I met with Karen and Mike (crazy fixie man).  I still had to check in so they went on ahead.

There wasn’t much of a warmup on this ride.  Mt. Charlie was the first climb, coming in after only a few miles in.  The weather, for the time being was cool, and fog was omnipresent.  We’ll see how long before the sun comes out.

Mt. Charlie is a stair step type of climb, where you do get some relief, then climbs again.  Because of the fog, there were some damp stretches, but nothing really hazardous.

After Mt. Charlie, we turn left onto Riva Ridge with grade up to 21%.  What a way to start a ride.  Near the top of this climb, I met up with Karen and Mike briefly, until I climbed on ahead.  We would be climbing at our own rate for the first half of the ride.

The next significant climb is Bear Creek then Skyline.  This also happens to be when everyone decides to pass me on the hills.  Then, out of the blue, my friend Jim, from Stockton, says hi, and we proceed to speed on into the 2nd rest stop at Saratoga Gap (Hwy 9 and Skyline).  Just as we are ready to leave, I see Mike and Karen.  So it looks like we’re going to be on a schedule where I’m ready to leave just as Mike and Karen roll in.

I went on with Jim and proceed to hammer down Hwy 9 to Big Basin Park.  I forgot how fast Jim is.  I could descend fast enough to keep up, but somehow I ended up in front of him.  There weren’t any really significant climbs on this stretch … just some annoying rollies.  I decided to roll into the next rest stop to wait for anyone to show up.  I spent a bit of time there but I wanted to move on, and prevent my legs from freezing up, and also anxious to do Jamison Creek … yeah, right.

I reached the timing table, letting them know I really don’t expect to put on some killer time, but they timed me anyways.  What the heck …  ready set, go.

I kinda wonder, with this being 40 miles into a 100 mile ride, with at least 4000 feet climbing already in, how hard do they expect everyone to push it?  We still have 6000 more feet of climbing to do.

I don’t know what the official time was, but according to Strava, I got in 32 minutes.  Not bad.  I did pass a couple of people, as well as getting passed by several.

While waiting at the top, I met my friend Laura, from Western Wheelers.  She is one strong woman, but even she told me she wasn’t turning herself inside out for this.  We still have 6000 feet climbing left to go, and there’s still Zayante.

I rode into lunch with Laura and the group she was riding with.  Lunch is only 3 miles on Empire Grade … cool.

At the mid-way point, I’m not feeling too bad.  I kept hearing horror stories about Jamison Creek, and all in all, my feeling is … not bad.  It ranks up with the rest of the difficult climbs I’ve subjected my body to.

Just as I’m ready to leave the lunch stop, guess who I see rolling in … Mike and Karen.  They mention they may be opting for the metric instead of the century, but we’ll see.

We roll on, and meander through parts of Bonny Doon … we turn off from Pine Flat onto Bonny Doon, but it’s very easy to miss that … in fact, I missed it, and had to make a U-turn, just 100 feet past.  As soon as I get back on the route, I hear at least 5 or 6 others wizz on past it.  They did say it was easy to miss … they weren’t kidding about that.

We wind our way through Felton, then a left onto Zayante, and this is where the fatigue sets in.  Zayante is a long long climb … it is unrelenting, and it seems to go on forever.  This is one of those roads where you expect to be riding this solo, and you start to wonder if you are on the right road … then suddenly, you see the water stop, and there are other people there too.  About a mile after the water stop, I see Mike and Karen again.  Woohoo!!!  We are reunited again.

Zayante is a beast.  It lulls you to thinking that we just have a few rollies, then it kicks us in the ass with some 15% climbs, and we cannot wait till we get to the end … but where is the end?  This is almost like Mines Road, except with 15% climbs.  This sure tests your will.

Finally, we turn onto Summit Road, then onto the next rest stop.  This will be the last rest stop, aside from the water stop, 9 miles from the end.

