Industry Figure Tom Chappell

Industry Figure Ron Traver and I had a great 35-mile ride through the mountains near my house Sunday.

Click on the image below to see a slideshow of the route:

Take a look at it if you haven’t already; it’s pretty awesome, with 2,500 feet of climbing.

Those mountains didn’t phase me, though they did show that they are good at blocking the morning sun, if you’re on the right side of them, and that motorcyclists should really think twice before tearing down mountains at enormous speeds. For my part, I gave those “hills”, as we call them, a good dominating, though I suppose I’m lucky that one of them didn’t decide to sit on me, just to take me down a notch.

Ron drove straight to the Rose Bowl from his house, calling me when he was about 2/3 of the way there, so that I could meet him there and bring him and his bike back to my house. We were out the door and on our way by 8:00am, our target time, except that I realized after we were well underway that I had forgotten to have breakfast in the flurry of activity prior to the ride, so I had one of my Clif Bars right away.

The ride is well organized, in six phases:

Phase 1: An easy warm-up phase (before the first crossing of the Tujunga Wash)
Phase 2: A moderate-effort phase (between the first and second wash crossings)
Phase 3: A high-effort phase (from the second crossing of the wash, past the dam, to the first T-intersection)
Phase 4: A second moderate-effort phase (between the two T-intersections)
Phase 5: A long downhill phase (from the second T-intersection all the way to Descanso Gardens in La Cañada)
Phase 6: An easy romp (from Descanso Gardens in La Cañada to the Rose Bowl)

We made quick work of first two phases, beginning phase three at maybe 9:15am. Off we went, up the hill, past the dam, up and up, and…there was the little vista point looking over the dam, a little sooner than we had expected, by 9:40am.

And just in time, too, because my seat post had come loose, and was slowly sinking into the bike. But a little thing like that can’t stop a couple of middle-aged guys (of course we brought small tool packs), and it was soon set right. Between resting, snacking, fixing the bike, and taking a couple of pictures of ourselves with Ron’s iPhone, we probably hung around there 15 minutes, leaving by 10:00am, say.

Here I am, at the dam overlook:

You can see the dam, and the dammed-up water, behind Ron, here:

Then, some more relentless climbing, as we crossed three outcroppings on our right, maybe another 20 minutes, and climbed up to the first T-intersection. Time for another quick break, maybe 5-10 minutes. That would put us at maybe 10:30am.

We now entered the second moderate phase, with some nice rolling hills, though still decidedly upward overall. Here’s a picture of the first part of that second moderate section, taken from later in the trip:

A slightly later section of that same phase:

And one more, just so you know that we did have some great views:

Just short of the second T-intersection, we took a short break in the shade, at maybe 10:50am. We still had plenty of water, because of Ron’s great idea of bringing a third water bottle each in our jersey pockets. I was able to wash some of the salt off my face with the last of my second water bottle’s water, and we still had a full water bottle each for the downhill and easy sections.

We were only on our bikes for another minute or two before arriving at the second T-intersection, as Angeles Forest Rd. dead-ended into Angeles Crest Highway:

We took off down the long 10-mile downhill by 11:04am, only to be stopped before we’d gone a mile. A motorcyclist had gotten a little excited going around a curve, and had broken his leg. The ambulance was going to take too long, so they were bringing in a helicopter. Here’s the helicopter, and the line of 30 or so cars, plus uncountable two-wheeled vehicles, that built up while we waited:

We were blocked there for about a half-hour, which meant that I got a little more sun than expected, resuming our downhill at about 11:30am.

The romp through La Cañada was beautiful, and (even more important) shady, and we arrived at the top of the Rose Bowl at about 12:25pm, and had certainly completed our victory lap by 12:40pm.

After loading our bikes onto Ron’s bike rack, we went over to Mijares for a Victory Lunch of Chile Colorado and beer, which was tasty and refreshing, except that they didn’t have any seating outside for two that was in the shade, and I think it was at this point that I got good and baked, for real. Also, after Ron dropped me off at home, he called me up a few minutes later to say that he realized that he had left his special lock for his bike rack on the bumper of his car, and it and the lock pin had fallen off the car somewhere in the first mile from my house. Incredibly, after not much more than 1/2 hour of searching, we were able to find both the lock and the pin, though here again I got an extra dose of sunlight that I didn’t need. I don’t actually look like a lobster, because of no claws, but there is “a hint of red”.

Ron, by the way, won a huge moral victory on this ride. He hadn’t ridden his bike since the Solvang Century in early March, call it six months ago, except for two super-short easy rides with relatives and one moderate 20-mile training ride the week before. He’s also almost 10 years older than I am. But he was still able to get on his bike and do an advanced ride, more or less cold. Amazing.

I was just powering up those hills, by my lights, and my heart got a terrific workout: I had my heart rate in the 138-142 range (around 85% of my maximum heart rate, well into the “Speed Training” range, and just shy of the “Anaerobic” range that you don’t want to enter during a long ride) for almost all of phases 3 and 4. I only noticed my legs starting to feel tired on the last uphill of the Rose Bowl victory lap, so I guess that was about a perfect ride for me.

“Can we do it again, next week?”