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06-02-08, 12:00 PM
Did what has been called the "toughest local" century in my area, the Sequoia Century.
The route starts in Palo Alto, goes over the Canta Cruz Mountains, down to the coast, rips along the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Cruz, back over the Mountains again, then a fast decent back to civilization.
I was told to reconsider using the tandem for this ride, since it was slated to be 112 miles with nearly 10,000 feet of vertical climbing. I shrugged them off, of course ;)
I only saw two other tandems out of the nearly (maybe) 1000 riders.
Here is someone else's Garmin output (I guess I am too cheap to buy my own ;) ):
http://gpelpel.startlogic.com//photos/biking/sequoia_profile.png
Here is their map:
http://gpelpel.startlogic.com//photos/biking/sequoia_route.png
So anyway here are our ride stats for this killer ride:
Distance = 113.5 miles
Ride Time = 7:21
Avg Speed = 15.4 mph
Max Speed = 53.5 mph (on Highway 1, AWESOME!)
The first major climb shown is Page Mill Road. We had an awesome rhythm going on this climb, passing many singles on or way up. We kept many fast riders locked in our sights. The really fast single riders passed us, but there weren't too many. Our standing climbing was working great!
The descent down was foggy but fun. We passed one of the two known other tandems just before diving into a hairpin turn... We waved ;)
That flat part in the middle was along the coast. It was glorious! We were tearing it up at 30+ MPH for much of the way. This is where we hit 53.5 mph :twitchy: We ended up picking up a contingent of around 5 or 6 Webcor (local racing club/team) guys. We pulled them the whole way down the coat. Talk about good motivation.
The big hill on the way back was a combo of a few climbs including Mt. Charlie, Summit Rd, and Skyline. Mt. Charlie was nuts!! It was a bit of a stair step climb, but with long "steps" with some really really steep sections of over 15% grade. Not to mention we were already at around mile 75+. I think we got down to below 4 mph for a few moments. Ruth (stoker/gf) couldn't do the standing for too long, because her quads were a burned out. She was fine sitting though.
The last part, decent down Hwy 9, etc was fun. I was flying down at 40+ mph :D There were two short and steep bumps at the end (Pierce, and Mt. Eden)
Here's a picture of us at the end of the ride (I had already stripped my Halo, and gloves).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2543534425_fd42e9740a_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3277/2543534245_b484a38cb1.jpg?v=0
Here's some other pics from the ride (not taken by us, in the next post):
The route starts in Palo Alto, goes over the Canta Cruz Mountains, down to the coast, rips along the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Cruz, back over the Mountains again, then a fast decent back to civilization.
I was told to reconsider using the tandem for this ride, since it was slated to be 112 miles with nearly 10,000 feet of vertical climbing. I shrugged them off, of course ;)
I only saw two other tandems out of the nearly (maybe) 1000 riders.
Here is someone else's Garmin output (I guess I am too cheap to buy my own ;) ):
http://gpelpel.startlogic.com//photos/biking/sequoia_profile.png
Here is their map:
http://gpelpel.startlogic.com//photos/biking/sequoia_route.png
So anyway here are our ride stats for this killer ride:
Distance = 113.5 miles
Ride Time = 7:21
Avg Speed = 15.4 mph
Max Speed = 53.5 mph (on Highway 1, AWESOME!)
The first major climb shown is Page Mill Road. We had an awesome rhythm going on this climb, passing many singles on or way up. We kept many fast riders locked in our sights. The really fast single riders passed us, but there weren't too many. Our standing climbing was working great!
The descent down was foggy but fun. We passed one of the two known other tandems just before diving into a hairpin turn... We waved ;)
That flat part in the middle was along the coast. It was glorious! We were tearing it up at 30+ MPH for much of the way. This is where we hit 53.5 mph :twitchy: We ended up picking up a contingent of around 5 or 6 Webcor (local racing club/team) guys. We pulled them the whole way down the coat. Talk about good motivation.
The big hill on the way back was a combo of a few climbs including Mt. Charlie, Summit Rd, and Skyline. Mt. Charlie was nuts!! It was a bit of a stair step climb, but with long "steps" with some really really steep sections of over 15% grade. Not to mention we were already at around mile 75+. I think we got down to below 4 mph for a few moments. Ruth (stoker/gf) couldn't do the standing for too long, because her quads were a burned out. She was fine sitting though.
The last part, decent down Hwy 9, etc was fun. I was flying down at 40+ mph :D There were two short and steep bumps at the end (Pierce, and Mt. Eden)
Here's a picture of us at the end of the ride (I had already stripped my Halo, and gloves).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2543534425_fd42e9740a_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3277/2543534245_b484a38cb1.jpg?v=0
Here's some other pics from the ride (not taken by us, in the next post):