Every Dog has its Day (And this was not mine).
So our good friend Ken organized a ride in our local mountains yesterday. The original plan was to ride over Sherman Pass ... a ride in the Southern Sierra. But the road had not been cleared yet, so he made an alternate plan ... ride from Castaic Lake up over Lake Hughes Road and Pine Canyon Road to the Ridge Route and back. The metrics weren’t terrible ... 82 miles and 9400 feet.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39298...eTWqDGwW65mfTk
What was potentially terrible was the heat. Mid 90s for the high. Mild headwinds were also predicted. I’ve ridden in worse , so I wasn’t terribly concerned.
The day started out nice. A mild headwind that got a stiffer as we approached. The ride starts with a longish and steepish climb as into the hills surrounding Castaic Lake. There are some really fast riders in this group, and they took off in front of the rest of the group pretty quickly. After that initial climb, there are giant rollers. Not long climbs, but ones you definitely need to gear down for. I was riding with a friend and surprisingly, the two of us caught the lead group.
Finally, there is a 800 foot downhill, and from there, the ride is a gentle uphill until you get to Lake Hughes. I decided to stop for a drink and some endurolytes and wait for the riders approaching us from the rear. I haven’t ridden with some of these guys in a long time.
The ride up Lake Hughes went well. Very warm, but with a cooling headwind. The headwind got stiffer as we went and eventually started holding us up a bit, but no biggie. Once we got to the intersection, we were out of water. We could have ridden a mile or two to a general store, but decided to wait for our sag van. I think we were there 15-20 minutes or so. While we were there, we met a friend riding a similar loop in the opposite direction.
So far, so good. Everyone is doing fine and I feel great. I moved my cleats back a bit and it was helping with my usual hotfoot issues.
By the time the van left, everyone in the group had caught up, so we were a group again. A couple of other friends were doing some extra credit riding and they caught up too. Very strong riders.
So we make a left on to Pine Canyon Road. It is also a climb, but instead of a constant gentle climb, it has some steep rollers, but also generally up.
Riding by a distant ranch, I heard the sound of someone playing “Hotel California.” I was riding behind some friends to take pix of them in the distance. When I caught up with them, I mentioned the music, but none of them heard it. Odd, I thought.
Later, I heard “25 or 6 to 4” from Chicago. WTF. This is no where near the ranch. Only then, I realized that my phone had been on since the start, playing music, but so softly, I couldn’t hear it in the wind. And it was nearly dead. I turned on airplane mode and hoped for the best. Another old man moment.
The next turn was at 3 points. If you miss that one, you end up in the Antelope Valley with a LONG ass climb back. Vertical Bob parked his truck here so no one could miss it. And here we had some cold drinks and chips. Yummy! Thanks Dee and Teresa!
Now up the upper section of Pine Canyon Road. There are some really steep hot climbs in here. But it is devoid of traffic and beautiful. These climbs chewed us all up a bit, but we all got to the turnaround point at the Ridge Route. Time to head back.
This is not one of those rides, where you get all the climbing done early and from that point, the remainder is flat or downhill. You ‘ve now done a little more than half the climbing, and all those steep climbs you had before are just as steep going the other way. And it is really heating up.
I have a way of staying at the back of the pack to help friends that need it and keep them company, so although I felt good, I stayed back a bit. This is where things really fell apart.
I heard someone wretching. And I mean really wretching. One of those really strong riders doing extra credit distance and climbing. Apparently the heat got to him. I asked if he was OK. I’ve never done that on a ride before, and in all that heat with all the distance we had to go ... I dunno. Not good. But he said he felt fine and this happens often, so off we went.
Then one of us got a flat. A bummer but no big deal. Except there were a lot of snafus. He has a Lezyne pump that screws on to the threads on the stem, and it has a habit of pulling out his valve cores.
Which of course, it did. So he used one of his CO2 canisters for nada. The other canister had defective threads. Loren, the guy who was wretching before, had another pump, but it was also a Lezyne. His also pulled out the valve core. And then it broke! The threads connecting the hose to the pump body had pulled out(!). But head some CO2, which did the trick.
But we’re not done. This was a disc braked road bike, and it has an odd cassette design in which the cogs slip off the wheel when the wheel is removed. What a PITA. Somehow, we lost one of the cogs and had a hard time finding it. Turns out it was on the wheel the whole time, but we spent a good amount of time looking for that too. All this time, people were passing us and having spent 40 minutes or so on the flat, we were a good 30 minutes behind everyone, even the slowest. And it was getting hotter. And we had all those steep climbs coming up. But we got over all of them, and got to Three Points where the sag van was waiting.
By now, I was feeling pretty good, but had run out of endurolytes. And we had some significate climbing before got back to Lake Hughes Road. George, the guy with the flat started to have difficulty here, and after finally summiting the last of the steep climbs in the heat, we talked him into at least doing the descent back to Lake Hughes.
This descent was interesting. Some pedaling involved, but you make distance really quickly. And somewhere around here ...
TWANG
.... a cramp in my thigh. Not a terrible one, but WTF is that about? I get to the top and that starts on the downhill? Not a good sign. And my stomach wasn’t feeling great either.
Vertical Bob had met us at the intersection to give us water and some support, and George decided to sag. I felt OK, and since Lake Hughes Road is a long downhill, it should be OK ... UNTIL, that is, we get back to those huge rollers at the beginning of the ride.
The first is the worst. 700-800 feet and steep. That was going to suck. I’ve done this ride before, and it always sucks, but with the heat, it was going to be an extra special suck today. And Loren had miraculously recovered! OMG. How can anyone be wretching at one moment, do all those steep climbs, and feel BETTER? I guess that is the difference 20 years makes. But I digress.
What is clear to me is that I am in trouble. Instead of recovering, I am feeling worse. Lake Hughes Road is a bit beat up and although the descent is long and fun, it beats you up a bit. And the more we went down, the hotter it got. I did recover some, but I knew the climb once we got to the bottom was going to suck.
And it DID suck. I watered up and started up. I had been climbing in the early part of the day in bigger gears, but now, I was in my lowest gear (~30 inches) and was literally crawling up the hill. My pulse rate was about 165 .. not terrible, but not great, my stomach was sour, and I was looking at this bit old hill and behind it, even more rollers with even steeper climbs. Loren had recovered and was standing up much of the hill, and now I was completely off the back. I made it to the first turn out where Bob was waiting, looked at the top of that 700 foot climb (at that point, it looked like 7000 feet).
If there was no sag and no options, I’d have sucked it up. I would have had to. There isn’t even any phone service out there. But feeling the way I did? I did something for the very first time. I sagged.
There is a first time for everything, and this was it for me. I heard later that some got off their bikes and walked. I wasn’t the only one cramping (Loren was cramping, and that was one reason he was standing on the climbs).
And you know what? I’m actually kinda proud of myself. I have a habit of pushing myself to and past my limits, and frankly, at my age, that is not smart. All it does is chew you up, and I’m already plenty chewed up. The way I look at it, I finally demonstrated to myself that I have limits and I have some idea where they are.
Great ride though. And great to finally ride with some people I haven’t ridden with for a long time. It was a heat/sufferfest, but it was awesome!