It was an agonizingly long day-- a Wednesday -- for him when he bought the bike because he still had to work. But as soon as he got home, after Mango inspected it, he went out for a night ride.

On Friday morning, I offered to go to Skeggs with him early morning before work to take some action shots. Well, it was a misty day. At the famous, photogenic 180 degree turn on Manzanita Trail, this is all I could get:

But the mist seems to add some special effect that we normally don't get. I call it a mysterious feel like this one on Lower Fir:

Even though there was no standing mud puddle at all, the soil got just enough moisture that it was most sticky. After the ride, I gave the Tallboy a sponge bathe (and did not miss any skin) to get rid of the mud. It took me half an hour!

On Thanksgiving Day, a beautiful sunny but crisp day, we went back to Skeggs for a short ride before heading over to our friends' place for dinner. I did get a clean shot at the 180 degree turn, but I'm not Charlie, so the photo left a lot to be desired.

The short ride turned out to be not so short after all. Erik got obsessed with helping a fellow rider fixing his broken chain (we didn't have any power link or connection pin). Took a while, but it was a success story in the end.

On our way home, I told Erik that we should just leave the bikes in my CR-V since we would be going to Coe for a ride the next day. We should just take his FIT to go to the party. He protested.

E: I don't want to leave the bike in the car over night all dark, cold, and lonely...
M: Don't worry, my FTM will be in there as company. Think about it, it'll be cozy. How does that song go? "Just you and me..." Maybe in the middle of the night, the car will start rocking.... hahaha...
E: ...Then someday, we might end up having a 20" BMX bike. Okay!
M: Hmmm... wouldn't that be cute?

P.S. We went to Henry Coe the next day. Charlie, along with many others, was there to take real photos. More details are coming up in my next post...

Read their accounts here: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=665755 !!!

I had been off my bike for a while because I was completely absorbed in my new job. When I was not thinking about work, I was obsessed with the kitchen remodeling idea that came up a little while ago and had been having fun doing researches on that. But today, after I saw their reports on MTBR, I rushed out the door. Erik and I did a quick ride at Skeggs — still had chores to do before dark to get ready for another busy work week. The condition of the trails we got on (Manzanita, Lower Steam Donkey, Giant Salamander, Lower Fir *gulp*, Resolution, ECdM, etc) was just perfect — tacky and mud free! I wish it could stay like this forever!

So, here… here is the ride:

Oops, wrong link. It was THEIR Hard COEre 100! (I accidentally stole it from Patrick's Garmin Connect.)

And here… here is MY ride:

A few days ago after our last weekend's ride, Skyline35/Charlie brought up this Everything Skeggs (aka All of Skeggs) ride, conceived by Biking Brazilian. I tried, but couldn't get the idea out of my mind even though that meant I had to say to Erik that I would not go diving with him and his friend, a plan they made a while back. However, when I tried to recruit riding partners, the friends I asked all gave legit reasons not to do this ride, or not to do this ride with me on this day. (And ratpick/Patrick beat me to it by three days.) Fine, I'll with just ride with me and myself then!

I started the ride at a crack 'o dawn 9:27am. Okay, "crack 'o dawn" was the plan and 9:27am was reality. That's okay, riding solo, I'd like to wait for the mountain lions to have been fed before I get on the trails. The rest of the ride all followed the plans perfectly though. The plans are:

• Do not crash.
• Do not have major mechanical issues. Flats are always a time sink.
• Do not cramp.
• Do not bonk.
• Do not get lost.

I did have one moment of scare though. That was when I was flying down ECdM trail with only about three miles to go near the end of the ride. I turned around a corner and suddenly saw a rider coming up. I braked hard and the almost bare rear tire skidded a little. Then I wanted to pull over to the side to let him by. That was when I still had a little speed and a root that stuck out of the wall on the side that I didn't notice clipped my handle bar. My bike twitched and started tipping towards the cliff side. I can't count how many times I had tipped over because I couldn't clip out, but luckily this was not one of them. I managed to got my feet on the ground before the bike went over the cliff. Whew! I immediately did a head check -- I had been riding very conservatively the whole ride and I would not screw up in the end!

