Laboring the Day Away

What better way to spend the Labor Day holiday than climbing a few hills? I will admit to a few doubts when the alarm went off, my night's sleep having been interrupted by unusual noises. Dishes? Why does it sound like someone is clattering dishes in the sink? 1:30 a.m. The cat was neither the culprit, nor concerned.

Mystery investigated and solved: My neighbors, for whom cleanliness is a virtue above all others, were still tidying up after having had some guests over. I knew they were prepping for company, as they had power-washed the house, the front walk, the back patio, the driveway, and their side of the fence. And I'm supposed to install a low-flow shower head? Don't get me started.

Lying abed, I pondered my options. I did a hard ride on Saturday, after all. The next day, I was rather a couch potato until I was invited for a Sunday drive (which was fabulous, but did involve more sitting). Dinner culminated in a decadent serving of chocolate fudge cake (oh, the flesh is weak). Get up, get out, get moving.

I managed to do more climbing (5,055 feet) over less distance (45.3 miles) than I did on Saturday. In the photo at the top, you can see the curves of Montebello Road to the right, Stevens Creek Reservoir below, and clear across the Santa Clara Valley to Mt. Hamilton and the peaks of the Diablo Range. The fall harvest is nigh at Ridge, a pair of deer paused to watch me on Montebello before splitting to sprint in opposite directions, and my tools rescued a mountain biker with a slipped cleat on Mt. Eden Road. Best of all, descending Highway 9 into Saratoga, I validated my hunch that I would be faster than the lumpy Prius that held us back on Sunday night. I wish more people understood how to drive ...

Santa Cruz Mountains Mini-Challenge

Today I co-led a ride for the club that we had previewed a few weeks ago. We had a surprisingly good turnout; fifteen riders signed in, with only one turning back after the first hill. I overheard one guy remark:

I tried to get my buddy to join me on this ride, but he said he wasn't doing anything that had “mountains” and “challenge” in the title.

Hey, what about the “mini” part? This wasn't the real Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge, which entails a serious amount of (steep) climbing. Our hills were much more mellow. Well, with the exception of a rather testosterone-fueled descent of San Jose-Soquel Road. Given no room to pass, I had to touch my brakes a few times to avoid running up the back of some of the guys (aerodynamic advantage). The speed limit is 40 mph, and I exceeded it by less than 1% - within the range of calibration error, wouldn't you say?

The ridge along Rodeo Gulch Road delivered a view of Monterey Bay that extended from Moss Landing to Pacific Grove. As we zigzagged up and down through the redwoods, our route came to resemble a three-fingered glove (for you GPS art-lovers out there). 4,445 feet of climbing over 49.4 miles (for the stats lovers among us).

Along the way I saw a juvenile California Mountain Kingsnake, sadly flattened in the middle of the road. The significant wildlife sighting of the day, though, occurred before I left the house: I was in my kitchen at just the right moment to see a very robust coyote dart across my neighbor's yard and head up the road. The road meanders a couple of miles uphill to an open space preserve, but it's all suburban lawns down here. Er, about that "lost pet" flyer ...

Able Was I

I have been fortunate to have had few encounters with aggressive drivers; today was not one of those days. Traveling south on Highway 9 in Ben Lomond to return to the park where we started our ride, I approached an intersection with deep sand and gravel in my path. What to do? With a steady flow of traffic in the narrow lane to my left and no room to maneuver, I calculated that I could ride through it. Just as I entered the intersection and the first patch of debris, the driver behind me gunned his engine and squealed into the right-hand turn in front of me, losing traction in the sand. The car was old, small, and yellow. A word describing the driver of said car starts with an "a" (hint: I'm not thinking "aggressive"). I stayed upright and lived to cycle another day. Peace and love to you too, bud, here in the harmonic center of hippie-dom in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I have a fellow cyclist to thank for the high point of my day. Waiting at the base of Alba for the rest of our group to descend, a racer from the San Jose Bike Club rounded the corner to start the climb. As he did, he called out: "Going up?" I replied: "Already been." I knew he was talking to me, because there was nobody else around. And that means, despite being decked out in my recreational club jersey, I somehow looked not only capable of climbing Alba, but worthy of consideration as a climbing partner. Or maybe it means he was nearsighted.

