- 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

MTBR thread: 1st annual MTB tour de Peninsula?

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:

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:

We parked at Gate PC05 of the Purisima Creek Open Space (i.e. on the Half Moon Bay side).  It was a gradual but continuous hill climb towards El Corte De Madera. Erik found out that his rear brake was gone because the pin that held the lever had fallen out (the second time within the past month, argh!), but he didn’t mention it. I didn’t find out until we already got to Skeggs.  I suggested turning back, but he didn’t want to cut the ride short. Okay, how about you ride my bike and I wait here for you to get the car? Vetoed. Boy, my husband is stobourn! So he did the entire ride without his rear brake. And amazingly he did not go over the bar. What a lucky guy! (Well, he married me! Or, but he married me!)

Route:

Purisima Creek Trail
R: Borden Harch Mill Trail
R: Purisima Creek Trail
Exit Gate PC04
L: Tunitas Creek Road (pavement)
R: Star Hill Road (pavement)
Enter Gate CM07
L: El Corte De Madera Creek Trail
S: Resolution Trail (He session the roots and I watched)
L: Fir Trail
R: Manzanita Trail
R: Timberview Trail (We stopped to admire the Old Growth Redwood)
R: Giant Salamander Trail
R: North Leaf Trail
Exit Gate CM 07
R: Star Hill Road (pavement)
L: Tunitas Creek Road (pavement)
Enter Gate PC04
Purisima Creek Trail
L: Borden Harch Mill Trail (We wanted to save the Purisima Creek Trail for a surprise next time)
L: Purisima Creek Trail

After that, we went for the delicious food at Flying Fish Grill.

That’s the rear brake, on the left because that’s how they run it on motorcycles.

I don’t know Giant Salamander well enough to comment on its re-routing. My main concern is riders can fly fast on it at some of those rolling ups and downs without a good visibility to what’s beyond the next hump. I’m not a fast rider and was still surprised by the two riders standing off the trail when I “flew” by them. I just hope we don’t hear about bad collisions on this trail in the future.  It can be a pretty lucrative place to set up speed traps if the rangers are willing to hike in a bit. Let’s hope they don’t know that.

I took a couple of the photos at the Red Barn on my way home. When I rode to Skeggs from La Honda and back, I kept thinking I would much rather be riding on the dirt in those surreal hills than on this highway where cars kept blasting by me. I’m going to the La Honda Creek Master Plan Project: May 19 Meeting to let them know just that!
Vandalism?

Red Barn on Hwy 84

Maybe someday I can ride over there.

Last time I gave myself an hour and half to ride up to Skeggs from home on my mountain bike. I had time to stop at Alice’s and then do a good stretching session while waiting for Andrew.  With that in mind, I was planning to leave home today at 7am for our 8:30am start time. What I did not factor in was the fact that I have a little cat now; plus, I’m feeding our neighbors’ seven cats.  By the time I left home, it was 7:25am. One good thing though was it was bright enough that I did not need a light.

Driving past me on Skyline (I already told them not to stop for me) when I still had 2 or 3 miles to go, they were sure I would not make it to Skeggs on time. So when I pulled into the parking lot at 8:30 on the nose, certain people were not ready to roll. Hahaha..they were sandbagged!

Let me introduce the group first. I heard the ride was Daryl’s idea. He works at Passion Trail Bikes. I rode with him on some shop rides. He seems to be very popular and every other person we run into on the trails seems to know him. Oh, he rides an Ibis Mojo!!!  Charlie is the ride planner. I first met him on the Henry Coe trail work/ride day and he was pretty much our ride guide that day too. I met Christine also on some PTB shop rides. She is here on vacation from a job overseas. Only a couple of weeks ago, she organized an amazing Skeggs ride on MTBR. And donuts were involved too.  And Mike? Well, I ran into him at a trail intersection last time I rode Skeggs (with Andrew). He recognized me from my MTBR trip reports. I recognized his MTBR handle from many Henry Coe thread and had therefore already classified him as a cool guy before I even met him. He had to peel off for a family function after Manzanita Trail.

According to Charlie, here is the route we took:

Start Skeggs Point » CMØ1 » Fir Trail » Sierra Morena Trail » CMØ4 » Skyline 35 » CMØ4.5 » Steam Donkey Trail » Gordon Mill Trail » Crossover Trail » Crosscut Trail » Timberview Trail » Manzanita Trail » Fir Trail » Resolution Trail » El Corte de Madera Creek Trail » CMØ7 » Star Hill Road » Tunitas Creek Road » PCØ4 » Borden Hatch Mill Trail » Grabtown Gulch Trail » Purisima Creek Trail » PCØ5 » Higgins Purisima Road to Hwy 1, Half Moon Bay » Highway 1 » Coastal trails along the bluff » Kelly Road » Ride around HMB, get lunch » Highway 1 » Higgins Purisima Road » PCØ5 » Purisima Creek Trail » Grabtown Gulch Trail (Charlie only) » Borden Hatch Mill Trail » PCØ4 » Tunitas Creek Road » Star Hill Road » Swett Road » Skyline 35 » Skeggs Point.

Are you some one who like numbers? I strive to please you. Here are the stats of our ride seen from all kinds of angles:

My photos are available on Picasa with captions; and the same photos are also uploaded to our gallery (originals and multiple sizes but no captions).  My photos pale next to Christine’s photos. You really have to click the link to see her arts. Then you would think we went on two different rides.