I could feel my thighs threatening to seize up from time and time and I was always able to back off just in time to prevent it from cramping up. I made sure to keep drinking my sports drinks and ate quite a bit during my breaks. I did not get that noodly legs feeling throughout the ride. Whoohoo!

Not getting lost. Well, I know the place well enough not to get lost. But what I really needed was to follow the route religiously so I would not leave any segments out because that would have not been All of Skeggs. I did over shoot Timberview on its out and back (went about 0.15 miles too far before turning around). That turned the GPS (Garmin Edge 305) "Do Course" feature useless (a bug in the software), and that was only 5 miles into the ride. However, instead of reading the directions at every intersection, I was able to keep moving most of the time. Here is my secret (click to see the full size):

As you can see, I broke the route into a few fairly simple segments. Every time I just needed to remember the segment I was doing. It worked pretty well for me because otherwise my stop time would have been more, but instead my over all time was less than seven hours.

I was amazed how well thought out this route was. It tackles the most difficult climb (Lower Fir) and the most challenging trail (S. Leaf) in the early stage of the ride. The more into the ride, assuming the more tired you are, the less technical the riding gets. Not only that, it covers all the most popular trails such as Manzanita, Steam Donkey, Blue Blossom, Resolution, and Giant Salamander in their "correct" direction. The only modification I made was I did the out and back on Spring Board Trail right after Blue Blossom before exiting CM06 so that I knew once I took a break at CM06, what was left for me (about 16 miles) would be mostly just fun downhills and easy uphills.

I ran into two friends with their respective groups on the ride. At two occasions, different riders (spartan23 and Neela from MTBR) recognized me from the MTBR posts and we had nice chats. Neela made a comment that he saw my ride last week (in this MTBR thread) that was just ridiculous. I made a mental note not to say anything about the ride I was doing. Another thing that made me happy was I was able to give directions to a few people on the ride off the top of my head. Glad to put my knowledge about Skeggs to use! It was embarrassing though when I kept running into the same groups a few times because I was doing a lot of out and backs (in the south east quarter). They must have thought I was weird.

For the last third of the ride, I had the GPS on map mode. I didn't want to know the time because I didn't want to worry about it. Figured I would just ride based on how I felt. I cheered out loud when I got back to the car and saw that my ride took less than seven hours. That was a whole hour shorter than I had expected. Yeee ha!

Now, this ride had officially made my Skeggs Ride Collection. For details of the ride (directions and map), please see that page.

P.S.

A year+ later, I uploaded the ride to Strava.

1. Descender's Delight ride (~20 miles)
2. Replenish at the car ...
3. Perimeter ride clockwise: Sierra Morena, Whole Steam Donkey, Blue Blossom or Spring Board, Lawrence, V Mill, S+N Leaves, ECdM) (est. ~14 mi)
4. Replenish at the car, and if time and energy allows...
5. Perimeter ride CCW: ECdM, N+S Leaves, V Mill, Lawrence, BB, Crosscut, Gordon Mill, Sierra Morena, est. ~13mi)

But ratpick, Skyline35, and ElHombre (those were MTBR handles) bought the idea. The ride was on! For Saturday morning.

Yeah, I know, I just did that Descender's Delight ride last Sunday, but it was an extremely drizzly and overcast day so my GPS lost satellite reception a few times on the ride. The track came out looking jaggy. I had to do it again just to get the track right!

ElHombre even brought his friend Tom along. I gave the duo an earful of my wish list for mtbguru.com because they are the ones responsible for any feature that's missing or not working on that site. (Oh, who cares about the stuff that works!)

