# Ride around the bear-ride report



## Hairy Palms (Feb 8, 2010)

Well, here was another 100 mile ride with over 10K of climbing. That makes five for the year so far ( one was 204 miles ). This ride usually wold go up the 330 but as most here know it's been closed for repairs from winter storms. So this year they changed the route and took us up the 18 with a little surprise thrown in. They took us up Old Waterman Canyon. I've come down this in a car and had wondered how tough it'd be to climb and now I know. It's freekin tough! I was told average was close to 10% and this isn't a short climb, not sure what the mileage is but I know we spent around an hour or more on it. I looked down a number of times to see 16, 17 and even 18% on the Garmin. Others were saying the same. It was a mutha but we gained elevation quickly. Some guys claimed to have seen 20% going into a switchback.

Personally I had started out to fast. I felt great and I seriously thought I was going to be able to maintain the pace I'd set but reality hit me after a couple hours and hit me very hard. I had been climbing the steep stuff at a very respectable pace and was passing some riders but I was also getting passed. About mile 30, reality came around again to slap me upside the head and it hurt! My left calf started to cramp and it had never done this before? So, I backed off and that helped. Then a few more miles and my right quad started and I was worried if I was even going to be able to finish. I didn't bring any endurolytes because it was only a 100 miles. But as I found out that was a mistake. Fortunately my bud Brent brought extra and saved my butt again. Another change was the placements of SAGs. They usually place them at 10 to 15 mile intervals but now we were looking at 20 miles with a lot of climbing between them except for the two up top, they were about 13 miles apart but I can't ***** because there really was no place to put them on the climb.

There were a few of us older riders out there but for the most part this is a ride for those skinny young fast guys and gals. As the day wore on I started to get passed more and more, I'm really starting to hate those skinny young people. 

The temps were perfect all day, even at the top of Onyx Summit. I've climbed to this summit 3 times this year and everytime it's been nice up there, where in years passed it was always freezing and windy. Orange County Wheelmen put this ride on and just like their Amtrak ride they do a really good job. We did run them out of watermelon at Onyx but I'll take the blame for that as I think I ate two by myself. 

We started as a group of three but John from our club (Cycling Connection) showed up just as we were starting to leave and he rode with us the majority of the day. Cynthia is our sandbagger, she always asks that we wait for her but she's always one of the fast ones up top. Like I said earlier we started fast but she held a great consistant pace and caught me somewhere around mile 35. We stayed together as we regrouped at the SAG's and I don't think any of the waits were to long. John had got to the lunch break about 10 minutes before us so by the time I got there he was ready to roll because if you sit around to long it's very painful to get going again and very hard to find a climbing rythym. We left about 10 minutes later and Brent wanted to try to catch him. I managed to hang on untill the first real climb then the cramps stared to tell me they were still hanging around just waiting for me to get stupid again. So I backed off and found a comfortable ( as much as climbing can be) pace and felt okay at that pace and I started to catch some of those skinny kids too. Seems I wasn't the only one to misjudge their strength. Now this is the final climb of the day and it's really not that bad. Somewhere around a 4 to 5 % grade average. It was 18 miles from the lunch break so you are out there for a while but you mostly are focused on the climb so time passes relatively quickly. I was the last of our group to get to the top but Brent said I was only 5 to 10 minutes back so that's not to bad. 

Now comes my favorite part of the day, the return to Redlands which is probably 90% downhill, there's few climbs thrown in with about 400 feet of elevaton gained just to keep your legs from getting to comfortable. Still we will be descending over 7,000 feet and at warp nine speed. I went out and waited for Brent to come forward. John and Cynthia were somewhere back there, not sure where. Brent is a good downhiller and very strong. We soon passed a bunch of riders and a few managed to jump on. We started to trade pulls and one of those young skinny guys got in on the action. He went out front and gave Brent a little break. I wish he hadn't though as the pace went through the roof! We were at 43 mph and we had dropped everyone. I held on for another mile or so and finally I fell off too. I watched them trade pulls until they were out of sight. Man,they were moving! Brent said I wasn't that far back but I think he was just being nice. John came in about 10 minutes behind me and Cynthia a few minutes later. She's the smart one of our group as she's very cautious and doesn't take chances. 

Now we are at Angeles Oaks and as all roadies know it's complete downhill all the way from here to the finish line. Brent and I went out hard again and we were hauling butt. We came around a bend and a group of motorcyclists didn't look as they pulled out and we ended up in between them. Brent worked his way through them and went out front then worked his way over. I was braking but seen a hole and went for it. We were probably traveling about 40 mph when this happened. The guy in the middle apologized but it was scary. From here on we flat out went for it until we hit the turn for Forest Falls. Brent came back around me to take the lead again and I jumped on his wheel. He just coasted, never pedaled the whole way down and yet we were hitting speeds of 36 mph. I just stayed there and smiled all the way down. This area is called Damnation Alley but I don't think of it that way, hell, I even like climbing it. 

We got to the finish line and John and Cynthia came in about 15 minutes later. John said this was the hardest ride he's ever done and Cynthia who just a few weeks ago did a double century with us (Davis Double) that had about the same climbing said she was more tired from this one. I think we were all a little whipped but we knew what we were in for. I personally like this route over the one they usually do and I hope they keep it this way. 

So, I'm happy with getting another tough one done but now comes the biggest ride of the year for us. 300 miles in one day, the Grand Tour Triple. Oh man, what am I doing?


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## Cni2i (Jun 28, 2010)

Great write-up and summary. :thumbsup: Hoping to be ready for this ride next year.


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## rward325 (Sep 22, 2008)

Nice report, I will live vicariously through you .


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## Brandon351 (Oct 28, 2010)

Great post.


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