29 September 2007

Davenport, Swanton, and Smith

Ocean view from Swanton Rd It was slightly chilly in the morning, but mostly sunny. Some of the chill may have been due to some overnight drizzle. I had wanted to get started earlier, but ran a little late. I wasn't concerned, though, since the rides usually start after the scheduled time, which, for today, was 8:30. I got to the start around 8:33 and got signed in. There were somewhere around 15-18 riders.

The ride started slowly, going around the yacht harbor, by the boardwalk, West Cliff, to Natural Bridges. The pace picked up on Hwy 1, and got pretty fast going into Davenport. That may have been partly due to a guy in a green Palo Alto jersey going by really fast a little after Dimeo. The guys in front caught him before Davenport. I rolled up a half minute later, totally winded. That would set the pattern for most of the rest of the ride: riding hard coming up to a regroup point. There were a bunch of tourists at Davenport, and two big buses.

We headed out from Davenport, then onto Swanton in a group. On the hill, we split up, but regrouped at the top. The road had damp spots from the light overnight rain. Looking at the route sheet, it looked like we were to turn around at the bottom and ride back up Swanton rather than turning left and taking Hwy 1 back to Davenport, so that's what we did, but taking it easy on climb back up. It had been over two years since the last time I climbed Swanton from the north end. We encountered other riders headed down and a big group stopped near the top. On the descent and the remainder of Swanton, the two guys I was with pushed up the pace to the south end of Swanton, where we regrouped. This was the latter half of the Swanton Time Trial, which all three of us had ridden at least once. Then we headed back to Davenport for a little break.

From Davenport, we headed out to the big climb of the day, Bonny Doon Rd. We split up on the climb, and regrouped at Smith Grade. We then rode Smith, going hard at the final steep climb to Empire Grade, and regrouped at the end. Finally, we headed up out of the saddle point of the Smith-Empire intersection, then down Empire Grade back to town.