We stayed in Confidence at Brad’s place on Friday night. I had to mention it because of the unique name of the little town. Plus, Brad has a very cool family — wife, two beautiful girls, and two dogs — that I absolutely adore. After a relaxed breakfast on Saturday, I drove up to Dardanelle where there is a store, a restaurant, a restroom, and a fee shower, a perfect place for the start and the end of a long ride. Yes, the ride would be long — for me at least — Dardanelle to Bridgeport to Dardanelle, going over Sonora Pass twice. I started riding at 9:29am.

Dardanelle Resort has everything you need!

After about four miles of mellow climbing, suddenly the grade kicks up. There, you see the warning sign for the steep grade ahead.

Does it say 26% grade? It’s not downhill that’s for sure.

The steep pitches always look intimidating. I suspect that it presents that look just so you, the rider, will crack, planting all the negative thoughts in your own head such as “Oh, F’k me, I can’t ride up this thing; it is impossible!” But if you just keep your head down and pedal one stroke at a time, before you know it, you’ve crested over the top of the little steep pitch thinking “Oh, that was not too bad after all!” Well, there were quite a few steep pitches on this ride and those were the thoughts that went through my head except that I didn’t swear.

The steepness of those sections would definitely leave an impression on anyone who has ridden either side of the Sonora Pass, but most of the time, it is, thank God, mellow and sometimes rolling. And there is breathtaking scenery to marvel about along the way. Much of the 14 miles from Dardanelle to the Sonora Pass follows along the Stanislaus River, in which many people fish. There are many granite cliffs on both sides that occasionally see a few rock climbers. Closer to the pass, the view opens up more with high peaks looming ahead enclosing a meadow with the river running through it.

Totally absorbed in the view, you will be surprised when the summit suddenly appears in front of you, marked by a big sign that could not be missed. 9624′ … the air is thinner up here.

A few rolling sections lead to steep descend. This is where another 25% grade section is. Just take it slow, and on a bike, you can usually drop the cars and the motorcycles easily at these steep and winding downhill sections. At one point, after a gradual right hand bend, suddenly, a big valley opens up in front of and below you. I remember gawking at it while descending only to find myself shooting straight to the apex of a sharp right turn. I had just enough time to correct myself, but I couldn’t help but notice the distinct skid marks that did shoot into the opposite lane — more than one set of skid marks.  I continued to gawk, but with caution now.

The downhill always goes by fast, so now you are in the valley. It’s almost flat and straight. There, I had the urge to pedal, but suddenly I felt thirsty. Bridgeport was still 20+ miles away. There was an enormous complex, Marine Corp Training Center, on the side of the road. They probably had water there, but I didn’t try — I didn’t have my immigration documents with me. Nor did I find water at the 395 & 108 Junction — there was nothing there that I could see! There was still a little — little by comparison — hump, Devil’s Gate Summit, to climb over on 395. By the time I arrived at Bridgeport, my two bottles had been dry for quite some time.

My mission now was to find a place for lunch, which turned out a very easy one because my bike came to a screeching halt in front of Sportsmen’s Bar and Grill. I stepped in and found the last TT stage of Tour de France nearing the end. How fitting! I inhaled the Sportsman Burger and a potato salad as well as three full glasses of icy coke while witnessing Alberto Contador win his third Tour by 39 seconds, no more and no less, which I found ironic. I was not sure whom, Contador or Schleck, that God was teasing. (Note: Erik thought “ironic” was a wrong word to use in this scenario and he said it was “apropos.”)

When I stepped back into the sun, I felt re-energized… except for one little problem — I ate and drank too fast and maybe too much too (I was hungry and thirsty!). Oh boy, the icy coke must have shocked my system, and then all that carbonated air… I just could not get comfortable. I now have a new appreciation for the discomfort babies have to go through before they are burped. I will not get into details here, but it took me the entire ride from Bridgeport to one mile before reaching the Sonora Pass the second time — that’s about 31 miles — for the internal storm to finally subside.

Compare to that belly storm, the thunderstorm I rode through and got drenched in was just a minor annoyance. I first saw the dark clouds ahead of me and then was in the pouring rain for a good half hour or so just after the west side of Sonora Pass started getting steep.

The thunder and lightning was around me, but I pedaled on remembering how one person died and several got injured in a lightening storm last week at Grand Teton. I didn’t really have a choice — what good it would do me if I stopped? Not sure what the people in the cars — not many during the storm — were thinking when they passed me, but I didn’t want to get in anybody’s car when I was fully soaked. One car drove right next to me at my pace on a fairly steep section. I sensed that the driver was probably looking in my direction waiting for me to raise the SOS. However, I had to focus on riding on or close to the white line, so I didn’t turn my head. I simply nodded a few times, so the car drove on. After it passed me, I saw a couple of bikes hanging on the rack in the back. They probably felt bad for me. But really, I didn’t mind climbing in the rain too much. I wasn’t too cold and the rain did not make riding any more dangerous at that slow speed. When I was finally out of the rain and still had a few miles to go before the top, I felt lucky that I would not be descending in the rain. Down lower just when I rode into the storm, I had to stop to rain-proof my GPS device and my camera. Now, even though I was still on a climb in its general trend, I had to stop, not because I needed a break, but because I had to take a picture of the storm I just rode through.

Well, I celebrated too soon. One mile before the summit, just when I happily observed the tummy storm had gone away and I had gained some warmth by pedaling uphill out of the rain for a few miles, the clouds above me opened up. When I reached the top, I was again drenched. Knowing that I would face a chilling descend, I stopped and took a photo of the summit and gave myself a little time to get mentally prepared.

It turned out that the descend back to the car was a wild ride.

First, I was riding in the rain on wet pavement, so I took it easy, reminded by the weird sound from the wet brake from time to time. A mile or two later, I was out of the pouring rain, but still the big rain drops kept coming down in a more scattered fashion. The road was no longer soaking wet and I could tell my tires were dry, so I opened up a bit. Then suddenly dry hales came down. They fell on the ground and bounced like many white ceramic beads, but they seemed to crush under the tires and did not pose any serious threat. Then it was big rain drops again, but the sun was out too. The air got warmer and I could feel that my flapping wind breaker started to dry up.

