BillyD

It's game day.

rjones28 

Nearly.

LesterOfPuppets

Hi.

LAJ

Nice try, @LesterOfPuppets!

LAJ

Nicely done, @Heathpack!

rousseau

What, Arsenal v. Aston Villa? The Gunners will make short work of the Brummies, I expect.

3alarmer 

.
....what the hell does a guy have to do to podium in this thread ?

LesterOfPuppets

Keep your mouse in hand and refresh often starting around 2000 hrs.

3alarmer 

...so I would need an attention span longer than 17 seconds ?

LAJ

What was the question?

LesterOfPuppets

Awesome trainspotting was had:




This is now the biggest bridge I've ridden across:



Natural break:

LesterOfPuppets

Thx. Maybe next year I'll get a century per month. I guess I can get the monthly metric this year, at least.

Heathpack 

Great ride, really just enjoyed it.

My Filipino cycling club puts on four of these Tour de Francis rides per year, they are approx 100 mi/10k ft rides, fully supported with rest stops, SAG vehicles, and a big lunch afterwards personally cooked by Francis himself (Francis is one of the club founders). Rides are limited to 75 people and they cost nothing, included as part or your annual club dues, which are only $40. The club has a number of different components, but the endurance arm focuses on developing double century riders and the idea behind the TDFr rides is that they prepare your for what you'll experience on a double, but in a more condensed format that can be more readily supported by the club. Francis puts the routes together and tries to purposely throw in adverse conditions like wind or heat or altitude or very sustained climbing. Then the big Filipino lunch for everyone afterward. There seem to always be a zillion volunteers, roving SAG vehicles, people standing at potentially confusing turns telling you which way to go, all kinds of photographers on the course.

This TDFr has pretty tight time cutoffs because the days are shorter and this year that was made even tighter by a change in the opening time for the state park that the ride finishes and ends in. Eventually Francis relented and loosened up the time cutoffs but we had already decided to park elsewhere and start early, just before dawn. I rode it with my double friend, Ventura. But even though this is a huge club with probably 1000 people in it, the endurance component is not that huge, maybe a few hundred people, and between he & I we probably knew 75% of the people on the course. So we kind of rode off and on all day in a loose group of 7, with people coming & going. Great people to ride with, lots of bad jokes and funny stories.

Amazingly, the core people all showed up on time and we rolled right at 6:30. The day started with a 7.5 mile climb, around 5% grade, then a 2 mile descent, then a 17ish mile climb at around 3%. Nice morning, around 40 degrees and we got to see the sunrise over the mountains.



We passed a few other early starters on the climb and were the first group to arrive rest stop one, but that's not saying much because really the slower people are the ones who start earlier. In the second half of the 17 mile climb, we got a little headwind, nothing too bad, maybe 5-7 mph, but we still made stop one about 20 ahead of pace.

About 12-13 miles of rollers to get to rest stop 3, pretty uninteresting terrain. Then the turn off onto a very empty country road, lots of switchback climbing, a little steeper stuff, and descents. Very beautiful landscape, some of it wide open high desert, some of it green fields and live oaks, some of it pine trees and sagebrush. It was not feasible to stop & take pics of everything that was beautiful, we would have been out there all day. Maybe 10 miles of this and then the final 4ish mile descent to Quail Lake, our turn-around point. Francis was there with some sort of chicken porridge (basically thick chicken & rice soup), which was pretty delicious and kind of perfect- salt, carb, hydration, and a little bit of protein. Ate a bowl but we didn't linger because we could feel the wind picking up and see whitecaps on the lake. Post-lunch would be a headwind and the wind was forecast to build. But of course we took a pic first.



We headed out after lunch, all 7 of us together, all the better to pace line into the wind. My first post-lunch thought was "uh-oh," because we headed directly into a pretty stiff head wind, maybe 15 mph. I was thinking it was going to be a very ornery afternoon. But after about 2 miles, we turned back into the switch-backy canyon, which was sheltered from a lot of the wind, I would say our headwind was maybe only 10 mph. And then because of the switchbacks, we were constantly changing direction, so we were never directly into the wind for very long. Plus there were some descents in the switch back canyon, so some of the headwind stuff was descending too. Honestly, it wasn't bad at all.