There’s a lot of long descents in the last 20 miles of this, which makes it interesting for Mike, since he is riding this on a fixie … again, when is that guy going to get a normal bike???  Anyhow, we proceed onto Soquel-San Jose Road … wow, this has a long fast descent.  It’s a long way to get back to the start, but it’s a fun descent.  Only one problem … this is a fairly heavily traffic’d road, so we always have to be mindful of staying as far to the right as possible.  We are warned of a large pothole … actually it’s a ditch.  Now I mention this, because with the fast descent, we are going in excess of 35-45 mph … before I could alert myself to avoid it, I’m going right into it, and the only thought I have on my mind is to hold on tight.

Whew, survived that.  However, I do see some others off the side of the road, tending to flats.  They were not so lucky.  Mike and Karen made it through fine too, and on way go to Laurel Road to the home stretch.  Suddenly, I hear a familiar voice … well it’s Marco and Ruth.  Woohoo!  This is one hell of a ride, meeting up with so many friends.

The last 9 miles was not without hills.  One thing’s for sure on this ride … there are no junk miles.  One terrific sight to see was the Scotts Valley city limit sign, but I’m not rejoicing until I get to the finish.  I finally roll in, just before 5 pm, and luckily, they still have food at the end.

Totals:  101 miles, 10,802 feet of climbing.  This was one hell of a ride … a ride that yes, is 10,802 feet of climbing, but the climbs were intense, and no junk miles at all.

We had a terrific turn out.  Steve had never done Baldy (shocking).  We had two fixies doing the cling (that’s insane) and Karen has her sights set on the ski lifts (I actually would have if I didntehave my sights set on doing Crystal Lake).

Everyone was in great spirits in the morning … that’s before the miles, the climb, and the heat settled in.  Karen was leading a good pace up the hill, so I hung im with everyone at the front.  The rollies up to East Fork is always nice.

First water stop was Camp Williams, right before East Fork turns into GMR.  We then hit the real climbs.

While I had the chance to, I just had to film myself passing up the same guys who would be leaving me in the dust.  I just love Teresa’s tiger roar … it’s almost as good as the devil jumping up and down, or antler man running up the hill.

Group shot at Mt. Baldy Village

I was able to ride along with Vic and Steve for a while, up until the last 1-2 miles on GRR.  We eventually all regrouped at Mt. Baldy Village.  Some went on to climb the ski lift, others went down GMR back to the cars, and others “attempted” to backtrack to Camp Williams, and continue to Crystal Lake.

Now I did have a brain fart here.  I went to the bathroom, and we were ready to leave, but I couldn’t feel my glasses on my face.  So I figured I must have left it at the bathroom.  Luckily, someone noticed they were hanging off the neck of my jersey.  D’oh.

Ok, onto Crystal Lake, and back up the hill we just descended down.  We had a rousing descent here, which is nice to have, just before the big climb.

The descent down GMR to East Fork was fast and furious, and Teresa was descending like Thomas Voeckler.  By the time we got to Camp Williams, all the campers were out in force, and it was pretty darn busy.  Everyone refilled water, loaded up on ice, and in the meantime, Vic and I had our own sandwiches (and of course, and abundance of fries).  It was around 1 pm before we left Camp Williams, ready for the journey that lies ahead.

Hang a right on Hwy 39, and on we go.  I didn’t really get too bad until after we passed West Fork (and it was crowded there too … lot of people hiking from West Fork).  About 5 miles up, the heat was really getting to me.  I’m all the way in my granny, and I’m only sustaining a 3 mph speed, which is not good.  I looked at my Garmin and it was registering 107 F … damn, that’s hot.

Not only was it hot out here, it was completely exposed, and very little shade at all.  I got to about 7000 feet of total climbing, before I had to call it a day.  I was running low on water, and I had to muster up any strength I had to flag down Ken, letting him know I’m done.  So I made it just to the bridge, then headed back down.  It’s too bad, because I really wanted to make it to Crystal Lake.

Totals on the day .. 74.6 miles, 7560 feet climbing.  Gotta get more heat training in, but this was a good trainer for Knoxville.  Good thing I’ve still got 1.5 more months to train for that.

http://app.strava.com/rides/996264#

Actually, the inspiration for filming suffer videos is bikeforums member freighttraininguphill. I saw a few of her suffer festival uphill videos, and that got me thinking of filming my uphill adventures.

