PIE Ride: Escondido - Palomar - Mesa Grande - Santa Ysabel - Highland Valley Loop. This 87.5 mile loop is tough with almost 8,000 feet of climbing, but with plenty of great scenery, especially on Palomar Mountain, Mesa Grande and Old Julian Road, which runs parallel to the 78 and has recently been resurfaced. There are convenience stores located at the green destination points. Valley Center Road along the Harrah's casino is pretty bad asphalt, but it's mostly downhill. The Stage Stop Market is a conveniently placed market, but they are not friendly to cyclists, (apparently because some of us take up their parking spaces when climbing Palomar?)

And here is an alternate Pie Route, which adds a few miles (totaling 90.4 miles), but avoids the narrow section of Lake Wohlford Road (which some folks don't care for), and the nasty, rough, and awful Casino Alley portion of Valley Center Rd., which is pretty rough.

Watch for the camel farm on the right of Old Julian Road.