Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

Photos by 🌊

This Monday Morning Coffee is coming to you from the Pacific Time in Ocean Beach, California. “OB” is a beach town next to San Diego and we love it here. If you’ve ever been to the coast of Southern California, you know what it’s like. Most places are completely white-washed and without flavour. It’s little pockets of beach life like OB and Venice Beach up near Los Angeles that keep the old school flavour of smaller surf towns alive, and we love both of them for that.

There’s a dog beach and the surfing has been pretty solid since we’ve been here. Actually, my shoulders and elbows are so torched from years of abuse that I haven’t bothered to get in the water yet. I tried surfing back home in Ontario this fall (yes, it actually gets good on windy days) and one paddle stroke told me it wasn’t going to work.

Anyway, Emily and Maggie the Morkie are along on this trip with me but will fly home on Thursday morning, so we’re making the most of this trip and acting like complete tourists.

We went for a nice 60K cycle from OB down through Chula Vista and around the Strand to Coronado and then took the ferry back to Broadway Pier downtown and then finished the ride back to the beach. It was a great ride and we met up with an actual Chula Vista local who told us stories of cycling in the area for about 30 minutes of our ride until we went our separate ways. It was great.

I did have a little episode with a local resident who lives across the alley in the back of the house. See if you’re on my side or not here:

As you can imagine, parking is at a premium here just 4 houses from the beach, but we do have a small shared driveway with the neighbour to our west.

The guy across the alley has a garage but it’s full of junk so he parks parallel to the garage door in front of it making it pretty tight to maneuver our vehicles out of our spot and into the alley. No biggie, it just takes some Austin Powers-like jockeying.

So, Emily and I are backing out and I notice he’s outside and in his car. I start backing out and see that he’s backing his vehicle up and it’s going to make it much easier for me to get out. Very nice, I thought.

Nope, he actually backs his car up to where I’d swing the back end of the van up and makes it nearly impossible for me to get out! What?!

Now, being a Canadian, I’ve found that the only thing that makes me angry is when I see an act of inconsideration. That really pisses me off. So, seeing this, I give my horn a honk as if to say, “Really?“

I back up and can now only move a couple feet before I have to start making my 30-adjustments move. Well, the guy gets mad and asks why I honked at him.

I roll Em’s window down to talk to him and say, “Well, it looked like you were going to do the nice thing and move back and out of the way so I could get out, and then you stop and make it even more impossible for us!“

He just says, “Well, you figured it out!” I reply, “Well, you obviously didn’t!” He says, “You did!” I say, “You didn’t” Yes, it went like a classic Canadian hockey fight for a few seconds.

Then he says, “How about you treat people who actually live here with respect instead of honking at them?!” I say, “I 100% agree with that but that was just a dick move you did there. Why didn’t you just let me out?”

He said something about being sick of all the visitors that keep coming and going from this place. At that point I just headed out, said “Have a nice day” and headed to the races.

Of course, it kept our blood pressure at a near boil for a while on our drive to Petco Park for the Supercross (especially Emily’s. She hates things like that).

We got home late and didn’t see him. We didn’t see him until Sunday morning when we came back from coffee so I went across the alley to talk with him.

I apologized for honking obnoxiously at him and explained to him how inconsideration is the only way to piss off most Canadians. He said he appreciated the apology but never gave me one back. Meh, whatever, I felt better for making the first move.

That’s my little story about brief road rage I thought I’d share. I just couldn’t understand how anyone wouldn’t back up and out of the way if the timing was like it was that morning. Being Canadian, I probably go too far the other way in thinking about other people but I’m all good with that approach to life.

Oh, how were the races, you ask? Great question.

Here’s what I said on Instagram:

@partzilla @teamprmx rider @b.ray_388 was pretty happy to make his first-ever Main in San Diego.

Brandon just may be the most always-pumped, enthusiastic people you’ll ever meet. Walk up and say hello to him at A2 this week and you’ll see what I mean.

He finished 19th in the 250 Main.

📸🌊

It’s true. Let’s see how many people go up and talk to him this week in Anaheim.

I’m seeing a very happy Cole Thompson this season at Supercross and it’s great. He’s been really open to my constant intrusions throughout his day and he’s been giving us in depth interviews whenever I ask for them.

Here’s how he summed up his attitude: “Couldn’t be happier, making memories & having fun.” It all culminated in his first top 10 finish of the season.

The pits here in San Diego are a long walk from the stadium, so it makes going back and forth a little more of a commitment than it is at all the other stops on the tour. What I’m saying is that I didn’t get back to the pits to talk with Cole as often as I normally would during the day.

I did make the trip once during the day and found a few Canadians in Cole’s pit wishing him well.

Here’s a look at Cole’s day:

Qualified: 14th

Heat 1: 9th

Main: 9th

Here’s his Main event and our post-race interview videos:

We’d also like to wish our buddy #208 Logan Leitzel all the best as he gets to the bottom of his ongoing head banging issues, and not the rock and roll kind.

A few photos of #21 Jason Anderson in the Main:

The Vince Friese/Christian Craig photos:

I didn’t see or capture any of the stuff that went on between them in their heat race.