All posts by Mike

3rd 100+ mile ride in 4 weeks but that’s not the story?

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

This was not supposed to be the ride’s main story
Not quite the Father’s Day ride I’d planned. Trying to get ready for France so Kevin and I have been putting in longer Sunday rides; in fact, 3 of the 4 past rides have been 112 miles each, variations on Redwood City/Santa Cruz loops.

Normally today’s story would have been about the unexpected (and very unwelcome!) head & cross-winds heading down the coast. Almost all the way to Davenport was quite a slog, and even the normally wind-protected run through the valleys on Gazos Creek found us in an adversarial position w/regards the wind. It’s almost never the case you have a headwind going to Santa Cruz; last time I remember was many, many, MANY years ago, on a Western Wheeler’s “workers ride” and suffered a pretty fierce headwind the entire way down to Santa Cruz. This wasn’t as bad as that, but it did take a lot of the fun out of it, with Kevin wondering… why?

But everything got turned inside-out a bit when, two miles out of Santa Cruz, a rather large screw found its way into my rear tire, puncturing the tire, tube, and rim strip. Would have possibly wrecked the carbon rim too, except that somehow it happened to find it’s way through the rimstrip exactly where the rim was drilled for a spoke. One stroke of good luck anyway! But how do you manage a field repair like that? In particular, the hole in the rim strip, which would have allowed the tube to puncture when air was put in? For the tire damage, that’s easy, the usual dollar bill placed between the damaged part of the tire and the tube. But to prevent the tube from blowing down through the rimstrip was a bit tougher. But hey, this is America, the roadsides are littered with trash, and I found a discarded ketchup packet that could be wrapped around the entire tube, protecting it from the hole! I felt pretty good about that.

And felt even better when I remembered Epicenter Bike Shop was just a couple miles down the road, so we could pick up some spare tubes and a couple CO2 cartridges. What I wasn’t thinking about was that the tubes in my pack have been there FOR YEARS and the first one I tried had a hole in it and lost air as quickly as it went in. Thus one CO2 cannister wasted. The second tube *seemed* OK.

After visiting Epicenter (a great shop, by the way), we headed got back to business, using a much nicer routing to Scotts Valley than before. Prettier, less convoluted, and with a real climb in the middle, not those annoying little things you can’t get a rhythm on. Life was good. We skipped coffee, but picked up water, a Coke for Kevin, Mtn Dew for me, a pair of snickers bars (for Kevin) and Paydays (for me). The Coke and Mtn Dew were being saved for the top of Mtn Charlie, since it’s a very long run from Scotts Valley to… well, there’s noplace else you can buy anything for the rest of the ride!

Kevin was feeling a lot better on Summit (which becomes Skyline) than he did a couple weeks ago. Maybe not as good as me; I get stronger as the ride goes on, opposite of Kevin, but he was doing well. And everything was going well, all the way to the fire station at Saratoga Gap, where I noticed my rear tire was really, really low. I inflated it back up with a CO2 cartridge, but by the time we got to the scenic overlook just north of Page Mill, it was almost flat again. So the second tube also had a hole, although obviously much smaller. Replaced it with one of the new tubes we’d picked up and all was good the rest of the ride.

Not sure what we’ll be doing next week. We leave for France Thursday, July 9th, so we have two weeks left to get in shape. Maybe time to do a Santa Cruz loop using Soquel/San Jose road? Haven’t done that in a long time!

Sub-30 Kings monkey off my back

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Fake news? No, it’s real. I really did get to the top ahead of Kevin & Colin today.
To be truthful, I wasn’t feeling it this morning. Those first few pedal strokes past my driveway and I was thinking, this could be a long day. That feeling didn’t change as Kevin, Colin and I started our way up Kings; I told Kevin he might not want to wait for me. But, I had something going for me I didn’t think about. It was a bit warmer than usual this morning. 55-57 degrees, and there’s no question I breathe better when it’s not too cold. Kevin was leading me out on the first part of the climb and, hearing how hard I was breathing, asked if I was ok. Um, yeah, right, like I’m ever ok when the road tilts upward? But our time at the first hairpin was looking pretty good, so I decided what the heck, just keep going. By the park entrance I was seeing indications it was possible, not likely, but possible I could get under 30 minutes. It’s just under a third of the way to the top, so still plenty of time to collapse, but you have to try.

Kevin at this point dropped off to check on Colin, and rode the rest of the way up with him. For the most part I kept them in sight; they’d be on the lower side of one of the hairpins while I’d be on the upper. At the wide-open clearing, with 1.41 miles to go, I was just under 20 minutes. Just. Like 19:58 or so. That 1.41 miles to go sign is exactly 2/3rds of the way up, time-wise, if you don’t crack. Hate it when it’s so close, because it takes so little to lose those few seconds. But the final hairpin, where you need at least 4 minutes, 30 seconds in your pocket to make it up under 30… I had almost exactly 4 minutes, 30 seconds.

Every pedal stroke counts; you can’t waste anything. You become a slave to the power meter, focusing on the watts and not how hard it feels. There will often be times a given gear might feel harder, standing might feel harder than sitting, and you think, incorrectly, that feeling harder means going faster. Don’t believe it; watch the power meter and find a gear and style that gives more watts. Don’t look at speed either. Just watts. There is no escaping physics; more watts = higher speed, and do you really have a clue whether a particular piece of road requires 9.3 or 8.7mph to get the job done?

You get to that final road sign, the yellow warning sign, and know that, if you’re flying, it’s less than 30 seconds to the top. I think I was there with about 40 seconds to go, and finished just 2-5 seconds under 30 (depending which version of the Kings segment on Strava you use). Considering that I thought I’d be fighting for 35 minutes today, I felt pretty good about that, and pretty surprised it was almost two minutes later before Kevin and Colin rolled up.

So maybe I’ll survive in France next month. Maybe Kevin won’t be totally frustrated having to wait for me on the big climbs. Or… not. Fortunately, in the Pyrenees, you don’t get many of the super-long climbs that would likely do me in. The closest to what would be the norm in the Alps might be the Tourmalet, which is “only” 19km (11 miles) on the Lourdes side, 2km shorter on the other. And it’s the Tourmalet that was the scene of one of my biggest failures, a climb from the “shorter” side that had me suffering badly from heat exhaustion, having to make frequent stops in the shade on the way up. It was also the site of one of my best recoveries, as I was flying down the other side, pulling a long line of cyclists behind me, and drilling it on the flat sections, strongly enough that nobody was able to pull around me.

I’ll be ready.