spingineer

Have fun guys and gals. Should be much cooler today. I can already tell a difference from my short walk outside.

Beaker

Have a good ride you guys - looks like the weather will be more civilized for your ride today, compared to yesterday.

PS - Ron, shouldn't you be spinning like a gerbil?

spingineer

I guess I probably could be doing that on the trainer. Sometimes I wish I had a call, so that the weekend won't be totally wasted ... on second thought ... nah!

Ygduf

No report back yet? Everyone get lost?

uspspro

The headwinds were vicious out near the coast today (going NB), I am sure that section on HWY 1 took an eternity.

qpliu

BlastRadius, msincredible, mtnwalker, SesameCrunch, UmneyDurak, x136, and I started from Paula's house. We met up with Bostic, chrisoco, dl33, and uspspro at the top of Alpine/Page Mill, but they decided to take a different route. mtnwalker and x136 turned back after climbing Alpine. We met up with JourneyLightly at Saratoga Gap. After going through Big Basin and up Jamison Creek, BlastRadius, JourneyLightly and UmneyDurak dropped me on Empire Grade -- they may have gotten lost on the way back, but the route, at least to Hwy 1, was pretty simple. From Hwy 1 on, which I did in the morning, has various options, but I turned right on Gazos Creek, left on Cloverdale, right on Butano Cutoff, then right on Pescadero.

SesameCrunch

So, we climb 7,000 ft in the first 45 miles (with Jamison Creek's 10% average grade over 1,500 ft at mile 39) in 90 degree heat. What was our reward? 30 miles of 20-25mph headwinds on Hwy 1. Who was the bloomin' idiot that came up with the idea for this ride?



... Oh.... Never mind......

msincredible

It was nice to meet up with everyone! Thanks to everyone who made the long drive out to my place and back.

Stuck with the main group all the way up Alpine and wasn't to far back on most of the rest of the route until we got to Jamison Creek.

At that point Alan kindly offered to hang back with me and we told the other guys to go on ahead and not wait for us.

Well, I found the steep climbing on Jamison Creek pretty brutal in the 90+ degree heat, and I had to stop several times as my heartrate was soaring up.

Finally made it to the top, Alan and I had a great time on Empire Rd, Pine Flat and Bonny Doon. We stopped for a quite late lunch in Davenport.

However, after we started heading north on Hwy 1, we discovered the winds were really strong today, especially in that part of the coast (like 20-25 mph). Alan very kindly pulled me along at a slug's pace. After we went a few miles, we realized that although we still had energy to keep going we weren't going to make it back in any kind of reasonable time, which was a concern because of daylight and my dogs. So he called up a friend to come and rescue us, it was time to sag it in. We kept going a few miles north until his friend showed up and drove us back to my place.

It looks like any ride I do that includes 236 is cursed! First the 3 flats ride, then the time I went up to the dead end on China Grade and had to backtrack because the trail was closed off, now this. I've done a similar loop before but with continuing on 9 to Felton Empire instead of 236 to Jamison Creek, and that was fine.

Glad everyone made it back here safely.

msincredible

mtnwalker

It was nice to see everyone again. I would like to give a big THANKS to Alex for stopping with me on that first climb. I thought about turning around at that point but with Alex's encouragement and getting my second wind I was able to push on all the way to Skyline. Our pace was just not up to par and we decided to head back and call it a day. Total mileage was 22.2 miles with 4532ft of climbing.

Bostic

Alpine Skyline Summit.



larger one here.
https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3451/...99f57196_b.jpg

spingineer

Looks like I missed an epic weekend. Which route did you guys detour off to? Can't imagine what the heat would have been like if you did this ride yesterday.

x136 

Ouch. So it was as hot as it felt. Good to know I didn't drink both of my water bottles by the top of Alpine for nothin'. Stupid weather forecasts are just wrong, wrong, wrong lately. On Saturday, I think the temperature had exceeded the forecast daily high by 9am. Like a dope, I believed the forecasts of cool weather for today.

*snort* Ah well, you couldn't have forecast Random Super Heat Wave.

Nuts, had I known a slow group had formed, I might have (stupidly) attempted to soldier on.