I usually offered to let all the guys go ahead on the downhills. Lucky for me that even though the weather was hot and the trails were dry, the dust kicked up was not too bad -- I'd seen much worse in Oregon.  It cracked me up every time when I saw two or three cameras already out by the time I got to the bottom -- I didn't know which one to pose to!!!

Tom was the first one we lost on the ride. He took the Bail Trail while the rest the group took Manzanita. When we got to the bottom of Resolution, we were faced with a dilemma, "should we do the North Leaf loop or not?" In Skyline35's words, "we would be going up and down N. Leaf and S. Leaf all day on the perimeter rides, so there is not much point in doing it now." It made a lot of sense, but the group did not move. Since ElHombre knew that he could not join either of the perimeter ride, we headed for N. Leaf against all senses (just for him).

"Well, since we are already here (at the end of N. Leaf), there is not much point in skipping the new connector on South Leaf." Guess who said that? Skyline35! So we extended the Delight ride a little more.

I can't believe we spent an hour replenishing at the parking lot after the Descender's Delight ride! Although he couldn't join the next perimeter ride, ElHombre was in no rush in getting to his errands. It was a fun chat that seemed to have ended to soon. When ElHombre drove away, the remaining three of us rolled out of the parking lot again... on our bikes. For whatever reason, we decided to do the perimeter ride in the counter clockwise direction first.

Fun was had on ECdM, N. Leaf, and then the new connector on S. Leaf (again). Suddenly, the ride changed temper on the remaining 4/5 of S. Leaf -- narrow with a lot of very steep ups and downs. All of us had our share of pushing the bike. We crossed path with a group among whom one rider clipped a tree and slid down with his bike to at least 50 feet below. He did not seem injured because the steep bank was covered with very loose sand-like soil. We didn't stay to watch, but I would think for him to get back up to the trail with the bike had to be a taxing feat.

Skyline35 was happy when I had to spend almost 10 minutes at the end of N. Leaf to deal with my dried up contact lens that fell out (but was not lost). So, later when ratpick had a chainsuck incident,  it was quite a disappointment to him when the issue fixed itself within a few seconds -- "ohh... I was just going to sit down!"  He was heard a few times asking us very attentively, "Is your contact lens still okay? You sure your chain is fine and you don't need to fiddle with it?"  The answers were always disappointing, so we kept rolling. After the descent on Virginia Mill Trail to the lowest point (<800 miles), we climbed >1000' in the next 2.5 miles until we got to the top (south end) of Blue Blossom. That was brutal!!! Skyline35 claimed that his legs had turned into noodles and was going to take the road back. Now, we were down to two.

I didn't think climbing Steam Donkey would be a good idea (esp on a weekend), so after Blue Blossom and Spring Board, we took Gordon Mill all the way to Sierra Morena. By that time, my legs had turned into noodles too, but a slice of ratpick's biscotti and a gel pack did wonder instantly. I actually was able to hammer back to the car via Sierra Morena.

Already 6pm, we did not have enough time for the other perimeter ride. That meant... dinner at Alice's!

On Sunday, between chores and errands, I managed to squeeze in a quick ride at Skeggs. The route was no other than the clockwise perimeter ride. Whew, mission accomplished!

Looking back, I had done following rides in the past two weekends in a row. I guess I just like Skeggs this much! Actually, these rides were all for a silly project of mine. Click on the following images to see what it is.

P.S. The related MTBR thread with pictures!

E: Okay, I'm going in to work now. What are you going to do?
M: I don't know. *pout*
E: Go for a ride or hike. Something. Anything. Just make sure you get out. Otherwise, I'll sleep at work and won't come home.
M: Haha, you can't handle me after having stayed at home all day, huh? But hiking is too slow, and it's too much hassle to go for a ride. You ride for one hour, but the drive takes at least one hour, and then the shower, laundry, and bike cleaning… Argh, too much overhead!
E: Then ride for more than one hour! But I know how it is. You'll go for a ride and then tell me you've been home all day just so I won't come home…
M: Hahaha… (thinking to self, that's a great idea!)

