Seg #56 San Luis Obispo Railroad Safety Trail & city streets to Airport; 5_2_15

Start North	RFK Library Cal Poly; SLO, CA	N  35.30303  W 120.66512	S-N mi 4.7
End South	SLO  County AirPort	N 35.23584 W 120.63298	TrlLgth 6 Ride 7.8mi

Ride hr   45min     AVS 13 mph          MXS 25 mph         DST  7.8mi       TMP 62-70        KCal 456

In order for the  latitudes to overlap, I often needed to ride city streets as was the case with San Luis Obispo. Only the

short SLO Railroad Safety Trail was used in this ride.  

After a solid seven hours of sleep and a typical continental motel breakfast, Geoff hauled me to the Cal Poly SOL campus where I started riding from the Robert Kennedy Library on streets and sidewalks. after a couple of miles I hooked up with the Railroad Safety and the Robert Jones trails. Visiting San Luis Obispo was a special event for me given we came close to starting a periodontal practice here after I finished my residency in 1977. At the time San Luis Obispo's population was something like thirty-five thousand and a new periodontist had just started his practice. Given there needs to be a 50:1 (50 K population for one  periodontist), I decided to not establish a practice here. Oh did I mention that Connie cried in happiness because where she preferred to go, Ames, Iowa, won out. The downtown area was still familiar even though it was thirty-nine years ago since I spent any time here. The Madonna Inn remains the place to stay and eat. We didn't have time to check-out the inn because we realized that Geoff had a tire go flat while it hung on the bike carrier. As luck  Ira"s Bike Shop is the place in Arroyo Grande to go when it comes to repair and customer service in the world of bicycles. Ican't tell you how impressed  I was with the owner's speed, accuracy and affordability.. Thank You!  would have it we found IRA's Bike Shop quickly. What a nice fellow this Ira dude. He inspected the tire and showed us dozens of cactus needles sticking through the tire and into the inner tube. In a matter of minutes he had the a new tube and tire on the rim. And, to make it more unbelievable, he charged me only $30 for everything. I hope my praise will bring the shop more business. Thank you so much! I don't know why I felt so creepy with this bridge but I couldn't ride it. With people riding,  running and walking. it wasn't safe trying to ride---especially dodging people. After riding from the RFK Library on the campus of Cal Poly, I found the Railroad Safety Trail. At the junction of George Street is the northern access to the trail. There were many walkers and runners on the trail and the overpass bridge at the Amtrak station. A runner told me I needed to cross this bridge to get on the trail. But after riding and then pushing my bike up and down six levels, I realized I could have stayed on the east side of the bridge and connected with the SLO RR Safety Trail.  I crossed this Amtrak bridge twice but realized I did't need to cross once. Once would have been enough for me.  There was something spooky about this bridge. Perhap it was because there were so many folks using it on an early Saturday morning. Again I pushed my bike up three levels and then down three levels to the bike trail. I had a pretty healthy breakfast and hydrated to the tune of bladder screaming. So after getting to a more isolated part of the trail, I jumped off my bike and dashed for the bushes. As I was blasting what appeared to be an empty beer can, the can moved. It moved more. Crap, "I am peeing on a homeless person", I said to myself. Once I realized my poor aim, I shouted my apologies and got the heck out of there as fast as I could. After I rode down the path a bit, I noticed in my rearview mirror two guys standing in the middle of the trail waving their arms. Sorry guys. Geoff was waiting for me at the San Luis Obispo County airport so no time was lost, in fact we were four to five hours ahead of schedule. Off to Santa Maria we went.