This is the third time my Ritchey Breakaway goes to Colorado state, and second time in 2014 (visited Denver in March).
This time I was heading to Fort Collins - Colorado State University where I was giving a physics colloquium. I flew out in the morning and after a 2.5 hr flight, some quick Ritchey assembly and another hour or so of driving, I was at Estes Park - the bottom of Trail Ridge National park - which starts at 7,500 ft elevation. I got to Estes Park around noon - this is not ideal as Colorado mountains are famous for afternoon thunderstorms this time of the year - the same type of weather pattern that made me brave freezing sub-32F snow and rainy weather at the top of Mt. Evans two years ago, in August, when it was 100F in Denver!
My goal was to ride Trail Ridge road to the top of the road, 12,000 ft elevation and then back down - "only" 40 miles or so, but all of it climbing or descending. The climb is ranked #3 most difficult in Colorado, with Mt. Evans ranked #1.
Mid-september wasn't quite the peak of foliage but it was beautiful nonetheless with the leaves turning and plenty of colors already.
I had to stop briefly to pay toll for park entry, $15 and kept on climbing. As I climbed to about 9,000 feet it was more difficult to breathe and it started raining. It was also getting colder - from 86F at Estes Park to about 50F, windy and exposed. I came prepared with vest, arm warmers and merino wool gaiter, but could have used a full rain or wind jacket, full finger gloves and maybe a hat on the descent. Saw marmots (look a bit like beavers) for the first time, but no shaggy goats that frequent those high altitudes. I kept on riding in cold drizzle until 12,000 ft (more and more difficulty breathing), when I took a few photos at the top and turned around for a descent. I was descending in a group of cars which made for some conservative descending - we were going about the same speed, and drafting protected me a bit from cold winds, even though sudden cross wind gusts and wet roads made it for a bit dicey conditions in a few places, especially at higher elevations where I was more exposed to the gusts. It feels like someone keeps randomly kicking your front wheel sideways and nothing you can do to stop it except try not to crash due to front wheel wind wobble.
Back to car and a short 1-hour or so drive to Fort Collins, home of many breweries, including Fat Tire's New Belgium Brewery.
So perhaps it's time on expanded (super-long) post on how I go about mapping of new routes while traveling.
How do I map out new rides? The system, explained.
The challenge is that one needs some general idea of where to ride prior to arriving at a new location - the route should be interesting, safe, fun, have little traffic or traffic-related stops, etc. It should also feature key attractions - for example, while visiting San Francisco, one MUST do Marin headlands, Mt. Tam, etc. Ideally I want to have a pretty good idea of several routes, perhaps of varying length or difficulty (maybe 2 hour route, 4 hour route, 6 hour route), but I also keep it flexible and often allow for some serendipidous free-style exploration, that is not planned at all. This is what makes riding a bicycle in unknown territory so much fun. At the same time, I always try to have some idea of where I am relative to key locations, how to get back safely etc.
It pays to come prepared especially if you are traveling in a foreign country where stopping to ask strangers for directions may not be so easy, or if you are riding in the middle of nowhere, which is often the case, especially in the mountain regions.
Internet makes this type of cartographic research incredibly easy nowadays. In the past one would have to spend weeks in the library trying to find maps of some foreign location, ideally complete with bicycle-friendly maps. Nowadays a number of websites can help you with this task, done in minutes from comfort of your couch. Here's a few strategies.
Google. (or any other search engine).
I would spend some time just googling the bicycle-related trips at my destination. For example, if I am going to Taipei, I would search for "Taipei cycling rides" and see what comes up. For Bay Area, for example, I found this (It's Not Lame) website very helpful - it contains many epic routes around Bay Area, sorted by region of riding, and contains Easy, Intermediate and Advanced Routes (think ~1Hr, 2-4 hrs, 4-6 hours of riding). It also has photos, links to routes on mapmyride and detailed (but not too detailed) description of the key features. A nice bonus is that almost every route is designed to be explored car-free with start/end points near BART stations. This website is better than most cycling-specific guide books, and it's free!
