was 35 miles. In addition, everyone we talked to who had done the ride mentioned the two notorious, never-ending hills on the course.

We picked the Rosartio to Ensenada ride to debut the bike because we liked the distance, we liked the hills, and we liked the fact that there were supposed to be 7,500 - 10,000 people there. We have to admit that we were a little nervous about it being in Mexico given the recent spate of violence down there and we also had some concerns about the road conditions. However, our fears proved unfounded and everything went great.

Our film and support crew, consisting of Livy, Pat, Doug, Nikki, Nellie, Bill and Chris, did an incredible job of getting us down and back and capturing the event in videos and photos. Since Bryan had neglected to put a memory card in the video camera before we started, the support crew provided emergency support to the film crew for a daring mid-course handoff of an SD card.

We finished the race in 3 hours and 16 minutes of ride time for an average speed of 15 miles per hour. Our total time was 4 hours and 3 minutes because it took us about 15 minutes to cross the start line and another 30 minutes to reconnect at an aid station after we got separated on the first big hill. That was our only stop of the ride. We are looking for another event to enter the elliptiGO in. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Here is a short video of the ride