You got a pic of us. Thanks for the pic RonJon.
This may sound sick, but this was a very enjoyable ride for us.
Being from San Diego, we haven't had the chance to ride in this area before. All I had to go on was what everyone here on the forum had posted about the route. This would also be our first climbing century on the road tandem. Given that I was a little nervous going into the ride.
We had planned to do the 6:30am start, but the local IHOP wasn't open so we had to improvise on breakfast. We ended up checking out with the time keeper at 6:37am. I decided to skip the vest and just go with arm and leg warmers. I do pretty good in the cold, but Ursula was freezing on the back as we headed downhill towards the beach. Once on PCH we were able to get a good pace going and get warmed up.
The first climb was pretty much what I had expected. A reasonable grade and we tried to pick a pace that we felt we could maintain all day as well as post the best time we were capable of. The twists and turns kept everything interesting and before we knew it we had arrived at sticker stop one. A quick cleat adjustment for Ursula and we were on our way.
We continued down Molholland Hwy and had a few fun high speed runs before crossing Las Virgenes. The street names along this section are a blur to me, but suffice to say most of them were uphill. =) Once again the scenery and twist and turns kept stuff interesting. This part seemed to go on just a few miles too long for me as I kept expecting the road to turn downhill around every corner only see another climb. Finally the infamous decent began and I took it pretty easy as it takes a little longer to slow our freight train down and I constantly have to be careful as to not overheat the brakes. We had to stop once to let the rear disk cool off and so I could dial the pads in a little more.
We hit the 2nd sticker stop and then started heading back down PCH. I was really starting to feel the 6000ft of climbing we had done up to this point. I was beginning to fear what would happen on decker. I had visions of riding 100 yards and then having to walk to bike. We stopped at the base of decker to take off our arm warmers and I took a few mins to down some food and drink. Something helped as when we started up decker I felt pretty strong again. We even managed to pass a number of people on the way up. While that first mile or so is a real pain in the neck, after that it wasn't so bad and I actually enjoyed the climb. When we got to the sticker stop on decker the person handing out the stickers told us we were the first tandem and we would be to first tandem to finish the ride ever if we made it all the way. That was all it took. We had our motivation for the rest of the ride.
We took it a little easier heading over to Stunt Rd. so we could both try and recover some. We fueled up at the sticker stop on Molholland and continued on our way. For some reason I had it in my head that the climb up stunt was only 2.9 miles long. That was a rude awakening. We started to push a little harder as we neared what I thought was going to be the top only to come around a bend and see just more climbing ahead of us. Finally I saw what looked like a big white van pulled off to the side of the road and figured that must be the stop and luckily it I was right. We recovered a little at the top and at this point knew for sure barring any mechanicals we would finish. The climb after stunt wasn't too bad but it was the short rollers and climbs heading back to Molholland that hurt the most. Once on Molholland all was well as I knew what to expect from there on out.
As we made the turn onto Las Virgenes I looked at my watch. 9:47. We had 12 mins to make it back in under 10 hours. I asked Ursula if she felt up to the task and she replied 'Let's do it'. We rode as hard as our legs would allow all the way back to the hotel. We pulled into the parking lot a 9:58 and had no idea where the time keeper was. By the time we found the time keeper she logged us as coming in at 4:37. exactly 10hrs after we had started.
We had a blast and this ride definitely pushed us to the limit. Only two more to go for a tandem king of the mountains.
Mark in San Diego.