Taking his advice, I went for a ride at Skeggs. We are so lucky to live so close. (I mentioned this to our friend Stephen. I must be getting old now because driving seems like a big deal.) Typical of this time of the year, Skyline Blvd was engulfed in the fog and the windshield wiper had to be turned on. The drizzles became rain drops under the big trees. Some sections of the trails were a bit wet, but the ground was not saturated yet, so it was still rare to find a standing mud puddle.

Today, I had in mind a ride I call a Descender's Delight. It was a ride posted by MrCrash on MTBR.  I remember I laughed when I first saw his route — it had to have taken some brain power to come up with this route that does almost all the main trails in the "right" direction. Usually, you can go both ways on a singletrack, and inevitably, there is one direction in which it feels easier (usually means downhill) than in the other, which inevitably becomes the "right" direction — the preferred way by most. This route covers Sierra Morena, Blue Blossom, Steam Donkey, Manzanita, Giant Salamander, Resolution, and North Leaf in their "right" direction (going downhill) and has uphill all on smooth fire roads or singletracks. What an ingenious idea! I had to give it a go.

The route did turn out to be loads of fun. Yesterday, I did a 11 mile ride at Skeggs, but it involved climbing Manzanita. I climbed it well (only came off once near the top of the north side rock garden), but technical ascent seemed to have taken a lot out of me — I felt beat at the end. To the contrary, I felt strong the whole way today because all the climbing was relaxing and all the downhill was simply joyful. That was interesting. Riding solo, I didn't have to take many stops, but I did stop and chatted with a couple of random groups at some intersections and with Charles from Passion Trail before I rolled back to my car.

I was bummed that the GPS reception was so poor in the dense fog that I lost satellite reception quite a few times. Because of that, each missing section shows up as a straight line in the track, and the moving time was rubbish (the real moving time was close to 3 hours). One of these days, when it's clear, I'll have to do the route again just so that I get a better GPS track!

The overhead of this ride was higher than I had feared. Even though the trails were not as muddy as they could be, the surface got wet enough to be sticky. My bike was covered in mud by the end. I spent an hour washing it. When I was done, it was almost dark. The phone rang, and it was from Erik.

E: So, what did you do today?
M: Me? Oh, nothing. I sat in the couch all day…

Hey, he planted the idea in my head — Inception!

Last Saturday was the get-together with Sean and Stephen and their families. Sean and Jennifer hosted the gathering at their place in Santa Cruz. Our host took Stephen, Erik, and me on a ride from his house to UCSC and Wilder. Following a local through UCSC was a bonus and some secrete trails were explored. For that reason, the track is not to be posted. Just trust me, it was fun! Sean put Stephen on his 29er hardtail. Later Stephen's wife told us that after they returned home, Stephen was heard murmuring "I'm not joining the 29er cult, I'm NOT joining the 29er cult, I'm NOT joining…" He seems to be trying pretty hard there.

We enjoyed the potluck while watching the movie Ratatouille projected on a screen in Sean's backyard. I don't know how I had missed this movie before, but it was a great one for all ages to enjoy.

Erik and I didn't get home until almost midnight after the party and that warranted sleeping in the next day. We went for a quick ride at Skeggs. Despite having all the intention of recording our ride on my GPS (for a project of mine), I forgot to bring the GPS with me. We enjoyed the ride regardless.

Fast forward…

A week passed, and it was Saturday again. This time, Erik was on call. Geared up to do the yard work, he pushed me out of the door to go for a ride. I followed the ride recommended on Passion Trail Bikes' website. Short, but loaded with goodies.

The yard looked neat when I got home. After washing up, we went to Downtown Redwood City. We had a delightful dinner at Citrine Bistro before the much anticipated movie, Inception. Wow, that movie was intense! Next day, I forgot what Erik and I were talking about and suddenly he asked, "how do you know we are not in a dream?" My answer to him, "Maybe we are! But if we are stuck in this layer, we just have to live it."