Just then, a car in the opposite direction tapped its horn. Oh, it was Erik. Later I learned that they had finished their mission for the day, and since they were not too far from Dardanelle, Brad dropped him off so he drove up to look for me — that was after he had treated himself some ice cream at the Dardanelle store… We can’t say he had his priorities messed up, can we? However, when I saw him on the road, I, was on my own mission — I had realized that there was a chance that I could make it back to Dardanelle before 5:29pm — 8 hours from my start time. Don’t ask me why, but at that moment, 8:00 would sound so much better than 8:01. I nodded at him and continued my descend/sprint. At 5:28, I pulled into the parking lot of Dardanelle, with a big grin on my face — I made it!

I cannot count how many times I had done back country climbing and riding in the remote area (e.g. last year and this year’s Death Rides) and had always been blessed with excellent weather. I had expected at one point, the good luck had to be balanced out one way or another. On Sunday, my friend Rob and I went up to Chipmunk Flat area for some rock climbing. Two climbs in, we were just commenting on how nice it was that the sun was behind the clouds and the temperature was perfect. Suddenly, lightening stuck above us and a dark patch of clouds peeked over the cliff like a monster and spit on us. We left some gear on the wall and threw everything in our pack and ran down to the car. I didn’t ask myself what the rush was, but really, we were fully drenched by the time we reached the car anyway even though it was not too far away; we could have just walked slowly and the result would have been the same. Well, that was my story of being drenched on Sonora Pass highway twice, or three times if you count the second time I got rained on riding over the pass on my way back. I think my luck will be good for another while.

My GPS tracks: Garmin Connect, MTBGuru, Plus3Network (Note: why all 3 sites?)

Climbing Profiles:

Links:

• My photo album for this trip (a lot more photos)
• MTBR thread where it all started.
• Ride report on ChainReaction website

So it only came natural I called for attention from Google God this morning again when I decided to meet a group to ride UCSC since I needed to drop my bike off at Spokesman anyway. The rendezvous place was Rincon Parking Lot, which I had never been to. Not to worry, with the hint from the group emails, I Googled for the place and found where it was, and then Google Mapped it to figure out the best way from home: Hwy 1 -> Ocean St through some residential area -> back to Hwy 9 … See, it even knew not to send me up from the bottom of Hwy 9 because it was closed there — Nothing escapes God! I should have just enough time to make it to the parking lot and get ready by 10am. Excellent!

Shortly after I got off Hwy 9 at the Ocean Street exit, I found that the main road somehow became Graham Hill Rd and I somehow missed the turn off for Ocean Street. No problem, I still had plenty of time to turn around and get back on it. It was not an obvious turn-off, and Ocean Street became a narrow windy 25-mph road through residences and redwoods. I patiently drove under the speeding limit because I was in no rush. After about 2 miles of slow driving, I was suddenly stopped cold by a fenced gate across the road with a sign “Private Property. No Trespassing.” But how could this be? I got out of the car dumbfounded.  Just then, a woman who looked just like me walked away from my body up to  the gate. She had the panicked look on her face. I walked over to the key box and stared at it for a moment before trying my birthday, my dentist’s phone number, last month’s super lotto winning number, and many other number combos I no longer remember now, but none worked. Finally, I keyed in the Da Vinci Code, but still, the gate did not budge. All the while, the other woman had grown hysterical, pressing her hands and forehead on the gate shaking it while mumbling “no, no, no, this gate is not supposed to be here. Google Maps direction goes right through. Let me through. I’m going to be late. Let me through.” I looked into the gated community with a few houses and a few vehicles in sight, but there was not a soul roaming around. I tore the woman away from the gate and we entered the car. She vanished right then, and I felt let down — Google God let me down.

Lucky for me, sometimes the meet time is like MSRP — people get away with not sticking with what’s suggested. When I pulled into the parking lot, the group were still there gearing up. When we started the ride at 10:30, there were eight of us although Andrea peeled off early on to do her own personal ride with her brand new LTc. Kevin led the way and took us through a maze of trails that criss and cross the forest this way and that way, up and down, steeply up and steeply down, sometimes up on a ridge, sometimes skirting along a hillside, or sometimes down in a drain. I had no idea where I was except that my Garmin Edge map told me that I was always here in the center of the little screen (it does not have a base map).  Kevin tried to explain to us where we were, but all those left, right, up, and down directions lost meaning to me when all I saw were just trees around me and I could not differentiate one tree from another.  I tried to insert myself in the middle of the group sometimes near the front and mostly near the back. I had the fear that if I stayed in the back, I would miss the most obvious turn and get separated from the group and then end up spending days being lost in the forest. I was thankful that Becky always kindly let me go in front of her. She had a better knowledge of the area and she could have radio communications with Dave if they decided to get on the same channel sometimes.

Talk about taking a wrong turn, it reminded me of yesterday when I rode Skeggs with Jeanne and Iztok and their friend whom we called Crazy Tim because he is crazy fast even when things get really gnarly.  Our plan was to get to South Leaf (from North Leaf). With Tim and Iztok leading in the front, Jeanne and I followed.  Right after we passed a group of riders, all standing on both sides of the trail, Jeanne asked me which way we should go since there was a split in the trail. All I could say was wherever those two guys went, and we continued our fast descent down Methuselah Trail — not South Leaf. It was not until at the bottom, the creek crossing, did we get to see Tim and Iztok again and told them that we missed South Leaf. Tim was surprised, “Oh, I missed a turn? Where did I miss it?” we told him where that group was. And Iztok said, “Oh, yeah, that group of six people. Tim was ahead me, so I followed his route and weaved through them saying excuse us and excuse us. I don’t know why, but they looked pissed.” Tim sounded even more surprised, “What? There were six people on the trail? I never saw them!” Just then we all laughed and understood very well why the group looked pissed.

The ride at UCSC was uneventful, but full of fun and excitement — there was some steep stuff that I would probably have hesitated about if I had known what was coming up and if I had not been following others. Could have there been an accident though because I almost successfully took out Brian when I was backing up my car in the parking lot after the group’s taqueria stop in Felton. Hmmm… food… I’m hungry again. I’d better Google “What to eat tonight” to get some idea for dinner. Betcha Google God can tell me.

