Palm Springs) on February 13, 2010. We met in Cupertino at Monta Vista Park (normal meeting place for Mt. Eden hill climbs) and were ride ready by 6:45am! Driving to the park at around 6am was neat as it was a full moon...check out the view that I had driving northbound on 280. Umm, don't ask me how I got that picture! :)As usual, I am one of the first ones there and I get myself and my bike ready to go. Coach Patrick arrives and has route sheets in hand. I grab one and notice that we are doing a hill climb right away over Mt. Eden! Great, I thought we were done with hill climbs! Oh well. The rest of the route sheet looked pretty straight forward as we were doing a tour of the bay area peninsula. Cool, we should have pretty good weather (yeah right)!
Off we go at around 7:15 am (don't you hate it when they say "ride ready" by 6:45am but some people don't arrive until that time). Don't get me started! Anyway, we are ready to go and Coach Patrick comes up to me and says that he really wants me to focus on finishing strong today. We did 80 miles a couple of weeks prior to today so he wanted us to remember how we road that day and think of what we could do to pace ourselves better so that we finish a lot stronger today! I definitely kept that in mind today!
First up, Mt. Eden. I was soooo tempted to attack that hill. I mean it's been almost a month since we've done hill climbs and I know I am a much stronger rider today than I was just a few weeks ago. But of course, this is only 3 miles into an 83 mile ride so I had to pace myself so that it wouldn't hurt later. I hooked up with my favorite climbing buddy Henry and we went up together at a pretty easy pace, no standing, and we actually did a lot of talking while going up. Ok, I guess I am getting better as it actually seemed "easier" (notice I never said easy) to get up that hill. We road some familiar roads around Los Gatos/Saratoga area before our first stop at mile 21 back at Monta Vista Park. It's nice having the first stop be where our cars are parked since we were able to shed some layers as the weather is now looking very nice. Oh I forgot, about 1 mile before the 1st rest stop, Henry got the first flat of the day (rear wheel too)! But man, he knows what he's doing as he swapped that tube fast! And, we had our SAG captain, Ruth come up right on time with the floor pump! We are so spoiled with our ride support team!
After refueling and a potty break, we headed back out and started towards Palo Alto. Again, very familiar roads as we hit Foothill to Alpine to Portola to Mountain Home. This stretch caused one of our other teammates to flat as well! Man, not a good sign, 2 flats in less than 40 miles. Oh well, nothing we could do but help her change it. Here comes SAG captain Ruth again to the rescue with her pump!! :) This route, especially the long (not steep, but gradual ascent) up Alpine reminded me of our Sorting ride (only 2nd ride of the season) way back in November and how this little incline just about had me gassed! I wanted to quit. But today, it was quite nice going up that little road. It definitely boosted my confidence! Ok, we got to rest stop #2 at about mile 42 and tried to make it quick so that we could make up some time. We went to the bathrooms, refueled and off we went.
Next part of the ride would take us further north on the peninsula to Canada, Skyline, Crystal Springs. Canada was where we did our Pacelining Clinic at the beginning of the year, so we did a lot of short pulls to allow everyone on our 7 person team take the lead. I know I am biased and all, but man, we look good! :) We work so well together as a team. Our wheels are pretty close together and we communicate really well. That makes us so efficient and saves a lot of energy! Bummer! "FLAT"!!! We had to yell that out again as another teammate, Eddie, got the third flat of the day! His took a little longer to change since for some reason it appeared he had two bad tubes. I did get a couple of photos of my teammates. And of course, there's Ruth, our SAG Captain, helping out!
Ok, we were in the Burlingame/San Mateo/Hillsborough area. There are some nice houses in these neck of the woods! We found ourselves oohing and aaahing over many of the beautiful homes. As we started heading back south on the peninsula, we came to a trail called Ralston Bike Trail that lead us back over 280...and I mean literally over 280! We went over one of those walking bridges to the other side back to Canada. Oh, I forgot to mention...it wouldn't be a true Winter Cycling Team ride if it didn't rain! Yup, it started coming down on us. Albeit, nothing too bad and not too long. But still, I know we need the rain and all, but this was getting old.
Final rest stop was back in Los Altos at mile 68. Ok, all I kept thinking was how I felt last week on the Buddy ride and that was only 66 miles total. I am at mile 68 and I feel great! Got some more fuel and then 5 of the 7 of us went on. One of our other teammates was "bonking". He was not feeling well so one of our mentors, Arielle, told us to go ahead and she would bring our other teammate in at a slower pace. Ok, that only left 5 of us to work together to bring home the last 16 miles.
We headed down Woodside to Whiskey Hill to Sand Hill to Santa Cruz to Junipero Serra to Foothill and back to Monta Vista Park. The best part was I felt great. We got there and saw the fastest group packing up. They were gassed! They said they kept too fast of a pace and felt drained. So, I, I mean "we" kept a good enough pace where we felt really good. I even suggested that since it was only another 3 miles away, why don't we go for another hill climb on Mt. Eden? My teammates wanted to kill me!! LOL!!! :)
That's it...after this ride, the coaches said that we are ready to take on 100 miles at Palm Springs! We have one more training ride next Saturday but it's only 30 miles and a little potluck lunch celebration afterwards. Check me out saying "only" 30 miles! Who would have ever thought that!
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