Then we were off down the driveway, through the gate and further down the hill to the main road. (I said to myself, this is going to hurt on the return).
The first turn put us onto a lovely shaded road, dappled sunshine and a dry creek bed. I got a little ahead (guilty again of starting out with too much vim and vigor, hopefully not paying for it later). JB called out "left on Bean Creek". He passed me at the turn and took off fast. I was wearing my sunglasses and in and out of sharply contrasting light and frustratedly couldn't go as fast as I wanted to keep up. I tend to take first passes at a descent conservatively, not knowing angles and road conditions.
Bean Creek seemed a popular thoroughfare. Several cyclists were climbing as we descended. Although it wasn't killer-steep, I was happy to be on the downhill side of things.
I was, however getting concerned. I knew we had a big climb ahead. I knew the numbers. I had drawn the route. Still, As we continued to plummet into the abyss, the tangible aspect to the climb ahead was becoming increasingly - er - tangible. As in, I'm going to have to climb the f*ck out of this on my way to the Coast.
Our next turn put us on a fairly Trafficky street. The name escapes me at the moment. A great descent into Felton. The pavement was grooved; I worried a bit about a groove catching my tire but really, the traffic was more of a concern. I'd like to return and do the descent at 7AM instead of 11AM. Even at a conservative pace, it was fun and fast.
The road leveled out as we approached Felton. We stopped at the traffic light and waited our turn. Across the street, coincidentally the exact direction we were headed, the road turned into a wall.
"That's a welcome sight," I said.
"Felton-Empire Road," the street sign replied.
When JB proposed the ride, I said, I can climb. I'm okay with steep as long as it's not 4 miles at 15%. Give me the major roads. I drew the route on ridewithgps - the site I normally use for routes. It tends to inflate overall climbing. I magnified the climb on F-E and traced it with my cursor. A few glimpses of 11 & 12% but mostly 7 & 8%. Doable, I thought.
And so we cross the intersection and immediately climb at 15-16% for a good quarter mile. THIS was NOT on the menu! Leveling out to single digits (ie., 9%) seemed flattish.
The road became slightly more forgiving for a bit. But then I remembered. We have 2000 feet to go and about 5 miles to do it in. Which means.... Flat here = suffer there. Soon the road turned into the trees. We wound around. Hairpins became a little tighter, a little steeper. I was scared to look at my Garmin. I frequently saw silly readings of 16, 17, no! 21%! grades. Then 12% seemed like a relief.
At one point I saw the grade creep over 30% - even to 35% - but I believe that had to be bogus. Or I was in deep denial. Fortunately, whatever the truth, it didn't last long. Like many other roads, as we neared the summit, the climb became more gradual and our energy returned. My inner stinker surfaced: I'd been ahead by maybe 50 yards the entire climb and when it came to reaching the summit, I wasn't about to give that up. I up shifted and stood in the pedals and sprinted at a whopping 8mph to the stop sign. Want my autograph?
Yeah. Exactly.
We crossed Empire Grade and descended Ice Cream Grade. I've heard of this - it's a hard climb and there's no ice cream! WTF! However, "luck" was with us and webhappened to be traveling in the proper direction on Ice Cream Grade. A fun and steep descent turned into a gradual climb as we approached Pine Flats.
We were still mostly in shade, the canopy protecting us from over exposure.
A left turn onto Pine Flats started us on our way on the true descent to the coast. Fast, sweet, fairly good road surface with decent sight lines made for a fun drop towards the coast. I have ridden in the area before but have always descended Empire Grade (also fun!).
Forgetting that Pine Flats turned into Bonny Doon, I mistakenly turned us to the right when I saw the Bonny Doon street sign. I figured it out quickly without too many bonus miles (thank you, Death Ride training) and we resumed on course.
I had forgotten the two 2 mile stretches of Trucks on Cheese: descending 10% grades that awaited us as we screamed to highway 1. What a blast!
Highway 1 greeted us with magnificent tailwinds. We hauled ass to Santa Cruz in a personal best kinda way. To maintain the scenic nature, we followed West Cliff Drive past the lighthouse, down the slope and by the Boardwalk. Lemmejussay, if you've ever ridden your bike across the Golden Gate Bridge on a Summer weekend, you will understand my pain at riding by the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. OY!
After tootling through Santa Cruz (because you just can't race through there: Banana Slugs don't race) we had one last bump before the home stretch bump. It was getting warm and the road more exposed. We took it slow.
Finally, we were back at the approach road. Surface: bad. Turkeys: present. Hills: f*ckyouverymuch. You know those houses with the driveways that are long and steep and you see those and say, "damn, I'm sure glad I don't have to ride up *that* at the end of a ride"
So on my way past the turkey and the gnat cloud, which was quite enamored of me, and before I almost veered into a ditch and fell over, I saw at least one 25% grade flash on my Garmin display. It was precisely at that point I realized that we had failed to purchase post-ride beer.