Here is a terrain map of our ride from Skeggs:

My ride has been uploaded to MTBguru: ride from La Honda and ride from Skeggs.

Okay. It’s just a rundown of my ride. There were so many funny moments from the ride that I laughed my throat sore. But my Little One is pacing next to me waiting for me to play with her. I’ve gotta go.

Since I let Erik take my CR-V, I rode up to Skeggs on my mountain bike — a good warm up. It was a little over thirty miles in total, with 20 miles on the road both ways.  Andrew parked his car on the ocean side of Purisma Creek and rode over to meet me. An ex-racer, he’s all about good warmups.  We did some fun single tracks at Skeggs together with him bolting ahead on every trail and waiting for me at every intersection, but that’s pretty much how everybody rides with me. Hehe. Although I would have liked to ride further, I told Andrew that I would conserve my energy for my next day’s 10k attempt at Coe.  He had a cross race he was contemplating the next day, so it did not seem to be too big of a disappointment for him that we only rode 10 miles at Skeggs.

While riding at Skeggs, I ran into Erik’s old time friend Jocelyn. And later at another intersection, I ran into two guys, one recoganized me from my MTBR posts and the other shared an intersection at Skeggs with me earlier this year. Small world.

Andrew demonstrates fast riders do not carry a camelpack.

It was a nice day for motorcycle riders too. In front of Alice’s Restaurant.

Our ride on MTBGuru.

Steam Donkey is rated Most Difficult according to the ratings map, so I was quite excited when I went down it with only one rolling dab despite my pumped forearms. But then I noticed my GPS had just turned itself off. Guess it was so much of rough bumping up and down that the GPS couldn’t handle it any more. But to be honest, Steam Donkey was not that bad. Despite being loose and bumpy at sections, there is always at least a good line where you can just roll over stuff. I wouldn’t fancy going up it though.

The new Connector Between South Leaf and Methuselah was only opened two weeks ago. I was surprised how smooth it was. It was a nice break for me from the hike-a-bike sections on South Leaf Trail. But Erik was disappointed that there was not any challenging section on it. I read on MTBR that “…the new trail …has the potential to wear in a lot like Resolution has. …The new South Leaf Extension has large roots and rocks near the surface that are likely to become exposed as the tread compacts.” So he should not have anything to worry about.

My GPS went blank a couple of times, so I didn’t get the complete loop recorded (didn’t miss a whole lot, maybe 0.5 miles). As it is, it reported 14.32 miles with 3700′ of climbing.

Since it was only two of us doing a casual ride, we stopped and took pictures.

The straightline on the left side of the loop is where GPS went on strike.
Mud in his improvised headband — from the MudnCrud bandana.
We saw many beautiful blue lillies on the side of the trails.
Coming up a climb.
Just one of the many blurred pictures, but we both kinda like it.
After we got back to the car, Mud went around the parking lot as if he didn’t get enough riding in. He was doing wheelies, dips, figure 8’s, etc.

For all pictures, please visit our gallery.

[Note: This was first posted to the forum.]

At Skeggs, we took Sierra Morena, Methuselah, Timberview, Crossover, Spring Board, Lawrence Creek, and Virginia trails down to the lowest point of the preserve. So far, it’s been a very pleasant descent with a few uphills sections mixed in. To climb out, we took Virginia Mill, South Leaf, Methuselah, and Fir trails. We were going to take the El Corte De Madera Trail instead of Methuselah to make it a longer ride. But South Leaf turned out to be a challenging singletrack way more technical than I could handle. It was on this trail that my rear wheel got caught diagonally on a board when I made a right turn and it threw my bike with me on it down a slope. The fall itself was not bad because the slope was quite loose and cushiony, but one end of the handle bar punched me in my ribs slightly to the right of my stomach. Again, a loooooonng “owwwwwwwwwww”. Mud ran back and helped me up, and fixed the trail with a few logs. It felt like a long way out of South Leaf Trail — too much pushing, so I did not have any more appetite left for anything technical. Plus, I was planning to replenish when we rode back from Purisima, but we did not stop at the car. So, for the whole ride, I only had one gel pack and one bottle of water. I was lucky that Methuselah was a nice fire road all the way up. No more technical stuff to stop me, we made progress slowly but surely. My bike was way past due for a tune up. So, it squeaked the whole way up. To take my mind off the agonizing noise, I kept thinking about pleasant thoughts — in the end, there were only two things in my mind: a burger and chocolate mousse. That’s what we had among other things for dinner at the nice Mountain House Restaurant & Bar. We lingered around in front of their fireplace for a long time and did not return home until late.

P.S. There was a clear rectangular inprint of the bar end right in my solar plexus. Will be sore for a few days.

P.P.S. Mud did not crash at all on the entire ride, but he started talking about this subtle pain in his ribs on the left side on the same night. We call it his sympathy pain for me. The sympathy pain got so bad that the next day, a gentle tab on his chest would double him over. Literally, right now, an old man and an old lady are roaming around in the Mud House — simple tasks such as pushing down on the faucet and picking up a piece of paper on the floor are companied by a groan. No more affectionate hugs for a few days, that’s for sure.

32.33 miles, 6629′ ascent (source: motionbased)

[Note: Also posted to the forum.]