31 January 2009

Saturday harbor ride

It was sunny, with the sun low enough to glare in my eyes, and cold in the morning. It had been a couple of months since I last did this ride, and I was a little worried about being out of shape.

At Bonita and San Andreas, there was a parked SUV blocking the right turn. The pace on San Andreas was relatively easy, and the pack stayed bunched up, so I was never in danger of being dropped. After Sunset, I saw 2 riders a little off the front. After the bridge, there was a bunch of 6 or so off the front.

There was a big group going over Hazel Dell. When I got to the top of the steep part, there was a 30-40 foot gap to the lead group, so I blew myself out and just caught the tail end of the pack at Green Valley, and then promptly dropped off. On the climb, I could see the pack ahead split up, while a few riders caught up from behind me. I started the descent alone, but got caught and latched onto a couple of riders. A few more riders joined on the way to Corralitos.

On the return, I rode with another guy for a while, taking it easy. When I got home, I felt much better than I did after the ride two weeks ago, so I wasn't that out of shape any more.

19 January 2009

Eureka Canyon

Corralitos It was a day off for MLK Jr, so I went on the club ride. It was sunny, and warm in the sun, but chilly in the shade. I headed off to Jade St to get started. We first headed out to Corralitos, where there was a new structure across the street from the market. Then, we headed up Eureka Canyon. It was cold in the shade at the bottom, but as we gained elevation, it got warmer in the shade. The initial descent of Highland was still slightly chilly, but quite a bit warmer than I expected. The collapsed road due to the slides had been repaired with new asphalt. We stopped at the Summit Market for lunch. I got a sandwich. It was sunny and warm outside. My eyes were watering from allergies.

After lunch, I continued west on Summit with part of the group to Mountain Charlie, then continued solo on Summit to Bear Creek. This was my longest ride in months, even though it wasn't a particularly long ride. Nonetheless, I was starting to feel weak, even though I had eaten plenty. I must have lost endurance by only doing short rides over the last couple of months. I headed down Bear Creek to Boulder Creek. It was warm at the top, but at the bottom, it was chilly and parts of the road were wet.



Buzzard Lagoon and Eureka Canyon I headed out of Boulder Creek on Hwy 236, then turned up Jamison Creek. After having ridden 56 miles, it was much harder to turn the cranks than the last few times, even though I was in my lowest gear. A disappointingly long 30:13 later, I got to the top. I continued feeling weak on Empire Grade, and did not recover after the descents, so instead of hammering by UCSC as usual, I coasted.

17 January 2009

Solo ride

Top of Alba I hadn't been riding very much lately, so I went on a shorter ride. I had also decided to start climbing Alba more regularly this year. I've climbed it maybe twice a year the last few years, while climbing Jamison Creek 14 times each of the last 3 years. This year, I intend to climb Alba more, and Jamison less. Jamison is still a much more convenient route home from many rides, but since I've just been riding out specifically to Jamison much of the last few months, I could do that with Alba instead.

It was sunny and it was warm in the sun when I started. However, when I was in the shade on Branciforte and up Glen Canyon, it was pretty chilly, though not chilly enough that I regretted not putting on leg warmers. I got to Scotts Valley, and headed down the heavily trafficked Mount Hermon to Felton, then turned up Hwy 9 to Ben Lomond. I took Glen Arbor to detour around part of Hwy 9 before rejoining it at Ben Lomond.

It was 11:11 when I got to the base of the steep slopes of Alba. It was shaded, but not chilly, even without the hard climb. About a mile from the top, I saw a white van pull out of a turnout. As I passed the turnout, painted on a big rock in the turnout was "Bonnie and Klide F.T.W. Tour" in blue and orange. I wonder if the people in the van had just painted it. About a half mile later was the shaded part that always seemed to have a headwind, though this time there wasn't any wind. After that, there was relatively a lot of traffic, plus a cyclist descending followed by a pack of 3 motorcyclists. It was 11:46 when I got to the top.

I headed down Empire Grade, then turned right onto Pine Flat, where I caught up to and passed a small, slow truck that was emitting lots of smelly fumes, just as a small group of cyclists were headed uphill. I turned right on Bonny Doon to do the outer loop, then turned right again when it rejoined the lower end of Pine Flat to head down to the coast. There was a group of 3 noisy motorcycles speeding up as I descended. I also zipped by a solo cyclist climbing up.

At the bottom, I turned left and headed by to town and then back home.