You're one up on me, but I'm running at a 100% failure rate as well. D'oh!

Hey, no problem, I know how it feels (obviously ).

(Also, MapMyRide quotes a far lower number for climbing, but I'm going with Bikely on this one. 4500' in 23 miles sounds much manlier.)

It was great to see everyone (briefly as always), and thanks to Paula and Alan for getting this all set up. Next time, it will be rife with success!

spingineer

It was cooler in Santa Clara, at least.

JourneyLightly

Paula, thanks for organizing! It was nice meeting everyone. Jamison Creek was brutal. Hot and steep. Pine Flat and Bonny Doon were nice. You could feel yourself descending into markedly cooler and denser air. The headwind on 1 was some kind of torture. At least the views were nice, and there were three of us to trade pulls. We skipped Swanton and went straight to Gazos Creek and back to Ms. I's place. UD, thanks again for the lift home!

msincredible

Oh good, I'm glad you got a ride home, I was hoping you would. Alpine would have been miserable at the end of the day.

If I ever try Jamison Creek again, I'm gonna do it with a triple. And it won't be in the summer.

msincredible

That out and back (Alpine + both sides of Haskins) is definitely above 4000'. 4500' sounds about right.

BTW, my VDO computer put my ride at 66 miles, 7200'.

x136 

Wow. Suddenly I feel accomplished. Whee!

silentben

I ended up doing a loop on my motorcycle on Saturday that was pretty similar to this one. The headwinds out by the coast were brutal that day too which definitely contributed to my decision to not make the ride today.

Part of me feels bad for missing the ride but i ended up really needing this weekend of rest.

BlastRadius

Thanks for organizing the ride Paula. I wish I chatted more with everyone but it was a long ride and I got home after 6pm even at the pace we kept.

I came totally unprepared for the ride with too many layers and not enough food and drink mixes so thanks to Alex Y. and Jeff for letting me have some of their food. I was also unprepared for how steep Jamison Creek is. Remember the cassette I was too lazy to change for the Berkley Hill Death Ride? I didn't realized I really needed to change it for this ride too! I am glad I got up Jamison Creek without stopping or zig-zagging although 4.2 mph at times was almost stopping.

The descent down Pine Flat and Boony Doon was amazing; 46 mph coasting. Seeing the ocean at the bottom was such a relief and I knew food was near. After snarfing some drinks and half a turkey sandwich we headed up hwy 1. OMG, the wind was brutal. One neat thing about the new power meter is seeing how much power a 132# person needs to battle the wind for a measly 13 mph.

We did get Gazos Creek, Cloverdale, and Butano-cutoff as well. I was nice to get out of the wind for a while. All in all, it was a great ride and my longest of the year I think.

Stats:
6:08 rolling, 1:17 stopped
86 miles, 6988ft climbed (according to Garmin Forerunner 305)
HR max: 189 avg: 155

Here are some pics:

Alan, obviously not suffering on Alpine.


Ramon at Alpine and Skyline


Paula, Alan, Don, and NY Chris


Peter and Marco


Jeff, pretty fresh looking after pulling Alex and me the majority of the way up Hwy 1.


Alex y., How do you stay so thin with all your Ranch 99 food?

SesameCrunch

It was easy to underestimate this ride. On the surface, 85 miles and 7000 ft didn't seem like a big deal to me either. However:

1) Virtually all the 7000 ft came in the first 45 miles,
2) 90 degree heat in the mountain sections,
3) %#^* Jamison Creek at mile 39,
4) The %^^&$% headwinds on Hwy1,
all combined to make this a brutal route.

Like I said before - what idiot came up with this route suggestion?

mtnwalker

Who is more of an idiot? The idiot or the ones who followed the idiot?

Maybe we should try this route again when its way cooler. Early spring, maybe.

msincredible

LKHC profile of Jamison Creek:



Alpine:

UmneyDurak

Wow what an epic ride, it made Patterson Pass RR look easy. Thank you for organizing it Paula. The headwind on HW1 was brutal. Big thanks to Jeff and BlastRadius for dragging me through that hell.

UD