P.S. I learned later that the bottom of Hwy 9 was closed all the way to the South end of Rincon Parking Lot, which means even if Ocean Street had not been blocked, I would not have been able to turn right on Hwy 9 to get to the parking lot anyway. Google God really goof’ed up big time!
Google Maps directions

P.P.S. When Erik read the title before getting to the post, he turned his head to me, “Dear Google God… Really???” I know, it sounds silly, but there was a time today I felt absolutely silly. So it is.

To be honest, I already called the event “been there, done that” and had no plan to return. I was pretty happy with how I rode last year. Knowing that I had given the ride pretty much all I had, I would not expect any dramatic improvement in the future… unless suddenly some day, I win lottery AND gain enough self-discipline to ride all the time, but that will never happen in a million years.

But how could I ride this one differently from last year (otherwise, what’s the point of doing it again)? Oh, I got an idea! See, last year, not knowing what to expect on the course, I brought all my own food and did not take even a Gu or a bar from the course support. I didn’t even bother taking a glance at their food trays. For that reason, I ate scarcely. And being anxious about not getting caught in the afternoon storm, I refilled only twice on the ride and relied on the two bottles of water to last me long ways. Even though I made good times, in the end I was dehydrated and feeling weak. This time… I would rely solely on the course meals, drink more water and refill whenever one bottle had gone dry, and even bring my camera!

As for doing it with Erik, well, that would not change anything because when I asked Erik, “Do you think we should stick together?” He shook his head and said “no”, just what I wanted to hear. Accustomed to riding single file, we are never the chatty type while riding. On self-supported rides, we do make sure to regroup when necessary, but neither of us sees such necessity on a ride like this. From our last weekend’s riding in the Eastern Sierra, we both had expected that I would be a little stronger than him, but as it turned out, I couldn’t ditch him even if I had wanted to.  At the beginning, we both were fresh and I never really pulled away from him. Plus, he was a faster descender than me (even though I was not slow since I was passing a lot of people), so we traded leads a couple of times until the climb on the front side of the Ebbettes where I passed him and pulled away.  But then, he arrived at Hermit Valley station when I was rolling out. Again, he arrived at the lunch stop (where he didn’t break for lunch) just after I had my lunch and was ready to roll. On the gradual climb back to Turtle Rock, I stayed with a pace line, off of which he fell at one point. But again, he rode by the car without stopping where I was applying my third layer of sunblock. Last I saw him without having planned so was at the Woodfords station. Yep, I couldn’t ditch him even if I had wanted to! The only intentional wait was at Carson Pass. I wanted to have a picture of us together for the “historical” moment.

On the climb up to Carson, I felt strong. Having stayed fueled and hydrated was definitely showing the positive effect. Another pleasant change from last year was the lack of bone-numbing pain from the saddle. I was glad that I slammed my soft WTB Vigo MTB saddle on my road bike even though the tilt didn’t feel right because the saddle clamps were designed to use with a split saddle and the thick cushion probably looked goofy.

Overall, my total elapsed time was half an hour more than last year’s due to the more frequent and longer breaks (10.5 hours total this time). The riding time got reduced by about 15 minutes to 9 hours even according to Garmin Connect (compared to previous year’s data on Motionbased). Not much reduction there, as I said earlier, I did give pretty much all I had on last year’s ride.

Since I brought my camera, I made sure to take pictures while riding. Just like every other time, now that I’m back sitting in front of my computer, I wish I had taken more photos. For the photos below, hover the cursor on a photo to see descriptions and click to see the larger versions.

On the front side of Monitor Pass:

On the back side of Monitor Pass:

On the front side of Ebbettes:

On the back side of Ebbettes:

Carson Pass (from top down):

That’s all from me reporting from the Death Ride. … Oh, wait! I promised Patrick that there would be a food tasting report! That’s the only reason I’m writing this report! Not.

Carbo-loading at Hamdogs the night before:

Sampling of Course meals:

Even though I ate a big plate at the Death Ride dinner hall (Erik ate a little), when we got back to our room, we were both hungry. We were super happy to discover this gem, JT Bar & Dining Room, and loved our delicious dinner.

On Sunday’s drive back home, we stopped in Murphy and walked into Murphy’s Saloon right at 11:30am, when the FIFA World Cup final was starting and when we were feeling hungry. That meal lasted us a good 120+ minutes, an exciting 2+ hours for a 1-0 ending, an ending that made me cry just because one team, one nation, had to lose. Soccer is cruel. I’ll stick to cycling.

Now, a few goofy shots at Carson Pass Station:

I took a photo of every previous year’s Death Ride poster that hung in the dinner hall. Loved the artworks. See my album for those photos as well as other photos that did not make into this report. BTW, Erik just found out, by examining previous years’ posters, that his last Death Ride was in 1989!

Whew, that was a long report! Oh well, it was about my longest ride — not that I could help it!

P.S. For anyone reading, if you have a spare 30-year Anniversary Death Ride bug that we can buy, I would really appreciate it if you could contact us. We were bummed that they were sold out when we got to the registration and were told that they would not make more.

My GPS tracks: Garmin Connect, MTBGuru, Plus3Network (Note: why all 3 sites?)

Links:

• Our photo album for this trip (a lot more photos)
• My First Century — 2009 Death Ride
• Death Ride official website

– M: I’m getting off work around 6pm. After that, should I go to the Female Friday Fandango?  (Note: This is a monthly female MTB ride/gathering organized by Passion Trails Bike shop 5 minutes away from my work.)
– E: Sure. Go!
– M: But… if we are going somewhere this weekend, I probably should go home and pack.
– E: Right… (Brief pause) Yeah, go home and pack.
– M: Are we going somewhere? Where?
– E: We’ll go to the East side and do a few road climbs. What’s that toughest climb in California….  Onion Valley Road, I think?