Chances are, few locations will have similar type of descriptions, but nonetheless, a quick google search can point you in the right direction. Often the websites are targeted towards general purpose "ice cream ride" type riding on bike paths using rental beach cruiser type bikes - so for example, most websites about cycling in Cape Cod will tell you to ride along Cape Cod Canal Bikeway, which is only 7 miles long.
Google Maps.
Again, you can use any other mapping service, like Yahoo or Apple Maps, but I prefer google maps for two key reasons - (1) they have a feature of showing bicycle friendly routes, and bicycle directions (along with elevation chart!) and (2) google streets view feature that allows you to view the photos of the streets you would be riding on.
(1) Bicycle Directions feature on Google Maps.
Not to be taken too literally, as it still has bugs and some information is not perfect - but it should point you towards a "safer" route that includes higher proportion of bicycle lanes, bike paths and generally bicycle-friendly, lower-traffic roads. It also shows you elevation of your ride, and even allows to select a route with the least elevation gain, if you so desire.
Here's an example of what such routing will look like (estimated times are usually way off for most serious cyclists since it assumes <10mph average speed).
Even without typing point-to-point directions, google maps allow you to view the roads that have bike lanes, view dedicated bike paths/trails, or roads that are generally bike friendly. This is also useful in planning your route. Here's an example of bike friendly routes in Hamburg, Germany:
(2) Google Streets.
Google streets provides detailed, high-resolution photos of the roads you will be riding - by placing a little yellow "guy" onto the map gives you a 360 degree overview of what the roads and the scenery looks like (you can rotate your view and move the guy up and down the street within the photo). It even provides a "historical" preview that allows you to compare the photos of the same road, say, taken in 2007 vs. taken in 2014.
Most of the popular roads in US have been ridden by google-street photos-taking cars years ago, and the service expanded to many foreign countries, even though there was some privacy backlash in many european countries (such as Germany - understandably considering history of state-wide surveillance in Eastern Germany, Italy, Spain etc.) since the google cars could inadvertently take photos of people's yards, or inside the house through the windows - google has blurred a lot of it out (including faces of pedestrians and license plate numbers of cars).
Here's Google Streets views of Hamburg intersection.
Nonetheless the service is available even in foreign cities, which is extremely helpful in several ways.
First, it allows you to preview the road conditions (is there a bike lane or a shoulder, how wide is it, what is the quality of the road - is it paved, is there a sidewalk, etc.).
Second, it provides useful orienteering points where you can guarantee you won't miss a subtle turn as the road splits, or secret location of where the side bike path starts, because you will know you have to make a right soon after the red barn, or a fire station or whatever.
Third, it provides road signs and other information not easily accessible from the maps (speed limit, for example, rotaries or "roundabouts" whether bikes are allowed on the street etc.).
Fourth, it provides you with the general view of the scenery. Is it shaded or is it exposed? What are the views like? How canted are the switchbacks, etc.
For example, below are the two google street photos from Morgan Territories Road, taken just a few miles apart - on the maps it looks like the same road (you may have guessed the difference by looking at satellite map), but the scenery is so strikingly different (incidentally, notice how narrow the road is, and range of visibility is somewhat limited)
Finally, (Fifth?) - google streets allows you to "guesstimate" the amount of automobile traffic, pedestrian and perhaps even bicycle traffic - all you have to do is scroll around a bit and you get a feeling for how busy or deserted the roads are. Of course it is time of the day, time of the week and time of the year dependent, still - this could be very useful in planning your route as well.
Strava and Strava Heatmaps.
Next to google, I find strava as one of the key useful features in planning routes. Especially their "global heatmap" feature, developed by Paul Mach, formerly of raceshape.com fame, now working for strava.
Don't confuse the global heatmap with your "personal" heatmap that shows all the roads YOU have ridden - this is a heatmap that shows all the roads ridden by strava users in any location around the globe. Because strava is currently being used primarily by racing club-type cyclists, the strava heatmap shows you where those users prefer to ride, predominantly.