BTW, he did manage his version of Inception. See my next blog post.

- Are those the same MidPen rangers I saw earlier working some heavy equipments on Skyline? Oh, yeah, and they waved at me again! Oh earlier, a young lady ranger I rode by at Russian Ridge said to me she wish she had been doing what I was doing. Friendly rangers like them make me smile. Life is good!

… A while later …

- Are these still my legs, or are they just wet noodles? I just got down from Kings Mountain Road and now I'm on a flat road, but there is no power coming from my legs. Weird sensation — it feels itchy deep inside, but there is no way for me to get relief. All I can do is shift to low gear and let the pedals take my feet around. 5mph on Canada Road. Good grief! Hey, did someone walking just pass me? Oh, a rollerblader. But, still… how pathetic I am!

- I felt hungry when I was climbing up Purisima Creek, but couldn't eat my last powerbar because it felt like too much effort. Now, I'm on Edgewood Rd, and my stomach is feeling funny. Am I going to vomit? Okay, take two sips of water, but no more. I hope these are not the last two sips in my Camelbak.

- I'm not holding a straight line. I can't! Thank god, Crestview Drive is an extremely wide street. What's happening with my vision? I'm having blackouts! Are my eyes closing on their own, like those of the drivers falling asleep behind their wheels? Shake my head, and now shake harder. Wake up, Mei!

- Still on Crestview Dr… Oh, there, someone just existed his house and is on his driveway. Should I just collapse right in front of him? I can't go on any longer. He'll see me, and then he'll come to my rescue. All the ordeals will be over. But how do I collapse? Just stop pedaling and fall to the side? On this pavement, that'll hurt and probably break some skin. Or, should I dismount, lay the bike down first, and then lie down? The technicalities are making my head ache. Rat, that driveway is behind me now and I have missed my best chance to collapse. But I have just reached the top of the crest.

- Yet still on Crestview Dr… I just summoned all I had to top out on this crest, and guess what I see? Another steep pitch and another crest in front of me! I want to cry, but without anybody seeing me cry, what's the point?

- Finally, I'm in Water Dog park, a place I'm familiar with. I'm on a flat section on Rambler. I should be cruising, but why is my bike bouncing from side to side? Did I leave my fork locked out? No. Why on earth can I not hold my line even on the flat trail? My arms are still with me, but have they turned into wet noodles too? Oh boy, something is wrong with me!

- This section of Rambler Trail in front of me is a steep chute. There is an easy way around it, but I think the Tour route goes down the chute. I can't modify the route to make it easier after having almost killed myself to follow 96% of the route. I've gotta go down it even if it means death. I will take it slow and I will concentrate. I will concentrate really really hard. Here I go… Whew, I'm at the bottom of the chute now, and I can hardly believe that I have survived!

- What a relief, I'm back at the car! Every part of my body is hurting now. I'm walking to the gym to wash up. Sheesh, I can't even walk a straight line. People must think I'm drunk!

- Meeting Erik for dinner in my favorite little Taiwanese restaurant, I'm having my usual order. Well, usually, I can finish my plate very fast, but today, after not having eaten a meal all day, I find myself full after eating only a third of the plate. That does not make sense at all! Did I lose my appetite somewhere on the trails? Okay, force feeding time…

- My head feels warm and my brain feels swollen. It reminds me the only time back in the college days when I finished a whole glass of beer. Am I drunk without having drunk anything?

You've guessed it — all those were what went through my mind at different times of the day. Erik told me at the dinner that many of those observations were signs of "bonking." I had heard the word and I thought I knew what it meant, but my appreciation for that word was taken to a whole new level after this ride.

It was a Friday, but I had to take the vacation day off because of the overflowing accrual. When I woke up to the birds singing outside of the window, I sensed that it would be a good day for some unfinished business of mine. It had been bugging me that I had to bail out of the MTB Tour de Peninsula because of bad timing. The only way to get it over with would be just do it. I had not been doing any long rides for a long while, but maybe that would change starting from this one.