Hmmm… I remembered now he had proposed this trip for my birthday this year, but I was more into mountain biking than into road riding and chose to stay local to do a couple of long MTB rides (Tour de Peninsula and pre-Solstic Coe 10k).  However, I didn’t have any MTB plans for this long weekend. My rear brake had been acting up. For the past three long rides, my rear tire went flat every time. I needed to figure out if there was anything wrong with my rim. And Erik’s bike was in a worse shape — it was in pieces and the suspension bearings needed to be replaced. Road riding sounded like a good idea. Still having work to do, I only had time to do a quick Google search on Onion Valley Road, and found this post from George’s Epic Adventures blog: The 10 Toughest Climbs in California. I printed it on paper to read on the road. In that blog post, he quoted John Summerson, the author of the book The Complete Guide to Climbing (by Bike) in California:

Most Difficult Climbs:

1) Onion Valley
2) Horseshoe Meadows
3) White Mountain
…
5) Whitney Portal
…

I got home at around 7pm and Erik at 7:30pm with two Burritos he picked up. At 8:30pm, Erik cranked the engine with me in the passenger seat and our two bikes and camping gear in the back. We got on our way. While packing, I thought about calling a couple of friends who could have been interested (Patrick and Alison, are you reading?), but an invitation so last minute would have sounded ridiculous and irritating. It has always been hard for us to plan activities with friends because we are not the planning type!

With a good audible book, The Help, playing from iTune Erik drove all the way to the East side. It was past 3:30am when we finally pitched our tent off Hwy 395 and we went to sleep just before 4am. It was too soon before I woke up feeling the warmth of the sun. 7:30am. I could have slept more, but it was getting too bright and too warm. The landscape revealed the two mountain ranges on both the east and the west sides of us, remote, vast, and majestic. I got excited. We packed up quickly.

Good coffee and a big breakfast were what we needed, and we got them at Alabama Hills Cafe and Bakery in Lone Pine. It was also the starting point of our ride.We would climb Horseshoe Meadows Road and Whitney Portal.

The rides in this area almost all start with a long stretch of gentle uphill on a straight road. We took it easy and played with the cameras we carried.

3.5 miles of riding finally led us to the start of Horseshoe Meadows Road, supposedly the 2nd toughest climb in California and 4th in the US. At the start, you can already see the switchbacks in a distance that snake up the mountain.

I pressed the lap button on my GPS and the climb officially started. There seems to be an unspoken rule that many of us subscribe to about hill climbs — you do not put a foot down unless you are about to keel over. That means you eat, drink, stretch, rest, and take photos while pedaling. That’s how the below photos were taken. (Hover the cursor over each photo to get the description and click for the larger version.) I settled in my own pace and gradually pulled away from Erik. While going up the switchbacks, I looked down whenever I could to look for him and whooped at him when I could see him.

Even though I read the print out from George’s post, I somewhat got the wrong impression that the climb was no more than 13 miles long (probably got it mixed up with Onion Valley road). So, when I saw that the lap distance went to 14, 15, and still kept going, I wondered if the God was playing a trick with me — what if the climb never ended? The gradient was quite friendly. However, there were a few hot spots in my feet that were hurting and the saddle was feeling too hard already (I hadn’t been riding my road bike for quite a while). Finally, when I reached a summit at about 16.4 miles, I almost called it victory (and almost put my foot down), but then I saw the next uphill section after a brief dip. It was not until 3+ mile later that road finally came to an end. That was a loooooooong climb! And now it was over. Whew!

After a while, Erik rolled in. We took a break, ate, refilled our water bottles, and took a few cheesy summit shots.

On our way back to the car, we stopped at a few places to snatch a few more shots.

It was hot when we got back to the car. The sun was at its full blast. The air conditioned stores and shops were very inviting. But the thought of not riding up Whitney Portal when we were right at the bottom of it did not come across my mind. We refilled our water bottles again (two each). At around 3:15pm, we were on our way again. This time, neither of us felt chipper. I took this photo (self portrait) while passing Erik on the way up Whitney Portal. We were hot and tired.

I  took this photo on the straight section. You can vaguely see the road zigzagged in the mountains.

As it turned out, it was a climb much harder than I expected. It was supposed to be rated ONLY the 5th toughest climb in California, 3 places behind Horseshoe Meadows Road, which we just completed. The heat definitely played a role. The climb only came into shade near the very top (last two miles) and even then, it was not continuous; otherwise, it was fully exposed in the sun and the breezes were rare to come by. The grade felt progressively harder. I remember looking down at GPS and kept seeing 11-13% gradient in the last five miles, and even though the grade eased off a tiny little bit near the top, the road surface got rougher, so it felt hard all the way. Two sentences were ringing in my ear constantly, “Inch by inch, I will get there.” (my own motto) and “Here is to sweat in your eye.” (Erik’s motto)

On this climb, I was happy to have my granny gear. All the effort was in pedaling that I did not take more photos until I got to the very top. I then took a break before riding down little ways to greet Erik who was really hurting on the climb. The heat really got to him. But he persevered.

At the summit, he dipped into the snow melt pool to wash away the sweat crust on his face. That must have felt good. Then a few summit shots were in order.

And guess what, a road that took me 2 hours to climb only took me 21 minutes to descend. That was a helluva fun descent! We so earned it. Another thing we earned would be a hearty meal. We asked the guy at the front desk of Whitney Portal Hostel, where we took a much needed shower ($5 each), where the Whitney Portal Store was since I read that their BBQ was supposed to be really good. I thought it should be next to the Hostel (same business owner). The guy pointed outside and said, “It’s about 15 miles up that road (Whitney Portal Road), and the store is right there.” Erik and I looked at each other knowing that we would not be having that BBQ today. But we did have a very satisfying dinner at Mt. Whitney Restaurant in Lone Pine.

Oh, earlier I mentioned that the heat got to Erik. It sure did! The new sports drink we brought (swag at Napa Valley Dirt Classic) did not work well for him and it upset his stomach. Plus, he had not been riding that much (mountain or road). When we got down, he dry heaved a bit, which scared me because I had never seen him like that before. With the shower and the dinner, he felt a little better. I was thankful that the heat exhaustion did not materialize into something worse. I was also exhausted when I went to sleep after 10pm. But I was too exhausted to fall asleep (this was nothing new) and it took me a long time to actually doze off. But then I was woken up frequently by the gusty wind flapping on our tent. I had hand washed our riding clothes (the other clothes we brought would be too warm for the weather) and had them hanged on the tent poles.  When we finally got up around 7am, I did not feel rested at all. However, I was very surprised that my legs were feeling fine. Actually, I ran (literally) back and forth multiple times between the restaurant and our car to fetch stuff and did not feel any soreness at all. Wow, last night’s dinner must have worked wonder.

