Over the past few weekends I've put portions of the ride together, riding up to the trailhead and back, and then driving up and riding the off-road portion. But never strung the complete route together. No longer! As of Sunday I can say I've done it!
And what a ride it was! Absolutely gorgeous day, low traffic, and feeling good. 40 miles and 8,000 ft of pedaling against gravity! This is an excellent ride if anyone is looking for just such an outing. It's cooling down now which makes the ride really nice. LOTS of gnats up in the mountains though. I'm going to wear some sort of a bug net over my head when I ride up there again.
While the first part of the ride is all on road, it's still nice. A bit of traffic on Hwy 38 through Mentone, but not too bad @ 9:00 in the morning. It's about 13 miles of constant grade getting to the trailhead. That's where you see this sign and know the real fun begins:
That leads to seven miles of abandoned pavement, singletrack, stream crossings and blue jays! I had 42mm knobs last time up, but used 35mm Paselas this time. Definitely bounced around a lot more on the rocky trails and had to push through the occasional sand pit, but I was OK with that as most of the ride was road miles up to that point.
Speaking of which, the downhill was amazing! I rode the highway back to save some time and was hitting 40mph for good portions of it, just tucking in and hanging on!
I did bite off more than I could chew, and by the end I was forcing myself to pedal and get home. No pain, no exhaustion, just tired of being on a bike after five hours. I'd like to get to the point where I could do this consistently, but it is a bit of a time sink. I'll probably drive to the trailhead and enjoy it from there in the future.
While the first part of the ride is all on road, it's still nice. A bit of traffic on Hwy 38 through Mentone, but not too bad @ 9:00 in the morning. It's about 13 miles of constant grade getting to the trailhead. That's where you see this sign and know the real fun begins:
That leads to seven miles of abandoned pavement, singletrack, stream crossings and blue jays! I had 42mm knobs last time up, but used 35mm Paselas this time. Definitely bounced around a lot more on the rocky trails and had to push through the occasional sand pit, but I was OK with that as most of the ride was road miles up to that point.
Speaking of which, the downhill was amazing! I rode the highway back to save some time and was hitting 40mph for good portions of it, just tucking in and hanging on!
I did bite off more than I could chew, and by the end I was forcing myself to pedal and get home. No pain, no exhaustion, just tired of being on a bike after five hours. I'd like to get to the point where I could do this consistently, but it is a bit of a time sink. I'll probably drive to the trailhead and enjoy it from there in the future.
But best of all: No knee pain for the entire ride! That's a BIG one for me as I have IT band issues that can occasionally be debilitating. Mostly not there, but it sometimes it just crops up, usually on road rides where I'm pushing a constant fast pace. There were some solid road miles up there, but I rode my own pace and seemed work great. Whoo-hoo!
So get this: Not only did I have spousal clearance to take the entire morning off, but when I got back home, I was greeted with this:
4 comments:
Sounds like a great ride. Nice pics too :)
It worked out perfectly. One of those rare occasions when everything just lines up in place!
Dang! 8000 feet over only 40 miles. Sounds tough!
It's really 8,000 in 20 miles when I summited! The other 20 where all downhill!!!
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