For example, below is the strava heatmap for Hamburg. You can see that most strava riders prefer to go west (and to some extent south-east) along the Elbe river, with a small narrow branch that goes NNE towards airport and expands into a variety of rides some 30 miles away from the city. Additionally, you can see there are very few ways to cross Elbe by bicycle (only two bicycle-friendly bridges, plus a few ferries) - but best MTB trail riding appears to be on the south side of Hamburg, across Elbe river.
Strava heatmap has several nice visualization options (different color schemes and transparency), as well as run, bike and both (run+bike) display options. Zooming in and out (and combining it with google streets, available right from the heatmap) will give you plenty of information.
Here's another color scheme of the similar view of Hamburg.
It's a bit ironic that the criticisms that strava got for municipalities trying to use it's big-data mapping database to learn about behavior of bicycle commuters - namely, that strava use is mostly used by recreational, fast-pace serious cyclists, rather than daily commuters - actually gives you a benefit in this use. You prefer to ride where weekend racer types go for their long group rides, which typically implies scenic roads with little traffic and no stopping, away from the city - as opposed to commuter rides which tend to be concentrated in the city, shorter and ridden with a practical goal of getting from specific point A to specific point B, not for leisure.
I also look up key segments or find a few strava rides by the strava users - and save them to Evernote (tagged appropriately, e.g. "strava rides", "hamburg") - this gives me a reference regarding mileage (in the case below 76.8 mi), traveling time (4.5 hours), elevation (only 977 feet!), etc. - plus a few popular segments embedded into the ride that can be explored to find other riders in the area and check out what they usually ride on Saturday or Sunday morning.
Evernote
Having all this info on the web is great, but you want to save key maps, images, websites and other info someplace you can easily access later, ideally across other devices (e.g. save the map on the computer, access on iPad or iPhone), easily searchable and quickly accessible.
Evernote works wonders for this tasks - with web-clipper I save the strava maps, which saves both the map itself and the route, but I also save the URL just in case I need to retrieve it later. I tag the saved info with tags "strava" or "rides to do" or "cycling" - but lately the saved notes get auto-tagged by Evernote, automatically, and placed into the Notebook I titled "Cycling Rides". The notebook is auto-synced (for off-line use) with iPhone and iPad, so I have the notes even without wifi. Another nice feature of Evernote (requires premium account) is that all images are searched and indexed for any text, so searching for a city, say, Pinneberg or Elmshorn, in Evernote will give you all notes that have maps that contain that city.
Here's an example of "Pinnerberg" search result that picks up that word in an image (map):
This also works for taking photos of actual (paper) maps. For example, search for "Diablo" yields photo of this Mt. Diablo map:
Very useful and can be done off-line.
I also used to save longer lists of rides in google drive (formerly known as google docs) - nowadays it's also synced with Evernote notes.
Here's an example of my Santa Barbara research of key climbs - containing links to strava segments, as well as distance, elevation and gradient.
Lately I prefer full record with maps and images, Evernote-style, but this is a condensed list version that is also useful, and google drive document can be accessed from anywhere.
Other Online Resources.
Of course, I occasionally find some good rides using bikemap.com, or bikely.com or mapmyride.com etc.
The problem with some of these websites is that they contain some random rides by specific users of the website, but the number of users on each such website is much smaller than on strava, so it's difficult to vouch for quality of the specific ride - here's where strava heatmap crowd-sourcing feature really shines.
In the past, there were some really cool strava API scripts, for example Jonathan O'Keefe's multiple ride mapper, which allowed to plot what is essentially a personal strava heatmap for any specific rider (not just your own) over specific, selected range of rides. Below is a map of Baltimore rides for some rider that allows you to see where this rider ridden over the years - it's clear there is a single preferred route North from the city, and after 20 miles or so it branches out into hundreds of numerous routes. There are also two or three routes going west and east, but much of the city appears to be off-limits for road cycling.
Unfortunately, with recent (about a year or so ago?) strava API rule changes, these "apps" by outside developers are no longer allowed by strava, which is too bad.
Paper Maps.