We had our breakfast again at Mt Whitney Restaurant before we headed over to Independence, where the start of Onion Valley Road was. A little July 4th parade was happening, so we took a little tour of it. We were tourists after all.

The cattle guard, the official start of the climb, came shortly after we started. I pressed my lap button again. I told myself to take it easy since this is the “toughest” climb in California. While taking it easy, I took quite a few photos on the ride.

Having expected this climb to be tough, I made sure to settle in a pace that would neither tax my lungs nor tax my legs. I also wanted to leave plenty in my reserve in case we could fit White Mountain in our agenda later in the day. As it turned out, the entire climb was at a moderate grade. The road was designed such that it was not easy to tell where the road went when you look up from below, so it was a little easier psychologically. Before I knew it, I was close to the top, so I raised my pace a bit as you can see from this GPS profile.

As soon as I reached the top, I turned around to go meet Erik a short distance behind me. Here he is coming up only with about 1/4 miles to go.

It’s a habit now — summit shots:

Having done it, I probably would not call it the toughest climb I’d done (Whitney Portal felt harder), but it sure was one of the best climbs I had done. The view was spectacular on this climb. On the way down, we stopped to snatch a few more shots.

When we got back to the car, I asked Erik about White Mountain (it starts from Big Pine). He suggested we should end the day on a good note. Knowing that we needed to get back before Monday, I was not too heartbroken that we called it a day. Guess I would have been happy either way. So, we again showered and ate in Lone Pine. Feeling good, we walked around town and got ourselves some good coffee before we started our long drive back home. Lone Pine claims to be the home of Golden Eagles. I think we saw them.

It was really hot when we walked around in Lone Pine (mid-nighties at least). I guess I was happy that we were not riding then. Erik had to take a dive whenever he walked into the sun.

My GPS tracks:

• Horseshoe Meadows and Whitney Portal: Garmin Connect, MTBGuru, Plus3Network
• Onion Valley Road: Garmin Connect, MTBGuru, Plus3Network

(Note: why all 3 sites?)

Links:

• Our photo album for this trip (a lot more photos)
• Most Difficult Cycling Hill Climbs In The U.S. (from Ride-strong.com)
• George’s The 10 Toughest Climbs in California
• The five toughest stretches of road in the United States By John Summerson

Horseshoe Meadows and Whitney Portal: (71.1 mi/11367′)

Onion Valley Road: (27.3mi/5432′)

P.S. I had a discovery on these climbs — the ascent data on the GPS is rubbish! Think about it, on a climb, the total ascent should be equal to or greater than the altitude change, right? On these climbs, I kept glancing down at my GPS and found that the altitude change was much faster than the increase in the total ascent. No wonder Garmin connect and MTBguru both show greater total ascent numbers than that’s shown on the GPS. Rightly so!

P.P.S. Stats:
When my friend Alison and I talked about the perception of difficulties of these hill climbs (she said that she’s not convinced Mt Washington “is really harder than our tougher local climbs”), it got me curious. I put together below table for comparisons. The stats all came from my own GPS (Garmin Edge 305). As you can see, the total ascent (in feet) numbers are lower that those officially reported out there, but at least these numbers came from the same device, so the comparisons should be consistent.
. I suppose Onion Valley Road was the steepest (over all) of all three. It sure did not feel that way.

P.P.P.S. Oh, in case it was not obvious from my post, there is a water spicket at the top of each of these three climbs, although there was a hand written note taped to the one on the top of Onion Valley Road saying “Please boil the water before drinking.” There is at least one outhouse at the top as well.

After our (mudncrud, ratpick, mudworm) extra little play loop on Spike Jones and Timm, we caught the big group (Sorcerer, Tom, Brian L, Zener, Eric S, girl_from_pitt, plymmer) on Coit Road at the north end of Anza. Damn, everyone looked fit, too fit! At that time, Skyline35, Chris (Sorcerer’s wife), and Janet W were already ahead having started earlier than the others. They were then caught on the Poverty Flat Rd before Jack Ass Trail. Unbeknown to us at the time, Paul B and Jon R made their own separate starts (probably at a later hour), took their own routes (possibly more direct), and intersected the group later — Paul on Jack Ass Tr and Jon on the top of Willow Ridge Tr. That means this year’s Henry Coe Rustic Journey attracted 15 riders in total (if I counted my fingers correctly).

I’m guessing the day could not be called hot by the Coe standard, but it was a warm day — much warmer than last weekend for instance (scroll down and see Skyline35’s weather charts). That put a toll on many people, and alternate routes were chosen by small groups of smart folks: Skyline35 and Janet headed back after Willow Ridge Tr; plymmer and Paul B said goodbye at Pacheco Camp; girl_from_pitt and Jon left after the swim in Mississippi Lake; Eric and Zener did not stop by the lake and went ahead trying to get back in bright day light (sightings of them at Dowdy Ranch were reported, but we didn’t know the exact route they took). The rest of us — seven in total — followed the ride leader who took us through a helluva journey.

Route: Coyote Creek Gate -> Coit Rd [-> Spike Jones -> Timm -> Coit Rd] -> Anza Tr -> Coit Rd -> Mahoney Meadows Rd -> Lost Spring Tr -> Los Cruzeros -> Narrows -> Poverty Flat Rd -> Jack Ass Tr -> Blue Ridge Rd -> Black Oak Spring Tr -> Hat Rock -> Rock House Ridge -> Narrows -> Willow Ridge Tr -> Willow Ridge Rd -> Hoover Lake Tr -> Hoover Air-Strip -> White Trank Tr -> Coit Rd -> Pacheco Camp -> Pacheco Creek Tr -> Heritage Trail -> Pacheco Ridge Rd -> Mississippi Lake -> County Line Rd -> Turkey Pond Tr (really?) -> Kaiser Aetna Rd -> Dowdy Ranch -> Burra Burra Tr -> Dormida Tr -> Vasquez Rd -> Bowl Tr -> Lyman Willson Tr -> Hunting Hollow Rd -> Hunting Hollow parking lot -> Gilroy Hot Springs Rd -> Coyote Creek Gate. (54.6 mi / 11945′ from mtbguru)

Compared to my near three dozen rides (including two 10k’s) at Coe in the past two years, this one felt the toughest. There were a few tough climbs on this route (see my annotated route description at the bottom of the post), which taxed the body more intensely. Bushwhacking was involved on this route more than one time too. It was on this ride that I first time experienced recurring leg cramps (the onset was on Heritage Tr). Depending on the movements, whether riding, hiking a bike, or even just sitting around, different muscles in the leg and feet threatened to seize up. I relied on my granny gear to keep the cramps at bay for the most part.

