Tag Archives: cycling

Hot shakedown ride in France

Tdf trip planning, , , ,
Mont Ventoux from afar. Today we admire it, tomorrow we die!
Mont Ventoux from afar. Why do we admire something that’s going to try to kill us tomorrow?
Kevin recovering from a rough first part of the ride with a coke.
Kevin recovering from a rough first part of the ride with a coke.

First real ride in France down, and a very good thing we got out there. Can you say HOT? This is the South of France, and it’s both hot and windy, the sort of conditions that suck the moisture out of everything, especially you. Which was a bit of a problem for the first half of our ride, because I didn’t think about the fact that Kevin drinks water on a “schedule” which normally means he drinks a lot more than me (I typically don’t drink enough). Today, I went through water almost twice as fast as Kevin, and didn’t realize it until we arrived in Orange, where he felt really bad and had his second seizure of the ride (he’d earlier had one on a not-much-fun busy 4-lane highway where there was fortunately a guard rail that he could hide behind so people didn’t think he was injured and start pulling over to help).

Hot enough that even our bikes needed a break!
Hot enough that even our bikes needed a break!

If it’s hot, drink lots of water. If it’s windy, drink lots of water. If it’s both hot and windy, you really need to watch things carefully and plan on some extra stops along the way. In the SF Bay Area, these aren’t conditions we see very often, if ever. Very good thing we saw them here, today, before taking on something really challenging and stupid, like Mont Ventoux tomorrow. 🙂

Aside from the water issue, which we addressed appropriately on the second half of the ride, it was really nice getting out there today and seeing some different things. I’d wanted, for years, to see the Roman amphitheater in Orange, so that was our destination. Of course, I didn’t think about bringing a lock & cable for the bikes so we could actually see it; we just got to tour the outside. It looks impressive though, so I guess we have to come back here sometime. Orange actually seems like a pretty nice place to stay, definitely preferable to a crowded place like Avignon that isn’t so easy to get around and is kind of industrial once you’re outside the old city walls.

You see it, you just gotta go see it close up. Early remnant of Borg cube?
You see it from a distance, you just gotta go see it close up. Early remnant of Borg cube?

If you look at the Strava map, you’ll see an interesting little jog which was not intentional, but a result of misreading (or not really being able to read at all) my Garmin’s display. Not a bad diversion though; pretty countryside, nice roads. There are definitely more-scenic and less-busy routes to & from Orange than we took though! Specifically, avoid D907 if at all possible. There’s nothing nice to say about it, and there are plenty of alternatives in the area. In our area, the closest thing to it might be Central Expressway. Sure, it will get you there, but it’s not something you’d ever look forward to unless you were in a real hurry and had to take the shortest route. But if life is that much of a bother to you, something you have to hurry through that much, I suspect you’d be in a car and not out riding a bike. 🙂

Andrew Strong like Bull on Sequoia Century

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), , ,

First organized ride in a while, the classic Sequoia Century, put on by our local Western Wheelers club. My son (Kevin) and Andrew from the shop joined me for 100 miles of darned good cycling! The day turned out a lot nicer than forecast; it only got semi-hot (about 90) for the last 10 miles or so, with very mild temps on all of the climbs.

Kevin & Andrew crossing the Bridge of Death on China Grade
Kevin & Andrew crossing the Bridge of Death on China Grade

The climbs? Quite a few of them! Redwood Gulch, Highway 9, China Grade, Tunitas Creek… and then they tossed in some annoying little rollers in the last 5 miles.

Redwood Gulch. Not my favorite, although I think I’m wrong in my assumptions about why. It’s not just that I’ve lost power on the steepest climbs, but more importantly, I have issues on the first climb of the day. I can’t just jump on the bike and climb efficiently (fast) like I used to. But climbs that come later in the day give me much less trouble! So yes, I sucked on Redwood Gulch, but didn’t do all that badly on nearly-as-steep China Grade. And Highway 9 from Waterman Gap to Saratoga Gap? Nailed it. Best time so far by over a minute.

Andrew & Kevin strategizing the attack on the next section of the ride
Andrew & Kevin strategizing the attack on the next section of the ride

What about Andrew? After lunch in LaHonda we had a long drag to the coast, into a stiff headwind. So Andrew goes to the front and pulls. And pulls, And pulls. And keeps on pulling for the longest time, until I start feeling a bit sorry for the guy (guilty, actually) and finally go to the front myself and do a few turns at a pretty high speed, something I wouldn’t have been able to do had Andrew not sheltered us from the wind for so long.

Tunitas was taken at a fairly easy pace, as I enforced a truce… no dropped riders. Actually, the way I put it was that the time would be taken for the 3rd rider crossing the line at the top. Kevin didn’t get it, but Andrew picked up on it immediately. 3 riders, and if the time that counts is rider #3, then it does no good to charge on ahead on your own. 🙂

 

Chain Reaction once again sponsors the "secret" soda stop at the top of Tunitas
Chain Reaction once again sponsors the “secret” soda stop at the top of Tunitas

And at the top of Tunitas came the reward… an ice-cold Mtn Dew, thanks to a local shop (you can figure out who from the sign on the truck in the background) that bought about 900 cans of soda and 400 pounds of ice to keep it nice & cold. And that local shop’s employee, Patrick, who took care of mechanical needs and made sure the tubs were filled with ice & drinks.

There is finally a feeling that I’m not going to fall apart on some of the longer rides in France next month, like I did last year. Looking back on it, it’s possible that the crash I had on my second ride, the one where they guy was flying downhill, lost control in a corner and sent my flying, might have hurt me more than I’d thought. Certainly not as much as it hurt him, since he had to be hauled away in an ambulance! But two fantastic 100+ mile rides on consecutive weekends is a good sign for my immediate future.