I got a lot of great feedback on my Potrero climb, from the Grand Tour Double.

I decided to climb Redwood Gulch, which had similar grades to Potrero … In other words, double digit grades (from 12-20% grades). I took this video with the handlebar mount, which picked up a lot of road noise … Kind of annoying.

Another steep climb is Moody, and I decided to film this with the helmet mount instead. This is a short but steep climb, and perfectly suited for a suffer video … And you can hear that suffrage too.

I went searching for a mother steep climb, and then I hear people talking about China Grade, so I looked this up …. Hmmm 10% grades for a little over a mile … Ok, I’ll go for that. As you can tell, this was on the handlebar mount.

I’m still undecided on which is the best way to film these. On the one hand, helmet cam won’t pick up all the annoying road noise, but on the other hand, I would have to concentrate on keeping my head up. On steep climbs, you tend to look down on the ground, so that’s where the handlebar mount would be handy.

Ken and I started out a little earlier than everyone else (just because of my inane fear of being “slower” than others … I joke about this, but I genuinely believe I’m a slow doubles rider).  It turns out we only started a few minutes before everyone else, and we traded leads before we got passed up by guess who … Steve.  Woohoo, the party on wheels has started, and the train is rolling.  By the time we rolled through Pt. Mugu, our group grew to 7.

I’ve done this ride twice before, so I know what to expect. There are three major climbing sections of the ride … Potrero, Dennison Grade, and Lake Casitas climbs.

Potrero is definitely the steepest, but for some reason, it’s my favorite of the three major climbs (okay, some people will wonder about my sanity at this point).  The steep climbs on Potrero is similar to Redwood Gulch, my local hill (half hour away), so I’m kinda used to this type of climb.  I felt pretty good and charged up.  The fact that the sun wasn’t out, and it was pretty foggy, gave me some extra mojo in the legs.

After a short regroup at rest stop 2, our group grew in numbers to about 10.  Along the way, we picked up Steve’s cousin, who rode with us for about 10 miles.  This is just awesome.

At the third rest stop, there was a big celebration for Steve’s 100th double.  John Long was working this rest top, and who was the main instigator.  He made a sign, and I could tell Steve was touched by it.  Sorry for the blurry picture (I had my friggin’ camera set to macro mode).

Ok, onwards we go, with the next climb  up Grimes Canyon.  At this point, the battery on my helmet cam gave him … damn, and we were about to descend Grimes, which has an awesome view (plus a pretty nice descent).

Along the route, Steve and Vince’s folks came along the route to greet us many times.  This is great.  What’s better is Steve’s daughters joined us for portions of the ride … now how cool is that?

This gave me a quick opportunity to change the battery on my helmet cam … this was a nice break before we head towards the next climb, Dennison Grade.

Dennison grade is not very steep, but is gradual, and it just seems to continue on forever.  As usual, climbing Dennison, the sun is out.  Now this is at approximately 100 miles in, so maybe that has a part of my difficulties on this climb.

As with every climb, there is a descent … and the descent from Dennison Park heading to lunch towards Ojai was nice.  It had nice smooth pavement, and the switchbacks weren’t too sharp, so perfect conditions for brisk descent.

With the combination of this nice descent, and the lunch stop, it gave me enough of a rest stop recover enough to attack the next climb, down to Lake Casitas, then up and over to Rincon.  I like this part of the ride (perhaps because I know it’s the last major climb of the day?).

By the time we got to Rincon, I couldn’t help but feel really good about the ride.  We were making really good time, and it was around 3 pm at this time.  I started to think that I’ll actually be able to finish this ride in daylight!  Let’s see, 5 hours to go 60 miles … yea, that seems very doable.

After Rincon, we get into a paceline hugging the coastline.  Not a bad way to travel, riding along PCH, with sunny blue skies on a fairly cool summer afternoon.  And they wonder why I ride this?  This is a stark contrast to the June gloom foggy conditions we had earlier, about 10 hours ago.

After a while though, I start losing touch with the pack, and I think the pace and the distance was starting to catch up with me.  Luckily, the last rest stop is ahead.