However, at the end of the ride, I had a grin that spanned ear to ear. The descent on Lyman Willson in the twilight was a great way to end a long day of riding. mudncrud, ratpick, and I plowed through all the creek crossings (some still deep) on Hunting Hollow Rd before heading back to our cars. The cool water that splashed on me and the sound effect from us entering the crossings one after another made me giggle.

At the parking lot, the seven of us, still sweaty and covered in Coe dust, congratulated each other cheerfully in all kinds of fashion (including hugging and kissing). It was then it dawned on me that it was the camaraderie fostered through long rides like this made these rides so memorable. Long live long (Coe) rides!

The brief fog enclosure on Coit Rd.

I somehow worked my way through the crowd and topped out on Jack Ass Tr with only Brian ahead of me. Paul B came up after me before I had a chance to pull out my camera. After that, I tried to take a photo or two of each rider who came up. (More photos besides what’s shown here can be found in my photo album.)

Sorcerer — The fierce ride leader. I suspect he has built in engines in his thighs (motor doping?). He cleaned Jack Ass, Willow Ridge Trail, and various other steep climbs. I witnessed him clean the two tight and loose switchbacks on Hoover Lake Tr and was super impressed with his bike handling skills.

plymmer. While climbing Jack Ass, I kept turning my ears backwards to hear if anyone was catching up to me. I wanted to make sure I was not in anyone’s way, especially plymmer since he is known as the angry climbing man. But he had a huge smile in this picture because he just cleaned Jack Ass Tr.

I always enjoy following Eric on trails because he seems to have a hard time to ride by hanging branches and other offensive trail blockers without giving a go at cleaning. And he is always very encouraging and would cheer for me whenever I manage a little tricky move on my bike.

Zener. I hope I ride as strong as he does when the days come that my hair is gray.

ratpick is always a pleasant company. But do not let his easy going manner fool you — he has the strong will to clean the tough climbs at Henry Coe. He cleaned Anza/Jackson last week and Jack Ass on this ride. BTW, if anyone found a pair of sunglasses (shown in the photo), please let him know.

Tom is a character. He rides a hardtail around with a plastic spoke guard. Which serious mountain biker would not scoff at that? And he rides platform pedals. When other riders marvel at the unusual sighting of those pedals (at Coe), he simply smiles humbly and apologetically, “Hehe, I cannot clip in.” Yet, at the end of the day, he was still among the very few who were actually riding up those steep hills.

girl_from_pitt is a strong rider and a funny girl. When she talks, I laugh.

mudncrud had fun on his rental 29er demo bike. But has he made up his mind yet? During the USA-Gana World Cup game, he chanted from the middle of Mississippi Lake, “Go USA!”

Chris, the fierce rider leader’s sweetheart. She endured the headaches from overheating; yet still finished the long route with big smiles.

Janet greeted us at Hunting Hollow Parking lot after having waited there for Brian for hours. That’s a lot of patience!

Hi Charlie, Oh, Charlie! We were very sad to say goodbye to him at the top of Willow Ridge Tr. He was the one who crafted the perfect 10k ride for us last weekend (including the perfect temperature).

Plymmer looking very very wilted.

ratpick kindly posed the corpse pose for me when resting at Dowdy Ranch. I told him that I didn’t want to make plymmer feel bad by posting his photos lone.

There are a few other photos I want to show, but I probably should not take up too much real estate in the thread (too late now?). Please visit My album for photos like these:

Appendix:

-Photos published so far: My album, ratpick’s album

-GPS tracks: Garmin Connect, MTBGuru, Plus3Network (why all 3 sites)

-Annotated Route Description: Coyote Creek Gate -> Coit Rd [-> Spike Jones (gentle uphill) -> Timm (fun downhill) -> Coit Rd] -> Anza Tr (gentle uphill followed by gentle downhill) -> Coit Rd -> Mahoney Meadows Rd -> Lost Spring Tr (downhill singletrack) -> Los Cruzeros -> Narrows -> Poverty Flat Rd fireroad climb, short but steep) -> Jack Ass Tr (singletrack climb, steeper near the bottom and eases off) -> Blue Ridge Rd -> Black Oak Spring Tr (downhill singletrack followed by bushwacking through grasses uphill) -> Hat Rock -> Rock House Ridge (wheeee downhill) -> Narrows (flat singletrack) -> Willow Ridge Tr (steep singletrack that gets steeper) -> Willow Ridge Rd -> Hoover Lake Tr -> Hoover Air-Strip -> White Trank Tr (wheee downhill) -> Coit Rd -> Pacheco Camp -> Pacheco Creek Tr (flat singletrack) -> Heritage Trail (lots of creekcrossings with deep dips followed by very bursts of steep climbs) -> Pacheco Ridge Rd -> Mississippi Lake -> County Line Rd -> Turkey Pond Tr (?) (Wheeeeeee downhill) -> Kaiser Aetna Rd (first a screaming descent on a super fireroad highway followed by endless gradual climb) -> Dowdy Ranch -> Burra Burra Tr (gentle climb) -> Dormida Tr (fun downhill but easy to get off trail and end up bushwacking) -> Vasquez Rd (OMG, that’s steep and long!!!) -> Bowl Tr -> Lyman Willson Tr (wheeee descent) -> Hunting Hollow Rd -> Hunting Hollow parking lot -> Gilroy Hot Springs Rd -> Coyote Creek Gate. (54.6 mi / 11945′ from mtbguru)

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Okay, here is a photo that can belong here:

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This is about Charlie’s training ride for the thread bearing “rustic 10k” event. Just like last time, he sent an invite to a list of friends stating “the route should be long and miserable”; but unlike last time when more than a dozen people responded to his calling, only three invitees, Patrick, Erik, and me, showed up this time. I don’t understand why.