Despite the ease of access from a huge variety of online resources (almost always up-to-date - with strava heatmaps, for example, updated almost in real time, on daily basis, and google streets updated yearly or so), I still enjoy using the old-fashioned paper maps. One of the most exciting parts about the trip is the planning the new routes by unfolding a paper map and exploring all the little tiny winding roads that you can cycle on.
There is something about using an old-fashioned paper map that is quite exciting. For sure, from basic technical/optics perspective, the "field of view" is always greater than when using maps on iPhone, iPad or even large-screen computer monitor, so one can get a pretty good "big picture" view of where you may be going, combined with fine detail information. Zooming in and out is very intuitive using the "analogue" paper maps.
The problem with many traditional paper maps is that they are too car-centric and don't provide cycling-relevant information. For US cycling touring, of course, we have Adventure Cycling Maps. But for just going out for an epic 40, 60 or 100 mile ride, you need some other sources.
Some of the best cycling-related maps I found are Bay Area Bike Rides Cards, that I mentioned here previously.
Here's an example of Tunitas Creek 37-mile loop map with cue sheet.
The nice features of cards is portability and size (fits in the cycling jersey back pocket, can retrieve quickly, look at the card while riding, stash it away), toughness - card can survive some sweat and rain, and the highly cycling-relevant information.
You can see that not every road is shown on this map. Why would it? Only the roads you need to ride on, and the major intersections are marked. There's brief elevation profile but also sections of the map showing major uphill and downhill sections - this information is not relevant for car maps, but crucial for bikes. The instructions and cue sheet on the back includes major turns, some historic/fun facts, as well as key attractions locations to get food or water, or access to public bathrooms.
I also have a few books, such as gorgeous City Cycling in Europe Guides, Complete Guide to Climbing by Bike (as well as California and Colorado edition of these series), Mountain High, etc.
These are great for doing research at home, but not for consulting the books on the road.
SmartPhone Apps.
I do use smartphone for navigation while riding (iPhone in my case). The advantage is that it's difficult to get lost as GPS in iPhone will always tell you where you are now on the map. The disadvantage is that a lot of time I am without a cellular connection (in the middle of nowhere). There are a number of off-line map apps, such as CityMaps2Go (but also PDF Maps, OpenMaps and many other similar apps), that allow pre-downloading maps of specific regions for later use - you can turn off cellular and wifi mode on your phone, and still use GPS to locate yourself on those maps. This will also extend the battery life of your phone (I prefer to keep the phone alive for navigation but also for emergencies).
Lately, Apple use of vector-based maps make it an appealing choice for offline use - all you need is to preview the area you will be riding in, using wifi connection, for example, ahead of time - ideally using a desired wide range of zoom options, and then the maps of that area will remain cached on your phone for off-line use with GPS, no cellular data (or Wifi) service needed.
Garmin Edge 500 Maps.
If you use Garmin 800, 810, 1000 or Touring version, that comes with pre-loaded maps, you don't need to worry about any of this. A big negative for me in using Garmin 800 (in addition to getting a second GPS unit) is the larger size of the 800, and as for Garmin Touring it is the fact that apparently you cannot simply download european maps, so a Garmin Touring unit purchased in US is useless for riding in Europe (or Asia or anywhere outside of North America).
I do like my Garmin Edge 500 for it's small form factor (in fact I think it's better than Garmin Edge 510) and in fact you can load routes on it as well - since Edge 500 cannot have maps, you load a route as a breadcrumbs trail.
This is (while somewhat limited, especially compared to full map capability of Edge 800/810/1000) a very nice feature for someone like me, who wouldn't use the maps for 95%-98% of all the riding I do, but in some cases would like to follow a predetermined route.
I also find that very few Garmin Edge 500 users know about, and I would bet only a few percent (if that) actually used it even once.
First you have to save a route as .tcx file (used to be more complicated when you had to convert .gpx file into .tcx using a number of complicated scripts, such as gpsies.com - nowadays many mapping sites allow direct export as .tcx) and transfer it onto your Garmin via USB cable, placing it into "New Files" folder, rather than Courses folder or anywhere else.