We leave the last rest stop, at around 5:15 pm, so plenty of time to finish the ride in daylight.  In the past, I wouldn’t leave this rest stop till almost sunset, so I’m feeling really happy about this.

We have about 38 miles to go, and things were going really well … until we see Steve and Vince with a flat.  Damn, and we were doing so good here.

We did pretty good though … only 2 flats for the whole group, which hovered between 7-12 riders in the group.

Big congratulations to Steve for completing his 100th double.  That’s quite an accomplishment.  By comparison, this was only my 11th.  Oh, and if you listen very carefully to the video, the speedbump hit the rear derailleur on the tandem.  That’s what the whoa and subsequent laughter was.  As my friend Vic says, “good to finish it off with a bang” … literally.

We rolled into the finish around 7:47 PM, 196 miles, 8602 feet of climbing, with a total elapsed time of 14:53:31. We still had plenty of daylight left in the day. For once, I was able to enjoy the BBQ meal at the end of the ride. That’s a first for me … I’ll make a bold statement here, saying this is the most enjoyable double century I have ever participated in … at least up to this point.

Now I am training for Grand Tour, while Richard is training for the Death Ride.  More power to ya buddy.  Brentley also joined us for this fun excursion up the mountain.

Weather was reporting heavy fog along the coast, and Brentley even saw heavy fog in Oakland … but not here.  Still, I carried my windbreaker in my pocket, just in case.

I met them up at the school, and I rode over, through beautiful downtown San Jose.  It’s not as bad as you think, but it definitely is not pretty.  It’s just the most direct route I could find, and most importantly, flat!  There were some stiff headwinds over, but once I got to the east side, it wasn’t so bad.

On our climb, Richard darts way up front, and his pace is definitely higher than mine.  Brentley and I were at a comparable pace, so we got in a comfortable rhythm.  The day was absolutely gorgeous.  Blue skies, and not even a hint of fog.  It wasn’t too hot, so that made the ride even more pleasant.

Brentley and I stayed together till about 4 miles from the top.  I slowly inched away ahead, but as is always the case, my climbing definitely slowed down 2 miles from the top.  The climb itself is not bad (average from 5-7% in most spots), but doing this for 19 miles straight, it does take its toll on you.  Eventually, Brentley passed me, just before reaching the top.  I made it up in 2:10 … not my best, but then again, I wasn’t shooting for any personal records.

Brentley went back down, while Richard and I continued down the backside, down to the creek bridge.  We then climbed up, 5.5 miles back up to the top.  This is definitely a lot tougher climb (although it is with after 4000 feet of climbing).  If having 10-12% climbs for 5.5 miles isn’t bad enough, the sun was shining, and there is absolutely no shade to protect you against.  Oh yes, there are plenty of trees, but no shadow to duck under.  Not sure what it was about today, but I just could not generate any power, and could not turn the crank.  I ended up stopping at least 5 times on the backside climb.  The other thing is, I didn’t fill my perpetuem bottle (only filled up my water bottle).  I’m not going to make that as an excuse, but it’s just food for thought.

There some cyclists descending the backside (presumably to Livermore or Mines Road), but not too many.  I didn’t see anyone pass me.  Not only was it a hard climb, it was lonely … no one out there at all, with the exception for a few motorcycles and a few cars.

My favorite scene when doing the backside is coming up along the big 120-inch telescope.  I never get tired of taking this picture.

I finally get back up to the top.  I made it in 1:13, with about 10 minutes of rest stop.  Even if I didn’t have those rests, it still wouldn’t have been near my PB.

Richard was there waiting, and I just told him to go back down … I went ahead and climbed back up to the visitor’s center, for a much needed coke, and air conditioned room.

One last shot of the valley, and it’s down the hill.  Glorious day for a ride.  Now hopefully this will prepare me for Grand Tour.  Only time will tell.

So time to go shopping for wheels, from one bike shop to the next.  After tweeting for several days, I narrowed my search to two wheels … Williams 19s and Easton EA90SLX.  Most of the other wheels were running in excess of $1000, but I heard very good things about Williams 19s and Easton EA90SLX … most importantly, they were half the price.