After the switchbacks, we had a turn onto a straighter road with lots of ups & downs. A bit more of a direct headwind here, but only about 10 miles. But the climbs going this direction were steeper, meaning the descents were longer, so again the winds were managable.

Finally one last rest stop before a fifteen mile descent, which was admittedly the sweetest part of the day. Curvy road not too steep, around 3%. Good road surface, light traffic. Some crosswind/headwind gusts but nothing steady. In short, a great section to make good time.



Finally we got to the last real climbs of the day- three of them, 2ish miles at 6%, 0.5 miles at 8% and 0.8 miles at 6%. By this time it was just Ventura & I, we were tired but both still strong, my VAMs on the last climbs were the same as the morning climbs. Tired but fully functional, that's a good feeling. Ventura was itching to pick up the pace because he'd gotten into a pissing contest with some other guys in our chapter about finish times. We'd been riding with them most of the day, and then they pretended to stop at the last stop with us, then rolled out when our backs were turned, lol. I knew there was a 0.8 mile 9% climb into the picnic area where the post-ride lunch would be and didn't really feel like chasing anyone down. I told Ventura to go for it, he took off, and I rode alone maybe the last 5 miles. Fine by me, it was really beautiful & peaceful after a busy day of chatting. And he did catch and pass those guys, so we were both happy in the end.

I finished strong, had been dreading that picnic area climb all day but in the end kind of enjoyed it, the park we rode into was lush & green and the view was spectacular. Nice post ride picnic- Filipino food- chicken adobo, carmelized pork, rice, pork buns, veggies. I wasn't very hungry (had been eating constantly on the bike) but ate a little. Had a great time chatting & catching up with all kinds of people- Dead of Winter people, and Cycling Heroine & Mr 600k, and Vertical Bob, and even the guy from BF who just joined the club 3 days ago.



In the end, my Garmin stats say it was 98 miles/11,000 ft climbing. 8:35 on the course, 1:05 off the bike (5 rest stops plus a few photo stops). 3300 cals burned and about 1700 consumed, almost all Cliff Bloks and Skratch. Otherwise just the soup, a few sips of Coke, a handful of potato chips, and 1/4 banana. No nutrition/hydration or equipment issues, including both Edge 510s! Garmin may have actually found & fixed the problem on both units, this ride was the first 80+ mile ride I've had since October with no data losses/freezes. Beautiful day for a ride, sunny with temps ranging from 40-70 degrees. And just a lot of fun. The only slight negative is that moving time was only 12.5 mph. Way back last June, I rode my first ever 10k ft ride at 12.4 mph, so not much improvement. But I'm still going to be happy with it, we had some headwinds today and I overall felt much fresher at the finish of this one than any of my other 10k ft centuries. If some had told me I had to ride another 50 miles at the finish today, I would have been happy to do so. Plus good VAMs all day, as good at the end as the beginning. So that's something.

Group ride in am, something like 30-40 miles. @PhotoJoe might even come.

gc3

I hate California

gc3

Bike fall down go boom....

...oh, and valve stems not aligned...

Heathpack 

You could do one tomorrow and it would count for Jan still, because it's a leap year and that's how it works.

Heathpack 

Come out for a ride?

3alarmer 

...it occurs to me looking at @Heatpack's new photos that with all the rain in SoCal, this might be one of those phenomenal years for desert wildflowers down there.

datlas 

Thanks for the report HP.

I don't like SoCal much but am coming around based on these ride reports!

coasting 

that's a nice collection of bikes on tht ride, heathpack.

coasting 

don't be deceived. I have been informed that socal is the armpit of ca.

coasting 

addiction is not the same in this new thread. something feels different.

datlas 

Fixed

datlas 

I noticed that too.

Trsnrtr

It's Sunday morning, it's dark and I'm in a run down motel in Georgia heading for another snowmagedden up North. After a pleasant 400 miles of Florida sunshine cycling, I'm pretty bummed to heading back to 8-9" of blowing snow.