A friendly driver paused at the stop sign to give me an update on the group. "They're a ways back, maybe two-thirds down." I'd had a lovely, somewhat conservative descent (being unfamiliar with the road, but knowing that it would end abruptly at this stop sign, after a blind curve). A small pickup truck had come into view behind me just as the road got twisty and technical. I dropped him in the blink of an eye; he caught up only after I'd stopped at the bottom. That's the way I like it.

Alba loomed large for me this morning. From Roads to Ride (South) by Petersen and Kluge:

This is one of the most difficult short climbs in the Santa Cruz Mountains. ... Descending Alba Rd. isn't great fun, but rather a matter of constantly arresting your speed and looking forward to the bottom.

It's number 76 on a list of the 100 Toughest USA Road Bike Climbs, according to John Summerson (The Complete Guide to Climbing by Bike).

On our club's scale of 3 to 6, Alba is a 6. Our group included five women, four of whom have mountain bike gearing on their road bikes. Uh, guess which one does not? And where were all our able, hard-bodied men this morning?

We arrived at the base of Alba together; our leader wanted to re-group before heading up. I needed not to stop, before I lost my nerve.

I learned a valuable life lesson years ago, the first time I stood at the top of the Cirque at Snowbird and looked down. More or less, straight down. Double Black Diamond. Free fall. I was balancing on a pair of skis between some jagged rocks on a ridge line at 11,000 feet and my heart was in my throat. I wasn't going first, no, not me, no way, no how. The longer I stood there watching the first woman in our group as she repeatedly toppled over below us, the higher my anxiety rose. Somehow, I had to point my skis down the hill. Terrified, I eased into the first turn, and stopped. I was upright. Okay, another turn. Still upright. Maybe I could link two turns together? Soon I was a third of the way down. Near the bottom, my skier extraordinaire friend Dave passed me. He knew there was only one way that I could be at that particular spot on the mountain. "No more blue trails for YOU," he shouted as he flew by.

I'd heard that Alba is really steep at the bottom, and the published profiles showed that it gets really steep again near the top. In the middle, it's merely steep. I made steady progress up the hill, waiting for it to get worse. When the grade relented after the first half mile, I realized it wasn't going to get worse. The grade is uneven, but the steeper bits are short. With apologies to Sheryl Crow, "This ain't no Country View." If Alba is a "6," Country View is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a 6.

Low-Power Mode

You know it is going to be a hot day when, stopped at the first traffic light a few hundred yards from the start, a rivulet of sweat runs down your calf from the slight skin-on-skin contact in the crook of your knee, and it's only 9 a.m. After climbing some hills on the suburban fringes of San Jose with friends, I returned home to sprawl under a ceiling fan and switched myself into low-power mode. Not quite, but nearly, napping in the triple-digit heat.

My Saturday started with the most egregious telemarketing call yet. When telemarketers call, my habit is to answer the phone, set it down, and hang up after they eventually drop the call. This one, however, begged for some interaction.

Hello, may I speak with ...
Who's calling?
[My bank]
Is there a problem with my account?
Oh no, ma'am ...
It is 7:40 A.M.
And I am on the Do Not Call List.
Do Not Call Here. Ever. Again.

Yes, I suppose the Do-Not-Call-List does not apply when it is your bank calling. It is I who will be calling the bank, on Monday morning.

When I stopped to take the photo above, I didn't notice the hawk that must have been perched nearby until it took flight and scolded me with its distinctive, eerie cry. Given the heat, we scaled our ride back from five hills to three, 31 miles for the day. Top speed: 44.4 mph, on a wide thoroughfare with little traffic and creamy-smooth pavement. Well worth the climb.