Now my previous wheels were Easton Circuit, and they lasted < 2 years, and roughly 11,000 miles.  I kinda wish they lasted a little longer, but considering I’ve done 6 doubles, numerous centuries, and other training rides, that wear and tear may have caught up to the wheels, but still, it seems quick.  So this was the hesitancy to go with Easton, so I went with Williams.  Plus, I heard such great responses regarding Williams, and their attention to Customer Service.  Being in Customer Service, this caught my eye.

So I placed the order Thursday morning online, and a couple hours later, I receive an email that it has been shipped.  Wow, that’s fast … UPS tracking shows it will be delivered on Friday at of day.  I even selected UPS Ground shipping, and it still got here next day.  Good thing I didn’t specify next day.

And talk about customer service … they include a free t-shirt, 2 water bottles, and throw in a set of brake pads too.  Cool … oh, and they only deal online, so they cut out the middleman, saving on some cost.  Nice!

So here they are installed.  I haven’t taken it out for a spin … I’ll do that on the Terrible Two training ride … good way to test it out, with some climbing and descending.

Now I’ve been told others have an every day set of wheels, and a “special occasion” set of wheels.  I’ve never done this … maybe I should?  I’m not sure of that … I guess I could still use my rear Easton, and I still have another front wheel, Mavic Ksyrium, that I had when I originally bought my Seven.  I guess I’d have to get a new cluster for the backup wheel.  We’ll see.

Over the weekend, they were anticipating 1-2 inches of rain, in California, in June!  I mean summer is supposed to officially start at the end of the month, and we are talking rain like it’s January.  It was pouring heavy Saturday morning, and hopefully it will just dump all morning and clear by the afternoon … and that’s exactly what it did.  Whew!  But just to give you an idea, San Jose, which normally doesn’t see a lot of rain, got 0.78 inches on Saturday alone.

Saturday, I went out to buy a small light rain jacket (had to shop 4 different places till I found it).  Then, I put on fenders on the bike.  I also planned to ride with my fleece long sleeve Cervelo jersey, so I went ahead and pinned the bib number on that, and planned to wear weatherproof boot covers on my shoe.

When Sunday came around, there was no threat of rain, so I ditched the long sleeve jersey, and went instead with short sleeve, and arm warmers … removed the bib number from the long sleeve, and re-attach to my short sleeve … that’s quite an ordeal at 4:30 am.  I didn’t go with boot covers, and went with just toe warmers, and I didn’t bring the rain jacket that I shopped around all day Saturday for … and just used my normal jacket that I have been using for couple of years.  I also ended up removing the fenders.  So much for preparation, huh?

I got to the start at 6 am, but couldn’t find my other riding buddies, so I decided to just go on the ride.  I did receive a tweet from Ramon saying he is running late, but I couldn’t find Richard.  Oh well, maybe I’ll see them on the route.

I rode out at moderate pace, keeping my heart rate at 130-140 bpm.  Get to Redwood Gulch, and I felt good … but little did I know that I completed this in my fastest time ever.  I posted a personal best of 14:39, about 1:16 faster than my previous best.  How did that happen?

A right up on Hwy 9 to Saratoga Gap, and the sun does make one of few appearances through the rest of the day.  We have a rest stop at the firestation on Skyline.  That’s only 18 miles into the ride.  Well, I guess considering we have done Redwood Gulch and have about 2700 feet of climbing in already, that’s a pretty good clip.  I waited some more for my friends, but to no avail.  Time to move on.

This is not the high point of the climb, as we go southbound on Skyline, we climb just a wee bit more to the highest peak, a little past Castle Rock, at 3100 feet.

We get a really nice descent before passing Black Road, and into the christmas tree farm area.  This is nice, because that’s where the two line highway ends, and you feel like you are in the rural forests.  The descent here can be tricky, with sharp turns … and oh, by the way, a few more short climbs.

A right on Bear Creek Road, and after a little climbing, we get a nice fast descent before coming into Boulder Creek.  Now this would be ideal to get into a paceline to charge onto Hwy 9 again, either everyone was too fast for me, or they were too slow.  Oh well, I guess I’m time trialing this.

The climb on Hwy 9 is slow and lonely, but the grade is not too bad.  It averaged about 5-6%, so not too bad, but just long.  Then, we get to the top of Skyline, then make a left turn, back on the same route we were on before the first rest stop.  The rest stops were in abundance, and I didn’t feel the need to stop at this one, so I went on ahead.

We have a fast descent down Alpine en route to La Honda, where lunch is.  Now I’m considered a slow descender … but today, others treated me like I was a bomber on the descent.  But maybe it’s because this is my backyard, and others may not be used to the terrain.

I caught up with Ramon at lunch.  I wasn’t feeling up to the full double metric, so I decided to just go on the 100 miler, and head up Tunitas.  Once we got to Hwy 1, I noticed a lot of cyclists heading the opposite direction … they were the Aids riders … Oh, I forgot .. they start the same day Sequoia is put on.  Very colorful, and very flamboyant outfits they have.  I wish them luck … some of them didn’t look too good, and this was only their first day.

I really did try to go as hard as I could up Tunitas (but how hard can you really, at mile 81, and 8000+ feet of climbing).  It does help having done this climb so many times, but it still took me 1:12:00 from Hwy 1 to Skyline via Tunitas Creek.  Tough 9.4 mile, 2047 foot climb.

Totals … 102 miles, and 9375 feet of climbing, with a total time of 8:53:02.

South Bay Meetup Group at Cupertino Bike Shop

The group is actually pretty quick and brisk.  They climb about the same level as me (I’m not trailing behind everyone), so I think I’ll be doing more of these.

Aron, the ride leader, threw in some hill sprints, but I’m not able to keep up on those quick sprints.  We went up Mt. Eden, then Pierce, and went back and climbed Toll Road.  Oooh .. nice!

Toll Road climb

And here’s my lame Alberto Contador impersonation.

Then after we did this, we climbed the rest of Pierce a second time.  I like this loop … maybe I’ll do repeats of this when I have limited time to ride.  We then continued on Hwy 9, and climbed up till we got to Redwood Gulch, then down for the steep descent.  All in all, a nice midweek after work ride.

Registration was right across from the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.  We got to see some pretty cool antique bikes.

I rode with Curtis and Dan, at 4 am.  Wow, that’s early, but I figure by starting this early, I’ll try to finish this before darkness settles in.  We all tried to make sure we conserved ourselves in the beginning.  The first 40 miles are really flat.  In the past, I made the bad mistake of joining a pack, and hammered to keep of with the pack at speeds in excess of 25 mph.  This time, we made sure we maintained an average of 18-20 mph, so that we don’t burn ourselves out.

First hill was up to Monticello Dam, at Lake Berryessa.  The sun was clearly out by this time, and it really felt good.  Soon after reaching the dam,  we found out Curtis had a broken spoke.  Uh oh .. well he adjusted the spoke a bit, just enough so it wouldn’t be rubbing against the brake pads.  Looks like he’ll be riding the next 170 miles with a wobbly wheel.

We would be treated with a series of climbs and descents, up till we get to the big climb of the day, Cobb Mountain, which was at around the 100 mile mark.

It’s pretty odd, I kept hear from other cyclists how much they feared Resurrection Hill.   but in my mind, Cobb Mountain is the one to fear.  I guess maybe the reason why they feared Resurrection is that it starts after lunch, and around the 130 mile mark, but it doesn’t climb as high.

Cobb Mountain on the other hand start about mile 99, and sustains 9-11% for about 3 miles.  It does have a false summit, and descends for a little bit (and you think you’ve crested, but it pitches up again to you get to the next rest stop.  After all, it does feature a 1250 foot climb, with pitches between 9-11%, and it sustained That’s nothing to sneeze at, and even when you seem to get to the top, it descends, then keeps climbing up again.

The last time I did this, it was really hot (triple digit temps), and they even had a sag wagon stop, with water, to refresh ourself, halfway up the climb.  We didn’t need that today, so I kept grinding away up to the rest stop.  Curtis and Dan went on ahead, as I stayed a bit to rest.

Continuing on, we still had climbs to do, before we got to the descents on Loch Lomond.  This was a really steep descent, and easily got up to 47 mph, before I tapped on the brakes enough to slow me down so I can maneuver the turn.  That was hair-raising.