The "breadcrumb" trail means that the course consists of a number of closely-spaced coordinates points (bread crumbs) and Garmin only knows your current location, your past travel, and the locations of breacrumbs from uploaded route - but has no information about anything else - roads, intersections, etc. As you follow the route, the breadcrumbs that you ride over get "eliminated" - so it works fine if you just want to follow the predesignated (and pre-uploaded) route, not for exploring new roads. But it works reasonably well, in my experience, to keep you on the route.
Several nice features include Garmin beeping at you if you deviate from the course (more on this feature later), and the ability to include a virtual partner based on, say, someone else's or your own strava ride that includes timestamps - which allows you to "race" against another rider (their past performance) or your past ride. We used it in a hilly 100-mile time trial where I uploaded a previous course record ride and we could see the time difference between our time and the progress of the record-setting ride (time they set at the same location a few years back), which provided very nice feedback. By default, if the file with no time stamps is used the virtual partner will assume constant speed, which may not be as useful for rides with non-trivial elevation profile, and I would argue you need a file with timestamps (like provided by strava), not just a route.
But another cool feature is the cue-sheet, that will tell you the distance to the next turn, or pre-determined locations, such as water or food station. The cue-sheet is an extra screen that will appear on your Garmin Edge 500, once you go to Training -> Courses, select and start the uploaded course.
In fact there are three new screens that will appear in addition to your pre-determined screens (up to 5 screens), making it up to 8 total screens, once you start following a specific "course" on your Garmin Edge 500.
First screen is the virtual partner/elevation screen.
Once it finds the course it displays Distance Behind the virtual partner, Time Behind, Distance to End, Course Time, as well as elevation profile showing how far you (Black dot) are behind the virtual partner (Open dot).
If you design a course yourself, using a mapping website, such as bikeroutetoaster.com (excellent for these purposes) you can enter flat speed, climbing speed and have the virtual partner adjust the speed on the hills, depending on the gradient - this gives you a slightly more realistic pacing for virtual partner, than having constant speed across the entire route. Of course, having an actual strava tcx file with time stamps is even better (as long as the person who rode the course didn't stop too much - which will create big jumps in the time gaps).
You also have the option of adjusting the course speed of the virtual partner by pressing power/light (upper left) button once, in 5% increments, and then letting the page to timeout or else pressing Enter.
The Second Screen on your Garmin Edge 500 shows (assuming you have the cue sheet file) the distance to the next course point - in the case shown below, Right Turn, in 1.5 miles, estimated time to the point (4min 41 sec), as well as the map of the route. Note that the map will only show the breadcrumb trail, locations of turns or other course points, as well as scale bar (0.8 mi as shown here) and compass/North direction.
If you ride off-course, the Garmin will beep at you in anger, and will display "Off Course" message.
In which case, you will see "Distance to Course" and "Time to Course" message on the map screen:
When you get back on course, it goes back to normal, notifying you with "Course Found" message.
The default setting on the map zoom option is "Auto" which means the map will zoom in if there is a waypoint nearby and will zoom out if the road is straight with no turns for miles, but you can also fix the zoom at any level, ranging from 50ft or so, to 10 or so miles. To do that, press Power button (upper right button).
If you wander off course, the map will also show you your own track path, in addition to uploaded course which is useful if you want to see where you are riding, relative to the course.
The Third Screen in route function is the cue sheet. For many strava or garmin created .tcx file will not have this cue sheet information and this third screen will not appear. But routes created using bikeroutetoaster and a few other websites (such as ridewithgps) will have this information, with turn waypoints created automatically, but also allowing manual addition of waypoints.
Once you go beyond Start (find the course) it will show the next three waypoints and total distance and estimated time till completion of the course.
Here's the web interface of bikeroutetoaster.com that shows the cue sheet of automatically created route (I input starting and intermediate points and it finds bicycle-friendly route, avoiding major busy roads and creates cue sheet info automatically).
Overall the use of Garmin Edge 500 for navigating specific route is minimalistic (no real street maps), and requires a bit of planning ahead in creating the new routes, but works great if all you want is to follow the route without getting lost, and getting updated information about turns, or any other waypoints, as well as warnings if you get off course, and perhaps virtual partner time/distance gaps.
Problems with route feature in Garmin Edge 500:
I have experienced two problems with route feature in the past, both of which are solved or can be solved.
The first problem (a feature, rather than a bug) is that in areas with poor GPS reception/precision, such as mountains, the unit often assumes you went off course even though you are most definitely ON course. In Tennessee's Smoky mountains I was once riding on a Cherohala Skyway, a lonely road far removed from anything else, but my Garmin kept informing me I was going "off course" every 20 seconds or so, following by "Course Found" message every other 20 seconds when I would go around the switchback and GPS reception improved. This can repeat for a long time and is quite annoying, even though no real harm is done in terms of recording the route (but the battery life is perhaps somewhat shorter as a result). Note that this problem can persist even if your current GPS reception is perfect, but the route you are following was created using spotty GPS reception (for example someone rode the section using iPhone strava app which tends to be less precise than Garmin Edge).
Bikeroutetoaster.com and other map routing websites now have the option of setting override value for "Warning Distance" (in the export settings), so you can set it to some large distance, like 1,000 ft and never bother with annoying message (but of course when you actually *do* go off course - take the wrong turn, for example, you may have 1,000+ ft to ride back to the course) since it won't warn you until you are further away from the course.
The second problem that I have encountered is more serious - if you go way off course for a long time (for example decide to ride a different course entirely while the course following software still running) Garmin can "freeze up" and stop recording altogether. I believe the problem is trying to locate the "course" breadcrumbs and calculate the distance while being rather far from any breadcrumbs for extended periods of time (hours?). This happened to me maybe 3-4 times and the annoying part is that unless you keep looking at your Garmin all the time, you can miss the "freeze up" altogether, for quite some time. You need to restart the Garmin, and most importantly, restart "start" button so that it starts recording again - it stops recording by default so even after restart Garmin you can see the course you are tracking and your location but the Garmin is not recording anything!
This problem was relatively rare, intermittent and not easily reproducible every time, but I saw others complain about it - so it's not just my own defective Garmin unit, it's a more general software/firmware problem.
I also believe this bug was fixed since then in some firmware update and I didn't see it reproduce for about 2 years, still it is perhaps best to turn off the course feature if you are no longer using it (Training -> Courses -> Stop Course).
I think this is all I can think of. For now. Will update if I miss anything.
Footnote #1: For more mapping pointers, please read this excellent post by Darren Alff, which is a bit more cyclo-touring-biased, but includes many great websites. For example, I find the use of google earth definitely on the "expert" side, for most users google maps and street view is sufficient.
Footnote #2: The title of this post is inspired by the short story "Mappist" by Barry Lopez.
Santa Cruz coastal ride and Portola Valley (June 2014)
I spent a few days in Palo Alto, and did two rides on Ritchey Breakaway. The first ride started in Saratoga - easy quick drive from San Jose airport. I wanted to do Marin Headlands but forgot that my flight was to San Jose airport, rather than SFO. No problem, plans changed to a different (and new for me) route that I picked out from my Bay Area cycling cards. I picked the 92-mile "Pacific Coast Ride" down to Santa Cruz. I started off Rt. 9 and Skyline Blvd near Saratoga.