The tour would take me through a few popular parks and Open Space Preserves on the Peninsula: Belmont Water Dog park, Windy Hill, Coal Creek , Monte Bello, Stevens Creek, Long Ridge, Skyline Ridge, Russian Ridge, El Corte de Madera aka Skeggs or ECdM, Purisima Creek, and back to Water Dog. 85.4 miles and 10hr 20min later, I could say this was by far my toughest ride –  tougher than my Death Ride (125mi/15000') and tougher than the 8.5 hr non-stop pedaling on the dirt at last years Boggs IV (~72mi/8000').

And it was all of my own making…

When I started the ride, I had my small Camelbak water bladder (2L) filled with plain water and a small water bottle filled with sports drink. In contrary to my belief that real food is essential (for the rider's sanity at least) on long rides, I packed six Powerbars. Well, I did pack $20 because I knew I would be going through Skylonda (@ Hwy 84 & 35). There is a deli in the market. Erik and I ate there on the Valentine's Day and it was memorable. However, somewhere along the ride, I decided not to stop, not for food and not even for water. Obviously, I was already not thinking straight, but nobody was there to tell me that. I think it was partly because my lower back started hurting 20 miles into the ride, and almost at the same time, side stitches set in on the right side of my tummy. Due to the discomfort, I just wanted to get the ride done as soon as possible. I ate all my bars (except that last one which I didn't have the energy to eat) while pedaling. I sucked my water dry just after exiting Water Dog, but that was after having been seriously rationing my water intake the whole way.

I would like to argue that I was not completely insane though. For example, I would never consider pushing my limit like this risking dehydration and bonking at Henry Coe. I do feel lucky that I survived my experiment and walked away with some new knowledge. Regrettably, I had to cancel my plan to go to Henry Coe for trail work the next day because it required a long ride in and out, but my seat bones refused to reconcile with my saddle. Instead, I attended the trail work at Water Dog. Swinging McClouds and axes used different muscles, for the most part.

Links:

Event site: MTB Tour de Peninsula

MTB: What a fun ride — 2010 Tour de Penisula (again)

MTBR thread: 1st annual MTB tour de Peninsula? (In the 1st year, it seems that besides the person who set this ride up, nobody finished the route — not counting my two solo rides. Not sure if that's still the case to this day or not. Would like to see others' experience with the ride.)

GPS tracking sites (each has its own winning points):

• Garmin connect (Playback feature, Send to Device )
• Plus3Network (Send to Device, Comments) — The ride earned $1.02 for the Breast Cancer Foundation
• MTBGuru (Photos positioned on the route, various file formats for downloading)

The bike lying down at her first short rest, at CM08 exiting Skeggs:

The beginning and the end:

P.S. MTB: What a fun ride — 2010 Tour de Penisula (again)

I rode Old La Honda with other Low Key climbers. My personal best on it so far (before today) is 21:50. That was on a Wednesday after work in May. The condition must have been great because Erik got his personal best on that ride too (20:58). I was hoping to improve on this ride because I would be "racing" with other riders. (Come on, we all know that the Low Key riders are competitive.) Beautiful weather and the test piece hill climb brought around 150 riders out. I saw a few acquaintances mostly from last year's Low Key series.  I was happy to see Krishna out there. He is a fellow mountain biker, an extremely talented and strong one.  He is riding for Team Mud 'n Crud. I only wish he could do more of these climbs in the series, but I understand that it coincides with the cyclocross season, in which he excels too. Anyway, I was just happy to see him out on this ride. I was also happy to see Janet Martinez. She is a very strong road rider (2nd place last year over all) and she is always smiling. I heard that she had an accident earlier this year and got injured, so it was good to see that she is back on the bike (and later found out that she was still riding strong).  When I told her that I had been riding my mountain bike mostly, she exclaimed, "ahhh… cross training…" I laughed and said to her, "I guess only a roadie looks at it that way." And I guess I'm not a roadie. (Just for the record: I have nothing against roadies though.)