I got to the lunch stop, but by that time, Curtis and Dan were ready to head onwards.  We would maintain the schedule for the rest of the day.

The support at Davis was great.  Lunch spread had just about everything you needed to form your own sandwich.  No pre-ordered Subway sandwich here … just the ingredients, and you build your own sandwich.  I also grew a fond affection for strawberries this day.  I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, but it sure feels good in the middle of a ride.

Ok, next hill is Resurrection.  Part of the problem with resurrection is that it is on Hwy 53, and not only do you climb, but you climb on highway traffic.  As I mentioned before, it is not as long, but it is annoying enough to make you wish it were over.

Two years ago, when I got to this point, I was totally exhausted due to heat exhaustion, and could not continue.  It’s a different story this year, since we didn’t have to contend with the heat.  I felt pretty confident at this point, and even think I might be able to finish before dark (that’s a first).

The route took up along Hwy 16, and we paralleled a nice little creek, was so serene and peaceful sounding.  This was also a stretch which didn’t have a lot of car traffic, and I went into my pseudo-time trialing position.  I knew there wouldn’t be very many ascents, so I could afford to do that.

A little later, Hwy 16 got trafficky, which meant having to worry about car traffic.  I was soon passed on the left by a group of 6 riders, and one guy yelled “come on, get on”, and so this pelaton grew from 6 to 7.  We maintained a paceline for a good 10 miles, and we were passing other groups, tandems, etc … one by one.  It did get a little dicey at one point, where the shoulder turn to dirt, then that where two riders’ wheels crossed in front of me.  The guy immediately in front of me went down, but at least it was in the dirt, so no injuries (just a small scrape).  Needless to say, we decided to go single file from here on out.

The rest of the way was completely flat, and we had no headwinds, until mile 190.  That was tough to ride through that headwind.  We then see the last rest stop at mile 195 (7 miles from the end).  You may ask, with only 7 miles to go, why stop here?  Well, the firestation chili bowl is famous, and you have to stop here.  Oooh, that felt good.

Ok, last 7 miles.  First, it started as a pack of 5, then suddenly, I noticed a bunch behind me, and we had a pack of about 15 people coming into the finish.  It felt like I was in the pelaton, and we were rolling in after the sprinters made their charge to the line.  I wound up back at the finish around 8:15 am, just in time where I didn’t need to use lights.

So this is my third of the year … 2 more for the 1000 miles in double centuries.  The next one will be Grand Tour in Malibu at end of June.

I rode to Sierra with my friends Michael and Henry, and met up with JoBob, who took this shot.  Thanks Jo.

I also took my helmet cam with me, and took a short video of me grinding my way up the initial steep part of Sierra (and there are many other steep sections to follow too).  But when you watch it, notice the guy in front of me with the Swiss flag.  I have a hard enough time climbing Sierra, and to carry a flag, with the wind kicking around?  That’s HTFU!

With the sucky weather (in May!!!), there was still a gloomy outlook that it might rain, but luckily it held off.  It stayed dry, but it was still very chilly.  We got a spot about 1400 feet up … couldn’t miss it … there was a “Kitten of Flanders” flag proudly displayed.  Gee, could you tell it was cold???  Everyone shivering waiting for the race to come by.

Reports were that riding up to the top … you couldn’t get to the top, as it was all roped off.  Still, we had a really good spot.  We could see the riders coming from below coming up.

We got really lucky, as the race got closer and closer to Sierra, clouds shifted, and the sun shined exactly where we were.  Perfect timing.

There was huge separation between the leaders in the front, and the rest of the riders.  There were probably 10 different packs on the climb up.  After a while, we started seeing some of the lead climbers, who made it to the finish, descent back down Sierra.  Someone forgot to tell them the back of the pack is still climbing up Sierra Road.  Wow, that could have been dicey.  It was actually quite dangerous, flying down the hill, and not knowing there’s a big pelaton still climbing up the hill.

Finally, the broomwagon comes, and we now know the end of the race has passed by.  Wow, that was fun!  Now for the descent down.

For more pics, click here