Uncharted Territory

With so many intrepid cyclists exploring every possible uphill in the Bay Area, it seems improbable that one might discover a new climb. Imagine my surprise to be introduced to a challenging and apparently unfamiliar road last week. Impressions of a road's grade from the seat of a car can be misleading; the only sure way to know is to get on the bike and head for the top. It didn't look impossible.

Our club rates hills on a subjective scale from 3 to 6, where "3" is noticeably uphill and "6" means I need lower gears than I have. My sense was that this new hill could be a 6. Or a 5. Probably not a 4, but I certainly wouldn't complain if it turned out that way.

I persuaded some friends and my regular ride partner to go exploring with me. Our 40-mile menu included a few of the club's 3-rated hills along the way to today's featured special, Country View Drive. As soon as we rounded the corner, there were a few [unprintable] exclamations of, er, delight.

I am totally in the wrong gear!

This is definitely not a "3"!

Four out of the five of us made it to the summit. The fifth was running low on water and looks forward to returning on a cooler day.

The vote at the top: one hypoxic abstention, two for "6," and a "5" from the Canadian judge. The grade of the climb is uneven, and interrupted by two descents. Factoring out that half mile or so, we climbed 710 feet over about 1.3 miles. Including a brief scenic detour on a steep side street, and those two intervening climbs on the way down, we used less than two miles of pavement to climb 930 feet.

If you haven't done something like this on a bicycle, let me explain that this is hard. Really hard. It hurts. On the steepest section, I sustained an average heart rate of 182 beats per minute for more than five minutes to generate a forward pace of 4.1 mph (i.e., to stay upright).

At the end of the day, everyone was still talking to me. Even before we played in the fountain.

Social Climbing

Today was the club's annual Ice Cream Social, conveniently celebrated about five miles from home. Translation: Find some hills and earn those calories.

I have been itching to head up Hicks, the hard way, and eager to explore Mt. Umunhum Road. The latter is an out-and-back that I do not feel comfortable riding alone. The former is, well, just plain hard - physically and mentally. Before today I had only climbed it non-stop on one occasion.

The weather did not disappoint: hot enough to make Hicks harder. I am a seated climber, and the grade is steep enough that I lifted my front wheel off the pavement a few times as I pulled on the handlebars. When I started to feel sorry for myself, I pushed those thoughts out of my head and focused on turning the pedals instead of stopping for a break.

Non-stop, for the second time in my life. My power-to-weight ratio has clearly improved.

Mt. Umunhum Road is no picnic, but after Hicks it seems ... merely uphill. I continued for a stretch beyond the first gate, but turned around to re-join my ride partner before reaching gate number two.

Did I earn my chocolate ice cream? Beyond any doubt.

Driving Range

No offense, but I have to admit that I don't "get" golf. I did spend today on a golf course, and it did involve driving: in two fundamentally heretical ways. The first involved driving exotic cars onto the greens. The second involved driving exotic cars ... period. Our guess was that 10% or fewer of the owners actually drive their machines, which is the real heresy.

Nine Lamborghinis, all in a row ... you do the math. There were many more, including a tractor and an LM002. But not nearly as many as there were Ferarris, which overflowed their (larger) assigned area into two additional spillover sectors. To the early birds go the prime exhibition spots.

After strolling around at Concorso Italiano to check out hundreds of fabulous cars (you'd think they were a dime-a-dozen, or something), we found a shady spot where we could comfortably enjoy some people-watching. As we watched a guy entertaining two blondes near the shiny black car, I joked that he must be claiming the car as his own. This led instantly to a bet that I wouldn't stroll down the hill, key in hand, and nonchalantly raise the carbon-fiber rear panel to expose the engine. Guess who won that bet. [Admittedly, only after being goaded mercilessly for a solid 20 minutes. The release lever is where?]

A long day in the company of fine fast cars can have only one natural conclusion. Our drive passed through some areas dense with smoke from the Lockheed fire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which had sent ash raining down far south onto the cars in Monterey. The drifting plume was visible above the Calero Reservoir, at sunset.