It could have been only Patrick though. At 10:16 PM on Friday, I sent out this email to them: “We partied too late and just got home. Dead tired, but nothing is ready yet, so I highly doubt that we would be able to get up at 4am to make the 7am start, even though we really wanted to join the ride. There are definitely many trails listed on the route that we are interested in checking out. Oh well, please count us out.” At 3:45am, Erik woke up to do his usual mid-sleep chore, which disturbed and awoke me. A conversation began. “Should we go to Coe?” “Yeah, it would nice to do the ride, but I haven’t gotten enough sleep yet.” “Or, we can sleep in and go to Saratoga Gap. There is a Santa Cruz bike demo there today.” “Let’s go ride at Coe.” “Bike demos are hard to come by. Let’s hit Saratoga Gap.” “It’s already too late to get up now. There is no way we can get everything ready and be at Hunting Hollow by 7am.” Through the conversation the light on the night stand was turned on, off, on again, and off again. Just when we were about to go back to sleep, the cats jumped into bed and started walking on us. It was 4:20am when I was driven out of the bed, and found this email reply in my Inbox from Patrick, “Some serious lack of kitten love this weekend! Charlie and I will do our best to save them all!”

Almost 20 hours later, at midnight when we were still driving home, Erik and I sounded like a broken record, albeit a tired one. “I’m glad that we got up and made the ride.” “That was great ride. I’m glad that we made it.”… What had made the ride so memorable? Oh, where do I even begin?

— We had two pinch flats on the ride. Charlie got one on White Tank Spring Trail. Obviously, he was hauling mail down that trail, an indication of the mad success of our trailwork last week. But when we stood around, Erik had to bring up that I said the reason he got flats often was his lack of good riding skills. Did he not know that Marriage Rule Number One is bedroom talks are not to be made public? Plus, that just made it even more embarrassing for me when I got a flat half way down Tule Pond Trail. I would say I fixed it pretty fast with the assistance of Charlie and Patrick while Erik rode/pushed up half of the trail to look for us, but it was 8:20pm when my wheels rolled again, simply too late for a flat!

— Two incidents of chain sucks when the chain fell into the spokes. One happened to Charlie and one happened to Erik. Luckily, neither caused serious damage.

— Two bent (or almost bent) derailleur hangers. One huge stick miraculously worked its way into Charlie’s chain/cassette. It had all the power to break the derailleur or bend the hanger, but Charlie broke it first without much effort. the other time, I made some superwomanly powerful move and rode right into Erik’s derailleur. That did bend it, but he managed to bend it “back” enough to finish the ride. The bend was visible when he took the bike apart the next day, when we also found that his bottom bracket had been half seized up.

— Imagine riding down the steepest trail you’ve ever ridden with one eye closed and the other half closed. Now, that’s probably how it felt to Charlie when he came down Middle Steer Ridge trail (one of the steepest descents at Coe). About this, he has written, “To explain, descending Middle Steer Ridge Trail in heavy winds, tall grass obscuring the trail, and increasing darkness, my left contact lens dried up and fell out. It was surreal riding in fuzzy darkness. We had very bright quarter moon thankfully.”

If you are about to shed some tears over the mishaps we had “unfortunately” experienced, thank you but please stop. “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” You see, we are all much stronger now… maybe except Patrick, since he was mishap-free all day.

— Of course, I don’t know if Patrick could, or should, get even more stronger. He cleaned ALL the ride-able climbs on the entire ride, including Anza-Jackson (his first!), the steeps on Dog Trail and Dutch’s Trail, and Serpentine at the end of the day! We were all utterly impressed. The sacrifice he had to make was he had to ride by a balloon on the side of the trail half way up Serpentine, but it turned out to be a god send for Erik when he needed a break.

— Speak of breaks…When we took a break (not the first one) at the Hoover Air-strip, I asked if it was our lunch break, or we would break again for lunch. Charlie looked at me as if the question surprised him, “We’ll be taking breaks all day. We ride in between breaks.” That’s indeed how it was as Patrick has summarized, “8 hours riding time + 6 hours sitting by creeks, waterfalls, on ridges and generally soaking in the Coe atmosphere (and picking grass out of our socks).”

— I enjoyed every moment of the ride, but what stood out for Erik was the back country adventures. We got on some obscure (aka fun) trails. For example, on Dog Trail, When a straight line up a steep hillside looked impassable, we elected to explore a side path that circumvented the knoll. We ended up carrying our bikes bushwhacking cross-country and uphill. On Phoneline trail, despite the guidance of yellow ribbons, there was still mandatory pushing through tunnels and snaking around Poison Oak bushes. These things no doubt slowed our pace down, but they sure kept the mystery and excitement going.

— The most peculiar thing for us all though was the sighting of people pulling two-wheeled hand carts in costume and high spirits. We first saw them at Pacheco Camp and they cheerfully waved at us, and we saw them go by (after having heard their still cheerful voices) when we took a long break by the creek below Kaiser Aetna Road. Later when we passed by Pacheco Camp the second time, we learned from our trailwork buddy Rob that those were Mormon yoots.

— Our ride turned out to be about 50 miles (10k – 11k ascent). My GPS ran out of battery shortly before I got back to the car, but that was no biggie because we had plenty of equipments on our ride as you can see from: Charlie’s MTBguru report and Patrick’s Plus3Network report. My almost-complete track was also uploaded to Garmin connect, Plus3Network, and MTBguru. (Why all 3 sites?) From Charlie’s report, you can also see (and envy) what nice weather we had been blessed with.

— We thought we were lucky to make it back in the moonlight without a light. Brian (knobs) rolled in 15 minutes later. All five of us gathered at Denny’s to trade our tales and laughs, even though those laughs may have sounded a bit tired.

Charlie had warned us that he would leave his camera at home. I know, big disappointment! But Patrick had taken some great shots with his. So, keep your appetite up because his pictures will not disappoint. Below are some pictures I found in my camera, many of which were taken under the urge of Charlie, “did you take some pictures of that???”

Charlie coming up Jackson Trail.

Bike demo. Brands: Specialized and Titus. Location: Kelly Lake, Henry Coe.

When I asked why anybody would drag a cart around all day, Erik replied, “for the same reason why we ride our bikes around all day.”

Erik (back) and Charlie (front) descending Dog Trail with Patrick at the bottom.

We didn’t take that trail straight up the knoll, and ended up bush whacking.

For the completeness of this document, this is what we did during many of our breaks.

Charlie: Is the trail here, or here, or there? Hmmm… I think I’m lost…

charlie: Ha, I found the trail! It goes this way…

How did the stick get itself in like this???

Could not have asked for better weather than this.

Charlie and Erik on the skyline.

More of my photos can be found in my alum.

On last ride, all I had for n&h included 2L of plain water plus a small bottle of some sports drink mix and five skinny Powerbars.  I ate all my bars while riding. On this ride, I took a sandwich (peanut butter, eggs, and sundried tomatoes) with me, ate half at the top of Windy Hill and the other half at the top of Purisima while stretching off the bike. At 35&84 junction, I had coffee and lunch sitting down. I finished 2L of sports drink in my camelbak before I got to the junction, and refilled it there with sport drink mix. I had one flask of Hammer gel that I sip from here and there.

The fueling strategy change resulted in drastically different riding performance. On the last ride, I bonked. In another word, I suffered through the ride (from the Purisima climb on). This time, I felt strong and had fun the entire way. In the end, I could feel the fatigue, but felt that I could also ride some more. Of course, not having side stitches and back pain ~20miles in also helped raise the fun level — bib shorts are the way to go for long rides, for me at least.

When I exited the restroom by Alice’s, I heard a deep male voice, “Are you not supposed to be at work, Mei?”  Erik was the only one who knew that I would be at the junction on my ride, but he knew that I had two days off. Not him. My manager? Well, he was probably in the air at that moment (on vacation himself), but that would not make him God, would it? Puzzled, I turned around and realized that it was our neighbor Scott. I forgot that his office is at the junction. We chatted a bit. Later, when I rode through Waterdog, I ran into my fellow dirt diva Sherri and her husband. We had a good chat on the trail.

With the breaks and the chats included, my total elapse time (from start to the end) was not much shorter than the last time (only saved 23 minutes), but my moving time was about an hour shorter, which was consistent with how I felt on the ride. I remember on my previous ride, I felt helpless and pathetic when I saw my speed at 5mph on Canada and today, I was happy to see 10mph. I glanced down too many times at my GPS just to confirm that I was not dreaming being faster.

Well, who had thought — nutrition and hydration can determine whether a ride is fun or not.

For comparison, I’m providing links to both the previous ride and this ride:

• Garmin Connect: bonk ride vs fun ride
• Plus3Network: bonk ride vs fun ride
• MTBguru: bonk ride vs fun ride

(Here is why I post GPS to all three sites.)

It was going to be a warm summer day at Henry Coe after a long California spring, so I dressed accordingly for the occasion — long sleeves and leg warmers (with fleece liner). The sweat started pouring down my face shortly after I got started on the Anza climb. All day, I resisted the temptation to peel a layer off. Considering the juicy PO bushes on the trail side and the tall grasses that I had to plow through on my ride in and out, I think I made the right decision. Last year’s disaster (graphical content: pic 1 and pic 2) was not to be repeated!

The occasional breeze made the heat somewhat bearable, but I think most of us withered a bit in the sun. I was relieved when the end was called when the brushes had been cleared back. But then Sorcerer wanted to walk the rest of the trail (the more barren portion) to the other end because it would be “meditating.” Most of us joined the group meditation session. Actually, Diesel~ and Sorcerer both found offending bushes to hack away while the rest of us mostly just walked, some of us in silence. We did get to admire our trailwork on our descend back though.

It was at the bottom of the trail where Paul’s vehicle had parked that I got nurtured back to life by Paul’s chilled Pink Lemonade and Chuck’s water. Re-energized, I got on my bike and started riding with knobs and plymmer. I enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversations. While we took a break before Tule Pond Trail, guess who showed up? Wow, how did you know — Skyline35 rolled up all smiling. If I hadn’t nudged them to get moving, I swear they would have stayed in that one spot just yapping away the day and the night. Have I ever pointed out that guys could be really chatty?

I was a bit beat by the end of the day, but it was another great day with great people. I was glad that the hubby got to watch the FIFA game. At home, I just casually, more out of courtesy, asked how the game went, and he went on for half an hour without breathing describing to me all the little details. I tried to nod at the right moments, but please don’t ask me anything about the game because I was catching up with my online surfing during his enthusiastic recap.

Oh, by today, I only have a few itchy spots that are most likely from the mosquitoes at Demo where I rode the next day. But I found a small patch of PO rash in my left ear. I knew I should have worn my ear warmers!!!

My ride (21.2mi / 4651′ Click on OSM view and zoom in to see the trail names.)

It must have been hot. Chucko’s shoe de-laminated.

Diesel~ sweeping the trail.

Roy doing “high altitude brushing” (Sorcerer coined the phrase). I took the photo just because it would make a great butt shot.

And Sorcerer likes to get down under

Sorcerer meditating…

knobs meditating in his own way…

Look, Skyline35 is trackstanding!

Sorcerer, that last picture of Chris was great. Loved the beautiful and contagious smile!

We did the first slice of Canadian Bacon, and then dropped down Sawpit (I rode around the rock garden). Four riders (Alicia, Hank, Michael, and Lior) climbed out due to time constraints, and four of us (Daryl, Heather, Noaa, and I) climbed up Tractor (I cleared the climb), and then dropped down Braille. I had a lot of fun — so much fun that I didn’t take many good pictures.

It was at the beginning of the ride (on Bacon), my bike quit shifting and the chain started jumping. It turned out that the cable housing broke. Luckily, Demo riding is either up or down, which enabled me to keep it in either one climbing gear or one descending gear without having to shift too much. I look forward to returning soon.

Pictures like below can be found here and here.

After that, since I was close, I went over and did a short ride at Skeggs: