Copyright 1995 David E. Cortesi
This is a short story of an ordinary ride. I'm posting it because, one, there have been too few stories posted lately, and if I post a boring one, perhaps you'll post an interesting one to show me up; and two, it was my longest ride ever and I want to brag on it.The goal was to ride from my home in Palo Alto to Paul Sadoff's house in Santa Cruz, which would entail about 100 miles and two crossings of the Coast Range. Some people might call the 2500' Coast Range pretty poor stuff in the mountain line, but it's all I have at hand. Anyway, you can cross entire states and some nations without climbing anything higher.
Sunday morning was thickly overcast and cold, but the forecast was for clearing, although -- as the weather service said in an unusual burst of colorful writing -- the temperature would "struggle to reach 50F by mid-day." I donned several layers of clothing but took only fingerless gloves. Big mistake!
The crest of the range is 12 miles west and 2400' up from my house, although most of the ascent is in the final 6 miles. It always takes me 90 minutes (which is truly pathetic, hemiplegics in wheelchairs can do it faster). Half-way up I was in the clouds. At the top I put back on my middle layer, a long-sleeved jersey, and started down. This road has an abominable surface at any time but the winter rains have made it worse. At two points, large redwood trees (more than 4' thick at the butt) had fallen across the road and later been cut up, heaps of sawdust and great rounds of wood by the road.
Because of the rough, steep, descent I had to keep my bare fingers wrapped around the brake levers the whole way, and the damp cold wind was freezing! It was awful! Twice I stopped to breath on my fingertips and whimper pathetically, like the Poor Little Match Girl.
But at the bottom, approaching Pescadero village through farmland, the clouds opened up and blew off to the east, leaving the sky clear. For the 3 miles from Pescadero to the beach the road took me straight into a spanking breeze out of the NW, but then I could turn south on the coastal highway.
The next 25 miles were truly wonderful cycling. The sky was clear except for the heaped-up front to the East. The land was bright green everywhere. The Pacific was green inshore, shading to cobalt at the horizon. The surf was dazzling. Gulls and brown pelicans did slow aerobatics in the wind. Auto traffic was light, everyone home eating Easter Sunday dinner no doubt. And the wind! At one point I was pedalling in dead still air at 18mph. It was one of those times you know why you keep doing this stuff.
In Santa Cruz, Paul wasn't home. The idea had been to show him how the Rock Lobster frame he'd made looked as a finished bicycle. But we'd only made contact by alternating voice mail messages, and apparently he had not come back from a long training ride he'd planned in the Carmel Valley. So after an unexciting lunch at a Taco Bell stand, I started home. The route now was unimaginative, straight up route 9, a two lane road that connects several small mountain villages to Silicon Valley. I took it because I knew the forest would shelter me from what was now a head wind, and it did.
The emotional nadir of the ride came on this stretch, in a 10-mile, 2000-foot ascent through pleasant but uninteresting scenery. Mile 90 for the day came somewhere on this ascent and it all seemed too much. I found myself chanting the Mile 90 Mantra: "I'll Get There When I Get There, I Just...Don't...Care." It has a rhythm that fits nicely to a weary 80rpm cadence.
But at the top of Saratoga Gap you are rewarded with a fast, smooth descent on which you can just about keep up with auto traffic. I'm not a great descender -- two other cyclists passed me on this stretch -- but the rest, and the adreniline rush from dicing with the sunday traffic, restored my energy and spirits. The rest of the way home on familiar streets went amazingly fast, considering how I'd felt only an hour before.
Distance: 119.1 miles
Climbing: 7,100 feet (How can people stand the metric system? All that work and less than 2,200 to show for it!)
Total time: 10.5 hours
Rolling average: 13.5 mph (with which I was quite well pleased, thank you)
Drink: 4 big bottles of sports stuff, a carton of chocolate milk, and a medium Dr. Pepper at the Taco Bell.
Food: A huge fresh sticky cinnamon roll in Pescadero, yum, a light bean burrito at T.B., several ounces of trail mix, 2 power bars, another candy bar.