7 July 2007

Boulder Creek, Big Basin and Skyline

Skyline and Bear Creek Rd The club ride was starting at 9 from Boulder Creek, so I got started around 8. It was cool with thick cloud cover, but the forecast for the mountains was warm and sunny, so I dressed lightly. On Hwy 9 and at Felton, I was joined by a couple of guys also doing the ride. It was a struggle to hang onto their wheels, but I made much better time than I would have by myself.

At Boulder Creek, it was warm and sunny, and there was a pretty good turnout of about 20 for the ride. We headed out on Park, then Hwy 236. After China Grade, the pace picked up, and I couldn't keep up, but we regrouped at the start of Lodge. We continued on Lodge, the middle part of which reminded me of Pipeline Rd in Henry Cowell. At one spot after the road widened and smoothed out, a truck was blocking most of the road, with a worker doing something like chainsawing tree trunks. Near the end, there was a big group of hikers. One of them had a video camera and pointed it at the cyclists as we went by. We stopped and took a break at the park headquarters. It was a bit chilly and cloudy there.

We continued up Escape, which had, a third to a half of the way in, a gate barring car traffic. There was also very little room to get around it, so, one by one, we went around it to the left. There were a bunch of steep little climbs, and, once again, I couldn't keep up with the fast guys. After the gate to Hwy 236, we regrouped. (I moved six minutes that I stopped at the regroup to China Grade in the GPS data. We didn't stop at China Grade.) On the descents after China Grade, I didn't have the confidence to take the turns quickly, and fell way back. We regrouped at the intersection with Hwy 9. On the climb up to Skyline, I again could not keep up with the fast guys, but did the climb in about 34 minutes, which was much better than the last two times, which took about 44 minutes and 39 minutes. However, on the day of my injury, I did it in 30 minutes. We regrouped at the top. I was disappointed that the hot dog stand wasn't there. I would have expected it to be there around midday on a nice Saturday.

Continuing on Skyline, I was able to keep the fast guys in sight until a bit after Black, when my cautious descending dropped me way back. We regrouped at Bear Creek. I took a picture there. After our break, two guys headed left to descend Mtn Charlie. The rest of us headed right, to descend back to Boulder Creek. There were lots of cyclists climbing Bear Creek.

At Boulder Creek, I got a coke at the gas station and took a break to drink it near the post office. Then, I headed out on Hwy 236. It was 2:43 when I started up at the bottom of Jamison Creek. The dead skunk was still on the 1.33 sign. I got to the top at 3:15, and the GPS data showed a time of 32:34. Last week, I did the climb in 33:12, so I've gotten past the point where big improvements are easy.

After turning left onto Empire Grade, I was pretty wiped out, and took it easy for the rest of the ride. At one point, I was trying to shift from big ring to the small ring and dropped the chain. I then shifted back into the big ring, then tried to shift back to the small ring, and the chain jammed somehow. I was afraid I would fall, but I got unclipped and got off the bike. It seems that a couple of links were somehow stuck to the teeth on the big ring, so when they were supposed to release from the chainring, they prevented the crank from turning. How odd. I pulled the chain off the chainring and got it on the small ring.

After passing the UCSC west entrance, somewhere near the arboretum, a bus passed close to me, its wake knocking me a foot to the right. Due to that, I hoped the three-foot law would get passed and signed.

I pretty much coasted from the UCSC west entrance back home. I was almost as tired as I was after Wednesday's ride.