Humility? It's on back-order.

It’s always fun to ride some place new. There’s a certain mental challenge to it. Not knowing the route, what’s yet to come as far as frequency of climb and steepness of climb, means holding a little back (but how much!) for later in the day. On a familiar route, you can hammer it in certain areas because you know what’s left and you have the confidence of having done that segment before.

But on a new route, even with an elevation profile examined beforehand, it’s hard to judge.

Take the Templeton Wine and Roses as an example. Jim and I signed up for the full century, but thought we might end up only doing the metric. Friday night before the ride, we decided, nope, we were going for the full monty. It’s “only” 6800 feet of climbing. (that, of course, depends on whose Garmin you’re using… but that’s a topic for another rant).

The day started earlier than we wanted, but later than the Death Ride (!!) -- at Starbucks (yeah, no Peets in Paso Robles) for a coffee and bagel at 5:30AM to ready ourselves for the short drive to Templeton. It was still pitch black and we didn’t have headlights. So maybe we undershot our start time by about a half hour. Used to large check-ins, we arrived at the Templeton Community Center / Government Building / Firehouse located on the Central Square. We parked right in front and entered the building at 6:02AM on the heels of the volunteers roped in to check us in. The air was still cool, making wardrobe choices challenging. We knew it would get hot, but when??

Shortly before 7, we embarked on the route. The roads were mostly in decent shape, but there were definitely some dicey sections and alligator pavement with large craters blown out.

I love riding in the early morning. Hated getting up for it, but enjoyed the long shadows which formed in the amber morning light, making our bicycles and legs look like Wilt Chamberlain’s against the golden pastures and meadow fencing. This day, we were out with the morning deer. Being some of the first cyclists on the road at 7AM, the deer were not yet inured to cyclists.  We passed a young doe and buck. Seeing us riding either spooked or energized them to start running along the fence with us. Not being able to resist the challenge, I stood on my pedals and began to ride with them. Race them, even. I sprinted along for a bit while the little doe and young buck ran, too, at 20 MPH. A fun little interval, and I hoped then that I hadn’t blown my legs out at mile 10 by giving too much with 90 miles to go.

Normally, when you do a ride, like long road trips on the highway, you tend to encounter the same folks again and again. When you do a ride with only 350 people, and maybe 10% of them are doing the century, you definitely bump into the same folks. So when Terry at the registration became Terry at the first SAG stop and Terry at the second SAG stop and then Terry at lunch and then Terry at the Nth SAG stop bathroom line… Not that I got introduced, but heard him introducing himself to others…Social fellow. 

A ride with 6800 feet of climbing can be more or less difficult. 6800 feet isn’t chump change to most anyone, for sure. This one, despite looking at the elevation profile (no climbs longer than 500 feet!), was deceptively difficult. As I said to Jim, it was like riding a saw. The road was constantly up and down, with many rollers and short climbs followed by short descents. In some respects, the route was a real endurance builder of interval training. No descent was long enough to really recover. Much of the ‘negative’ incline was at 1 or 2% where pedaling was still necessary to maintain forward progress as opposed to 5-6% up and similar grades down. The low grades kept our average speed up, but if there had been headwinds, it would have been brutal. The first 50 miles (East Side) was this type of terrain. Gorgeous golden hills, ranch land and some vineyards, dotted with Live Oaks and cut by country roads.

The West Side, or second 50 miles, was hillier and had more shaded roadways, which benefited us as the temperature climbed. The hillsides were blanketed with orderly vineyard rows and the roads were lined with oaks, meaning that the roadbeds were strewn with acorns and the occasional squirrel who misread the speed of an oncoming car.

Confession time:

Much of my identity in cycling is wrapped up in My Little Bianchini. She’s 12 years old and steel. So when I’m keeping up with all the fancy carbon or titanium bikes and the legs on them, I’m feeling pretty good and strong. Butch, even. And when I see custom bikes, embellished with the rider’s name, and a real matching bike kit on his (or her) back, I think, must be nice. But when one passes me (especially without calling out ‘on your left’) I get just the teensiest bit resentful. Bike manners are bike manners: whether you’re riding a Huffy from Target or a $10,000 bike built to your exact body geometry, custom painted and loaded with the highest end components.

At the 70ish mile SAG stop, I noticed a white steel (?) frame bike – custom. Custom paint, even in white, beautiful. Built for a tall guy.  We may have even left the rest stop with him. He got ahead of us and stayed there for quite a while. But Death Ride training has made me a decent descender (much improved, although still nowhere as good as many on the Death Ride team, but better than your average bear), and at a point, we passed him at near the bottom of a downhill. Just when I was feeling good about my riding prowess, the road began to tilt upward again. This was the Peachy Canyon Climb that we’d heard a bit about at the SAG stop. Gradual, but about a mile long.

Here comes my comeuppance for screaming past this guy at the bottom of a downhill. Thought of Lisa T (humility…) and was prepared to be humbled. Because while I’m a good descender and a decent sprinter on short steep climbs, eventually on the long climb, I hear “on your left” far more often than I say it. And not 300 yards into the climb, Mr. White Custom Bicycle passed me. What-Evs, I thought.

I trudged on. It was long; the grade was gradual. Just kept spinning. We hit a pitch that was about 8%. I looked ahead about 200 yards. Mr. W-C-B was walking his bike. I couldn’t wait to pass him on my 12 year old Bianchi. But, alas, he must have heard my ego advancing upon him because when I was about 50 yards away, he remounted his custom steed and started pedaling again. Frustration!

I kept spinning, keeping him in my sights: Mr. I’m 6’2” and simply have more muscle fiber than your 5’3” frame could ever hope to have. Rounded a bend and rounded another bend. Now we’re in the shade and it’s a bit cooler. Ahead, I see Mr. W-C-B again walking his bike. I look ahead. I don’t know this road at all, but I can tell just by terrain we’re near the summit and it’s not a false one. The summit is in sight and he’s walking. Out of 6’2” legs, I guess. It happens. Thank You, Death Ride Training. And I pass him. Screaming by at a blinding 4.8 mph on my short little legs and my little steel pony. The road begins to level, I start upshifting in anticipation of the downhill. Perversely, I wanted to do that within his earshot. But didn’t. Humility.

So much humility that I gloat here. But hey, where else can I?

The ride down Peachy Canyon was a joy. It was a descent but not in the traditional downhill way. I was hooting and hollering the whole way. It twisted, turned, rose up to meet you in a way you could stand on your pedals for 4 cranks and be back on the next down hill – I hollered out more than once it was like riding your bike on a roller coaster. I can’t wait to do it again. That descent made the previous 86 miles worth it. Seriously. What fun.

After a nice down hill and a rude hilly bit back to the finish (really? Rollers with 10%+ pitches in the last 10 miles?) we were loading the bikes onto the car and in search of some really nice barbecue.