Due to the narrow road on OLH and the size of the group, we were sent out 10-15 at a time. The organizers suggested riders to look around and see who might ride at the same pace and join them. Hmmm… that's a little risky, isn't it? I don't want to offend people, you know. Then I got an idea. I found Janet and asked her what her targeted time was, she said with a smile, "Oh, if I break 23, I'll be happy." Considering my last time on it was 22+ minutes, that's about where I was, so I happily stood next to her.  When our group got sent out, I sprinted together with the group (on the initial less steep part), but very soon, most of the group pulled away from me including Janet after she uttered encouragement to me. It took me a while to settle into my own rhythm. I didn't feel fast, but I felt the work — I was panting most of the time. Passed a couple of Low Key riders and got passed by a couple. When I topped out, I had 21:48 on my GPS. (The Low Key has 21:53 for me due to some  inevitable timing overhead in the group setting.) A mere 2 second improvement. And I was dying! At the food and water stop at the top, I chatted with Krishna. He rode a stunning 17:09!!! And he was not even breathing hard while I was hacking. (Granted, he had 5+ minutes of rest on me already.)

After I wrapped up with the roadies (Krishna is an exception), I went over to Skeggs. Since I forgot my camelpack at home, it was just a small , but fun, loop for me. Ran into the MTBR group on Manzanita and later caught the tail end after Methuselah. And at the end of my ride, ran into Josh (ROMP) and his wife Joe (spell?). We talked pedals and bikes (Blue LTc!) I went home with a big grin on my face because I didn't have to choose between road and MTB — I rode both.

My road ride:

My MTB ride:

And here is a picture on OLH by Dan Tylayco.

P.S. It turned out that I got the 2nd place in Women's Category on OLH today. Cool! Here is the Results page from the Low Key site.

Skeggs:

Despite having ridden there for years, Jeanne still gets lost there. So, I was the guide and the route setter. It was a route we both enjoyed because it covered most of the classic trails such as Steam Donkey, Manzanita, Blue Blossom, Giant Salamander, and Resolution.

Distance (mi) 16.1
Total Ascent (ft) 3302
Moving Time 02h 32m 32s
Stopped Time 00h 06m 15s
Average Speed (mph) 6.1
Average Moving Speed (mph) 6.3

Wilder & UCSC:

This is Jeanne's territory. I just followed her. I can see why it's her favorite place to ride now. It's indeed a fun place to ride with very little mandatory suffering.

Distance (mi) 19.5
Total Ascent (ft) 2144
Moving Time 02h 30m 48s
Stopped Time 00h 07m 46s
Average Speed (mph) 7.4
Average Moving Speed (mph) 7.7

Kennedy Trail:

I had heard so much about this trail. So, when I drove through Los Gatos, I suddenly decided to get off and go check it out. It was not "right off the highway" as I had thought, so when I finally got to the gate, I thought I had to ride it since I had come a long way. I could feel it in my legs the two days of riding, but I wasn't planning on setting any record anyway although it was my PR because this was my first time on it. Just wanted to get an idea what the trail was about. It turned out easier than I expected — easier than some climbs in Henry Coe that is. I was able to maintain a low heart rate almost the whole way up, and even "the wall" at the top was not too bad compared to some walls else where. But at 3.9 miles long, it can make a great training ride for good fitness. We just live too far.

(I accidentally hit the Stop button instead of Lap button when I got to the top, so the GPS only has the climb part, which is all that mattered anyway.)
Distance (mi) 3.9
Total Ascent (ft) 1832
Moving Time 00h 48m 11s
Stopped Time 00h 00m 09s
Average Speed (mph) 4.8
Average Moving Speed (mph) 4.8

Here is my ride track: