Calistoga, California

Photo Credit: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1-KQaSii290/SC8qqNe69TI/AAAAAAAAEZw/9bSARGRzecI/s400/Calistoga.jpg

As of last Thursday, July 2nd, I've been residing in Calistoga, Ca. My move to Northern California almost complete, as I continue to unload boxes and hang pictures on the wall. I went almost two weeks with very little bicycle riding; 5 hours one week, and only 1.5 last week – just too much going on with the move. My wife actually moved the whole house a week before I could leave. I was teaching summer school and it didn't end for me until July 1st. But starting last Sunday, I've hit every day on the bike. I only have time for an hour ride in the morning as I need to be here when my wife leaves for work as Jade is usually still sleeping. But what an hour it is. Days are warm here, with highs in the 80s and low 90s but the mornings are terrific, if not a little too chilly. The last three days have found me pedaling away with temps in the high 40s to low 50s – but the summer is young.

I have found the perfect 20.7 mile loop that takes me clockwise around Calistoga which I complete in around 1 hour and 6 minutes. The scenery is breathtaking, with redwoods and other pines in the hills competing with the grape vineyards on the valley floor. I promise to get my camera out and start taking pictures of the many rides in my new neck of the woods. Yesterday and Monday I was riding by when the “Old Faithful Geyser of California” was erupting. This geyser goes off about every 30 minutes or so, with a 60 feet tall eruption of scalding water and steam – quite a treat.

The picture above, by an unknown photographer, shows the geyser with Mt. St. Helena in the background

The morning ride also goes past a balloon launching site on Lincoln Ave. Here's a few pics of a couple of hot air balloons launching I took back in April when we were first checking out the town:


Another with my 8 year old daughter Jade in the foreground:



Here's my route via MapMyRide:


Though I now ride this loop clockwise as I find less traffic on my side of the road at this hour when most people are heading off to work.

San Diego Epic Ride

As I’m leaving San Diego for Northern California I put in my last Saturday ride with the San Diego Cyclo-Vets a couple of weekends ago. Naturally it turned out to be an epic ride. An epic ride…every roadie has had an epic ride at least once in their cycling career. This is a ride where something happens to make that ride particularly challenging. It could be running out of food and water, getting lost, going much farther than you originally intended, getting rain, hail, snow, etc., on the ride.

On this, my last Saturday ride in San Diego, I got several of the above conditions. The ride started as usual and we made it to the first regrouping point without incident. As we left for the Torrey Pines part of the ride it started raining. Not a downpour just a light rain. It turns out that San Diego roadies hate and fear rain more than most as they are used to 72 degrees 24/7 and 12 months out of the year. Since my primary residence was in the Mojave desert, where we long for rain, it was no big deal for me but the other Cyclo-Vets panicked and wanted to end the ride. After much discussion it was decided to keep riding but alter the ride to head East and North and into the neighboring city of Poway. The idea was that the weather was coming in from the West and by heading East we could avoid it.

This diversion worried many of the riders as they had not been in this direction before. Now myself, the non-native of the group, wasn’t worried a bit because I take this same ride on my own on Sundays. My only problem was that I didn’t eat as much as I usually do for breakfast as I was only expecting a 43 mile ride of various intensity levels. I also carried water and food for a trip of about that length too. Though I was wearing arm warmers I didn’t have leg warmers or any other type of cold weather gear – this is San Diego after all.

Well to make a long story shorter, the ride out to the far point of the ride went without a hitch, with the exception that the weather did not improve but only got worse. We were now climbing the tough pitch up Scripps-Poway Pkwy road and I’m now consuming more calories than I planned on. I’m also cold and wet but realize I only have to ride 12 miles or so and I’m back in a warm apartment with plenty of food. We get to the top of the grade and wait in the drizzle for the tail end of the group to finish the climb – this takes longer than I expected as the last guy had fallen pretty far behind. My teeth even started chattering from the cold and this is San Diego in the early summer. Thank God, the tail end guy comes up and says, “go without me, I’ll be okay.” So off we go down the screaming descent of Scripps-Poway Pkwy road. Somewhere down the descent I realize that I can hardly feel my legs as they are actually getting numb from the wet and cold and I also realize that I’m hungry and I’ve already eaten my one and only power bar and have drank most of my sports drink and water…but I’ve only got 10 miles to go, on what has now become a 50 mile ride instead of 43.

We finish the descent and make the left turn onto Pomerado Rd and the group wants to stop again, this time at a mini-mart for food. I’m real hungry now and pretty short on fluids too so you would think that I would welcome this stop but I get impatient. I’m smelling the barn and have done this ride many time in the past – so I say my goodbyes and take off on my own and figure I’ll be home in less than an hour. Look at my MapMyRide map at the end of this post and you can see what went wrong and how I ended my last San Diego ride in Epic proportions. I should have stayed on Pomerado Rd but for some reason, probably because I was feeling sorry for myself, and had my head down while I was riding, I failed to make the left turn to remain on Pomerado Rd and instead was now heading West on Spring Canyon Road. About 2 miles in, I realize I’ve never seen this particular scenery before and must be going the wrong way. To make matters worse, I took a right turn and realized I have no idea what direction I’m going. The cloud cover and drizzle prevented me from getting any bearings and stupid me, I forget I’m riding with a GPS unit (Garmin Forerunner 205 though I now have the 305) which has the capability of giving me heading information. So I do a U-turn and back track and end up on Scripps Ranch Road and the Scripps Ranch neighborhood. This friggin neighborhood is all vertical and all the roads start with Scripps this or Scripps that. I’m now completely out of food and drink and realize that I loaned my emergency money, the $10 I keep in my bike bag, to my daughter the other day. I grab my cell phone to call my wife and find out that the battery is dead…damn, I’m going to have to stop and ask for help. I find a guy working on his front yard and he kindly tells me how to get back to Pomerado Road but his directions sound like, “take Scripps (fill in other part of name) to Scripps that, turn right on Scripps this, and another right on Scripps that and you’ll be there.

I finally make it back to the apartment, wet and cold. I’ve covered 63 miles and have sat on the bike for 4 hours and 19 minutes. I expected a ride of 43 miles and a total bike time, including regrouping stop points, of around 2 hours 45 minutes. I usually eat a large bowl of oatmeal and drink orange juice before a long ride but since I didn’t expect this, I had only a half bowl of cereal and no juice and didn’t even bother to completely fill one of my water bottles. At least the other bottle had a sports drink in it. I didn’t even bother taking my gel flask as I figured the single power bar and sports drink would be enough. There is a moral in this story somewhere…now I have to spend the next 6 hours moving all the stuff in our apartment into a 16’ truck for the journey back to the Antelope Valley to prepare for our move to the Napa Valley...

Diamond Valley Road Race (NCNCA Masters Championships) - July 25

I've got the SCNCA Masters Championships out of the way - see my earlier post on this race held in Bakersfield - now I'm ready for the NCNCA Masters Championships held in the Sierra foothills, close to the town of Markleeville, California.

By July 2nd, I'll officially be a Northern California resident again, after living in SoCal since 1991. However, my racing license will still show that I'm registered in SoCal and I'm still attached to the San Diego Cyclo-Vets as my club. This means that I can't officially race in any of the masters races but the kind folks of the Alta Alpina Cycling Club have created an open Cat 3/4/5 race to allow racers out of the NorCal zip codes to enter. From the race flyer,

"this category added to allow Category 3/4/5 racers, male, female, juniors the opportunity to race on this classic Eastern Sierra Course. The zip code requirements do not apply."

Click the graphic for a larger image



I'll be living in the Napa County town of Calistoga by then (check out my post on a couple of excellent rides in the Napa, Calistoga area), so the drive to Markleeville will be around 3.5 hours rather than the 6 hours I would be facing if we still lived in the SoCal city of Lancaster or the 9 hours if we were down in our San Diego apartment.

I found this good web site by Steven Hill where he talks about his race in 2005. It has plenty of pictures of the course but better yet, talks about camping, rather than staying in a motel. I'm an avid backpacker who also loves to car camp - this race could allow me to compete as well as take the family on a camping trip to the Eastern Sierras. What's not to like about this.

Below is an estimate of the course that I mapped in MapMyRide:



Scroll down the map and click "view full" to open completely and be sure to check the elevation box to view a profile of the course. Pics from Steve's site show a somewhat scenic but very dry (and hot?) 11 mile course. They talk about two small hills but the elevation, as given by my MapMyRide estimate shows only 1 relatively small grinder type hill.

Here's the link for SportsBaseOnline to get information on the upcoming NCNCA Masters Championships.

SCNCA Masters Championship Results - Bakersfield, CA - Saturday, June 6, 2009

Here's the results from my category, the 50+ group.

You can read the "play by play" of the 50+ race as I called it here.

You can find all the results here: SCNCA Results Page.

SCNCA Masters Championships - Bakersfield, CA

Finally, I've got a race under my belt after having my head bounce off the road in Murrieta. The Southern California Masters' Championships took place in Bakersfield, Ca today and I raced the 50+ group. I took 18th place but I was inches behind a friend of mine who took 11th and I sure didn't see 6 guys between him and me so I'm not sure how they pick the places. The funny thing is, I could have won the damn thing. With about 200 m to go in the 31 mile race, I was right behind 5 guys that were spread out across the road lane. They were not sprinting hard, just cruising in the 24 mph range or so. I assumed that we were a chase group and that others were off the front and that's why they were moving relatively slowly but I looked out to the finish and saw no one - I was sitting in 6th place and I'm a strong sprinter! The only problem was that they were completely blocking the road. In frustration I yelled, "start sprinting or get out of my way!" Instead, they actually slowed down, which slowed me down. I started to look for a way out on the left...bad choice; a gap opened on the far right and a whole bunch of guys went screaming up that side. I was out of altitude and air speed. By the time I spooled up to top speed, really standing on my pedals and driving hard, I had to be content to travel on the groups wheel, leaving the 5 blockers back in the dust. But I'm happy. The last two weeks were very bad training weeks for me as I did a lot of traveling to NorCal and back, which left little time for training. I even gained 5lbs somehow, so I had low expectations going into this race. Now for the play by play - see the map of the course below as outlined by my GPS and MapMyRide...

Bakersfield is 1.5 hours from my home in the Antelope Valley so I was up at 4:15 am and out the door at 5:00. I hitched a ride with Randy, a fellow 50+ rider and the guy that took 11th place. We were the 3rd group on the line at 7:30. The Cat 5 guys were first, followed by the women 35+ group. As I type this into my computer, results have not been posted online. When they come in I'll update this blog with full results and a link to the Kern Wheelmen site that put on the event.

As I'm straddling my bike at the starting line and listening to the pre-race instructions I was gazing at the overcast skies and wondering what the chance of rain was for my event - turns out pretty darn good as a light rain started right after the whistle was blown. It was already cold enough for me to have my arm warmers on; not a usual event for Bakersfield in June. The whistle was blown and off we went. It seemed like about 40 guys or more in my race group of 50+ guys. We headed North up Granite Road at an easy pace. My Garmin was showing a steady 2% grade and nobody seemed in a hurry to "put the hammer down." Since I had been off my bike a lot in the last two weeks I decided to stay near the rear where I wouldn't be tempted to pull the peloton. We also had a 5-7 mph head wind and I wanted to protect myself from that as well. The course was reported to gain about 1500'of elevation over the single 31 mile loop, MapMyRide shows an elevation gain of 1358' - not bad.

We crested a slight rise at around mile 3 and our speed dramatically increased. There was some movement in the group but still no one took a flyer off the front. I was content to hang back and enjoy the 40 mph ride. The steady drizzle had me a little concerned as the road seemed slippery, judging by my back tire sliding out a little in a couple of places. The road was also a little rough and cattle guards make for an interesting diversion. At one point, a calf started to walk into the road right in front of the peloton. That caused a little excitement and the yells chased the calf back off the road and back into the weeds. The descent leveled out at around mile 6 and stayed level until mile 10. This was an area for some attacks but nothing really stuck. I never felt concern but I did have to get out of the saddle a few times and really pick up the pace to avoid any gaping between me and the leading group. I did notice the pace changes were enough to drop a few weaker riders and we haven't even hit the only hill on the course. It was around this time that my heart rate monitor failed. The damn thing had been acting up over the last couple of weeks. I kept assuming it was a battery problem but I'm on my 3rd battery now in 3 weeks so I'm thinking it is time for Bob to upgrade his Forerunner 205 to either a Forerunner 305 or an Edge - now to convince his wife of the great necessity of this device...

At mile 10 the race went vertical - that just sounds good. It really was a much easier course than either Boulevard or the UCLA road course at the Devil's Punch Bowl (see my earlier posts on these races.)The climb was about 5 miles long and switched back and forth up Round Mountain Road. I moved to the back of the group just to keep an eye on everybody as no one was attacking off the front. I really didn't know the course and kept thinking that it must get a lot harder near the top and that's why no one was attacking. With my heart rate monitor out I had to go on feel and my feel was telling me that I was working hard but that I had a lot left if I needed it. Still, guys kept dropping off in front of me and I continually moved up the peloton by attrition. We crested at mile 15 and the real fun stuff started. The descent was about a minus 6% grade with a lot of switchbacks - in short, a technical descent. To make matters more interesting, the rain kept falling and all the riders were fighting the wheel spray from other racers as well. Normally I'm a guy that loves to bomb the descent but I'm still pretty sheepish from my crash so I kept my speed at around 40 mph at the top end and rode pretty loose down the hill as far as my placement next to other riders. As we leveled off at mile 20 I stomped on the pedals and closed the gap with the lead racers. I was feeling so frisky that I even went to the front and took a few pulls. At one time, I ended up with a group of three, 20 m off the front. Had we taken off at that point I think we would have kept the gap and beaten the peloton. At around mile 27 the road began to go up at an easy 1-2% grade. I positioned myself in the top ten and stayed there with less than a quarter of mile to go. Now go back to the top of this post and read how I could have placed in the top 5. But that's bike racing and I sure love it.

Final numbers: 18th out of 40? 30.9 mile loop with 1358' of elevation gain. Average speed of 22.8 mph. 2,128 estimated calories burned. Oh, and the rain completely stopped and the sun came out right after we crossed the finish line - just another beautiful day in Bakersfield, California.

San Diego and Coronado Island

With my next race a few weeks away in Bakersfield I thought it was time for another travelogue. I spend every other weekend in San Diego and on Saturday, I always ride with my club, the San Diego Cyclo-Vets. This ride is intense, loaded with race simulations, so on Sunday I look for a scenic recovery ride. The ride I currently favor is traveling from our apartment, located in the Serra Mesa neighborhood of S.D., to the silver shores of Coronado and the bike path called the Silver Strand. We've got friends in Coronado, so I make it a one way trip and my wife, Esmeralda, is waiting with the family car. The way I've composed the ride, it is 35 to 43 miles depending what you do in Coronado. The shorter ride is straight to our friends house, the longer version is to the end of the strand, ride through town, and stop at the Ferry Landing. I prefer stopping in Coronado, but I've seen others really make it an adventure and ride the Ferry back to San Diego and home.

Here's the shorter version via MapMyRide:


Coronado Island is really not an island. It is connected to "mainland" San Diego at the South end and the Town of Imperial Beach. The North end of the Coronado is connected to San Diego by the Coronado Bay Bridge but bikes are not allowed on this bridge. When I created the MapMyRide route they still had not opened a new extension of bike path that skips riding into Imperial Beach or IB as the locals call it. That part of my ride was not the high point of the route but you don't have to worry about it anymore. Right before mile 29 you pick up a new bike path that will completely avoid IB and take you directly to the Silver Strand.


Star of India

My version of this ride takes you past some pretty cool scenery. It does have some areas that are pretty congested though, so I like to make this ride first thing in the morning. The best views, prior to arriving in Coronado, are riding past Sea World, coming into the harbor area and the tourist attractions of the Star of India, and the USS Midway. You pass under the North end of the bridge and travel South past the Navy base. The route is pretty straight forward but look at it closely. Finding the first bike path can be a little tricky. On my map, it is between mile 23 and mile 24, at the end of 32nd street. It looks like I'm traveling on the 5 freeway but you'll be on a well constructed bike path to the west of I5. You want to cross some water (Sweetwater River) on the Gordy Shields' bridge (A San Diego Cyclo-Vet legend) so head straight for the I5 and avoid what looks like a bike path over water just west of Gordy's bridge.

Enjoy the ride!

I'm Ready

Bouquet Canyon Reservoir
Photo Credit: http://image14.webshots.com/14/5/67/57/159356757VieLLu_fs.jpg

(see other pics below)

I just finished punching the right buttons on my computer and paying for my entry into the Bakersfield Masters' Championships held in Bakersfield, California on Saturday, June 6th. Am I ever ready for this race. I've entered the Masters 50+ category in keeping with my blog's name. My race will be held 7:30 am and will be 31 miles long - check out my previous post for a map of the course.

How do I know I'm ready? I've been tearing up the club scene for a couple of weeks now. Granted, most of the club riders are not racers but you don't have to have a racing license to be a hammerhead on a bike. Last week I was riding with my Cyclo-Vets group on our usual Torry Pines ride and I was easily first to the park, the first race simulation. I was third going up Torry Pines where I'm usually around 7th to 10th, and I was first up the sprinter hill of Carroll Canyon (if you don't count Arnie and Janette on a racing tandem - I still find it hard to beat a 5 time National Champion in the captain's spot on the tandem, with a current pro-racer as his stoker.) I took 4th on the flat sprint at the end of the ride on Kearny Villa road but was actually first in the sprint with my chase group. A group of 3 guys, got off the front and I let them go as I felt they left too early - big mistake, they extended their gap and fought for the "podium" among themselves (and the damn tandem that I think won.) I fought it out with a large chase group, pulled away from the group with two other guys, and out sprinted them at the end.

Yesterday, with my Antelope Valley group, I found myself head to head with Eric, a usually unbeatable climber by me and the rest of our L & 20th group. Follow along with the map at the end of this post. Our first challenge is the small rise at mile 11 or so. This steady 2 mile, 3-5% climb starting at 70th street and topping out at 90th has always been treated by the L & 20th group as our first race simulation. Yesterday's ride was no exception. I easily powered away from Eric and took this first "preme". Not a real challenge, as Eric is not a sprinter and the 70th street hill is very much a sprinter's hill. Roger and Randy, both excellent sprinters, were not on this ride and either one would have given me a tough run. Eric and Roger are both ex-racers but don't let their lack of a current racing license fool anyone - both can dish out the pain in a ride.

The next race simulator starts at mile 19 and finishes at around mile 23. This is Munz Ranch Road and it's steady 6-8% grade is right up Eric's alley. Usually he reaches the top with me a hundred meters back but today (and for the last month actually) he fell behind me quickly and was never a challenge. He made one run at me at around mile 20 or so but I turned up the speed and drove hard up the hill. My current philosophy on hill climbing is that you are better to be the one leading the hill climb and dishing out the hurt rather than just sitting at the receiving end of someone else putting out the pain.

The next challenge came with the 3 Canyon's ride. Look at the map and you'll see 3 spikes right after mile 24 - those are the spikes of the 3 Canyons - San Francisquito Canyon, Spunky Canyon, and Bouquet Canyon. Francisquito, in this direction, is almost all downhill. You do have to crest a short 10-12% section before you crest and Eric is usually all business here. Again, I cranked hard and crested the hill in front and by myself - no challenge detected. We regrouped at the stop sign where we go left and head for Spunky Canyon. As we approached the climb up Spunky, at mile 28, Eric jumped into the lead and began to beat out a high tempo pace. I jumped on his wheel and then I dropped back 5 meters or so and matched his climb rate. He was pushing out the watts and I felt it was all I could do to stay on his tail but I wasn't going to let him get away. I didn't feel I had the power to pass him at this point so I stayed 5 meters back so nobody could say I was wheel sucking and allowing him to pull me up the hill. I have never beaten Eric up this hill in the several years we've been riding Spunky and it was clear from his cadence that he was not going to let me easily have this one. Somewhere around mile 30, with the crest of Spunky at mile 31, Eric increased his tempo in another bid to gap me. My heart rate was now above lactate threshold and was in the high 160's. I know from racing that I can go into the 170's for a short time so I said to myself that it was now my turn to dish out the pain. I accelerated on a steep part of the hill and passed Eric on his left side. I moved my hands as close to my stem as possible and began to drive hard with my legs using as full extension as possible. Eric tried to match my acceleration but with my heart rate passing 172 (my maximum rate is around 180) I began to lengthen my gap over him. With one last bump coming up, I stood on the petals and began to drive at maximum power - I felt great. My heart rate was in the mid 170s but I felt like I could continue this forever. What a strange sensation it is to be operating at near maximum heart rate and feeling good about it - in a few words; I'm ready to race again!

Spunky Canyon
Photo Credit: http://www.ridesaroundla.com/Rides/Spunky.jpg

As we neared the finish of the ride, Eric came up to me and said that he was sorry he didn't offer more competition on this ride. Of course, it was quite the opposite. Without him in the group I would never have pushed myself like I did. Had I been riding alone, I would have pushed hard up the canyons, I always do, but I would have stopped far short of blasting into the 170's as far as heart rate is concerned. In short, I would have worked hard but just put out enough power to feel good about my climbing workout. With Eric present, he turned an average workout into an exceptional one.

Spunky Canyon, South End
Photo Credit: http://www.pashnit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78062&d=1219024031


View of Bouquet Canyon Reservoir from looking South on Spunky
Photo Credit: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_dqiper7Fm7g/SDOy8YuVRUI/AAAAAAAAAyY/hvmQeahBLWI/highres_3588590.jpg

3 Canyons is going to be one of the courses I'm going to miss in the Antelope Valley. It has everything you can ask for in a training ride. In two months time I'll have moved on to the Napa Valley and the excellent rides provided by that area. The Antelope Valley is also an excellent place to train though. The draw backs are the extreme temperature in the summer and winter, and the ever present 20 - 40 mph winds in the afternoon (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.) But in minutes you can be away from the city and riding hard over country roads with only a few cars to cause you any problems. If you get a chance to ride in the Antelope Valley, use my map below and ride the canyons.