Ride #??? I Lost Count!

Saturday, August 15,2009 – Really? Are we in mid August already? YIKES! This marked our longest training ride before our century on September 19! 75 miles! Yep, that’s 75 miles in the heat, all in one day! No, this is not Palm Springs where the miles stretch on and on in endless flat succession. NO SIR! This is serious training for the torture that is our Moab Century in Utah! Today we climb!

Our group now consists of my Coach and me. His Angels are now at all different levels and fluttering with different people. I get the best though. J He is 72 and challenging me to keep up!

Today’s ride is one that I have heard whispers about since the beginning of our training. Old La Honda Odyssey. I don’t think my ‘old Honda’ could have done this one! We started out at Foothill College and went 17 miles up into the hills, past a reservoir and down to the end of Steven’s Canyon and back to our first SAG stop. The amazing thing here is that it wasn’t but a few weeks ago that I would have died on this little 17 mile stretch! There is some decent climbing here. Nothing really major but it gets your attention. A few weeks ago I would have said “I’m done now, thank you!” Now though, I was just warmed up! I took a quick SAG stop and enjoyed yummy goodies, topped off the water and was ready to go! Mind you, I have been talking to my coach about how these long rides are taking me longer than others. There are various factors from my bike to the length of time we stop and chat at the various SAG stops. My mission today? Quick stops! So, I fly through the first SAG and am ready to go. Coach though is starting up some good conversations with various people he hasn’t seen in a while. This is just really good fodder for me for the next 50 miles! I now have razzing material! YAY!!! “So Coach, you ready to roll???” :p Oh, that felt good! (You should have seen the look I got! lol) I finally got him back on his bike and off we went.

We went back past Foothill College again and up into a different set of hills at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Here we go shifting up, then down, then up, then down. 11 miles of this and my notes say to “Bear Right onto Altamont Road (HINT: small chain ring) Now, when you see that on your directions there are a few thoughts that go through your mind. One is: how nice that they let you know what’s coming. That thought is followed by: Coaches don’t usually do that unless you REALLY need to know what’s coming. The following thought just can’t be expressed in words that I would want my mother or children to read! The road in front of us suddenly looked much more like a wall. My bike has been giving me fits and doing this automatic shifting thing and also deciding that for what ever reason it now doesn’t need to go into my small chain ring! It likes working hard and doesn’t really feel the need – no matter how much I beg! I have been meaning to take it into the shop but that requires actually being in town. So here I am thinking happy thoughts as I make circles in the road trying to get my bike to shift so that I can go up this crazy wall they call a road. Finally it clicks and off we go! As we started up my coach said to aim for a nice gated driveway on the right. If we could make that we could rest and have an easier time of getting going again. When you stop on a hill that is more wall like than hill like it can be a real challenge getting your bike moving again in the right direction with you in the saddle! We reached the driveway and I re-learned how to breathe. Then he pointed to the next driveway on the other side of the street. It was up the road about maybe 200 feet. “Now, if you need to stop there you can.” He tells me. It has a nice steep driveway that we can walk our bike up and then get momentum enough to carry us up and over the top of the hill. I LIKE THAT! So, I manage to drag my sorry behind onto the bike and over to the driveway. From there, I learn to breathe again and then slingshot my way to what I thought was the top. OOPS! Not really the top. Somehow we manage to make it though and then get rewarded with a fun down hill. We went down Page Mill Road watching for sharp turns, cars and other cyclists. There was one person on her bike going up Page Mill and I don’t know if she was drunk, suicidal or just amazingly oblivious! She was cutting across traffic, in front of a car then down the middle of the road and was starting to veer toward me! YIKES! I tucked and zipped past before she could crash into me.

I made it down with out incident and then headed out through Portola Valley and onto Old La Honda. Here we are again with the directions mentioning downshifting! NOT GOOD! I start to circle to get my bike to shift and…no. Not gunna happen. So I get off of my bike, shift and spin the peddle – no resistance so it should shift….right? uh – no! Didn’t want to, wasn’t going to, no way, no how! Seriously? I have to do this climb in my middle chain ring with a 40 lb bike? Maybe if my bike weighed 15 lbs, I could do it, but REALLY? Thankfully one of our honorees came along – Mike. He has Leukemia that is currently in remission. He was really sick for a long time and is working now on getting his strength back. Even sick, he is a stronger cyclist than I am! He also happens to work as a bike repairman so he pulled out his little tool, made some adjustments and YIPPEE! I was in business! I guess that means that we get to climb! Old La Honda is a 3 mile climb. Yes, the entire 3 miles is going up and a pretty good pitch. It doesn’t ever level off. It just keeps going! At what I assume is mile 2 there is a road called Upenuff Cr. I LOVE THAT! And since it is a circle you get to see the sign again! When you get to the second Upenuff you know you are almost to the top! The entire climb took us an hour. Oy! Our fastest rider, who is also on the Iron Man team did it in 27 min. So I guess that an hour for me on a big heavy bike isn’t so bad. (I keep telling myself that).

That was the end of our big climbs. There was a wonderful SAG stop at the top. They brought me an ice cold Coke. I didn’t realize it but my blood sugar had dropped and I was getting really shaky. Wonder why??? Cookies, coke, water, chips, sandwiches…it was all SO good!

Next came the reward – the down hill! This was fun. The first part was pretty straight so I got some pretty good speed going. Then we headed down HWY 84. Here my coach said he would see me at the bottom! He LOVES the down hill and wanted to go! I was on my own cruising down 84 through the redwoods at probably 35mph or so. SO pretty! There was oncoming traffic, but not much going my way. 84 is a two lane road. It reminds me a lot of HWY 152 in Gilroy going over to Watsonville. It is all redwoods and ferns, like something out of a story book. So pretty. As I was flying down the road thinking this I remembered too that a couple of cyclists were hit on 152 several years ago. They were killed instantly. Now I was the one on the bike. A little nudge of fear was planted. I prayed “Lord, please get me and my coach off of this mountain safely”. No sooner had I said the words than a large pickup truck zoomed up behind me and squeezed between me and oncoming traffic! Mind you that at this point there is no shoulder. The side of the road is about 2 feet of soft dirt and leaves and that gives way to a drop into a ravine. I am having to ride on the ‘business’ side of the white line. This is a narrow road with NO extra space. This truck somehow managed to fit between me and the cars going the other way. He didn’t even slow down! YIKES! I let out a yell but managed to keep my zooming bike under control and stay on the road. God is good! It isn’t every day that you pray and have your prayer answered within a fraction of a second! Later that afternoon I was telling my friend Naomi about it and she asked what time that happened. I told her and she said that I had come to her mind at that time and she had prayed for safety! Wow!

Comparatively speaking the rest of the ride was relatively uneventful. We went through Woodland, down Canada Rd along the reservoir up to HWY 92 and back. We had another SAG stop at mile 63. Here they had Dibbs ice cream. OHHH…Heaven! This was wonderful. They also gave me another ice cold coke. SO good. The only problem was that once I started riding again I realized that I had a float going on min my stomach and that wasn’t so good! Lesson learned. The sugar and caffeine though got me through the next 10 miles and back to the car. 75 miles and 9 hours later!

It felt SO good to set a new personal best of 75 miles. I wish I was faster, but it isn’t a race. I did something I never would have thought possible. I am starting to think that maybe in a few weeks I really WILL be ready for Moab. All I can say is that by the time I got back to my car I was glad we didn’t still have 25 miles to go!