Here's the zoomed-out version of the map:
I put together Ritchey very quickly but then I fiddled a bit with the brakes and the shifting that wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted it. I rode down Skyline when I realized I left my car keys on the little bench while I was adjusting brakes - so now I had to cycle back up for a few miles to retrieve it - luckily they keys were still there. Saw a google streets car driving by, so now there should be photographic evidence of me riding on Skyline. I descended down Alpine Rd./La Honda. Last time I did that descent back last October during government shutdown I missed the subtle right turn and ended up in Portola Woods National park, which (related to shutdown or not) was completely deserted. This is when I had one of the most dramatic mechanicals when riding on a dirt path in the woods in the middle of nowhere, some 30 miles from my hotel when my derailleur broke and I had to convert my Ritchey to single speed. The first and only time I had to do emergency single-speed conversion. Fun times! I rode down to the coast where I enjoyed a nice tailwind breeze - I saw a few people touring, they started in San Francisco and were going to ride all the way to LA along the coast. I told them I am going to be in San Diego by Friday and encouraged them to keep riding past LA - and they assumed I meant I was also riding to San Diego by bycicle - they were disappointed when I told them I am flying to San Diego! I reached Santa Cruz in no time at all - thanks to the tailwind. I had a brief lunch on the way - a coke, a coffee, a banana and a muffin. I haven't eaten anything else since leaving San Diego at 6AM in the morning so I was hungry. The views were spectacular, beautiful day to be riding. Santa Cruz (my first time there) is a fun little town, with amazing coastal views, almost as nice as La Jolla. Soon I turned inland and the climbing began. I was going up Route 9 all the way to the car, which was straightforward in terms of directions (just stay on Route 9 all the way) but a bit more challenging in terms of terrain - all uphill and most of 6,300 ft of climbing would come from the last 25 miles or so. Also now I was going into the headwind, even though I was partially shielded by the trees in Santa Cruz mountains. It took me almost 2 hours to cover those final 25 miles. And there was a lot of traffic on Rt. 9 - overall not nearly as enjoyable as riding along the coast at 25+ mph while barely pedaling! It was still fun ride, finishing with 108 miles - possibly the longest ride I have ever done in Northern California.
The following day I had no time to ride due to some work related functions. But on Thursday, my flight wasn't leavign till noon or so, and I snuck in a short ride around Portola Valley - I rode Arastradero to Page Mill Rd., which is gorgeous as always and then while doing Portola loop, I decided to randomly explore and "discovered" a little one-lane paved road called - what else - Alpine Road which climbed some 750 feet over about 2 miles or so, with the final 0.3 miles (Ciervos Road) averaging 16% grade. I sort of secretely hoped I would end up all the way at Skyline Blvd but instead the road just dead-ended which makes sense considering how narrow it was and complete lack of traffic (I think I saw maybe one car there the whole climb). Perfect for doing repeats.
So that was it for what I think is the Bay Area bike trip #8 for me over the past 2.5 years or so.
Oleg, how do you go about researching/planning routes in unfamiliar places? Did you upload/follow your garmin or did you improvise? Cheers, Dima (Boston)
Dima - I need to write an expanded post on this issue. Generally I do some research on the web, and use google streets (along with google maps) to identify bicycle-friendly and interesting roads.
One tool that is very useful is Strava heatmap that shows where people are riding:http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/
I also try to find some strava routes by local riders who live in the area and ride there a lot - sometimes ask them specific questions about routes - they often happy to respond.
A lot of time I end up improvising once I have a general idea of what I want to do. This is part of the thrill of riding while traveling in new places.
I haven't been updating much but I was traveling a bit with my Breakaway this year. Just returned from a trip to Hamburg, Germany this past June. I watched Germany play Brazil in World Cup, while in Hamburg, so that was an epic experience. In fact this is the second trip that my Breakaway and I made to Hamburg just in 2014 - I also went to Hamburg back in March, but it was raining and cold and I only managed one short ride back then. In June, despite threats of thunderstorm every single day I was there, I managed to get in five or so solid rides, including a 100-miler on my final day there - for a total of 225 miles over about 15 hours of riding spread over almost a week. And I "missed" the thunderstorms every single time, which was fortunate.
In addition to riding around the harbor and checking out the city, I think the highlight was the pastures full of sheep and cows (with sheep walking right on the bike path). Very scenic. And of course all the little towns and villages in Hamburg suburbs that I visited. In the end I rode quite a bit on the road but also on dirt, gravel paths and cobbles.
Hamburg and the area is mostly flat. I found one "major climb" - Waseberg in Blankenese, a posh little neighbourghood west of Hamburg. It features 15-16% gradients for much of the very short (800m or so) distance, and the KOM belongs to none other than Niki Terpstra, who managed to ride it at 16mph average.
Hamburg is very cycling friendly city. It just announced ambitious plans to become the first European city that eliminates any need for cars within the next 20 years (eventually becoming car-free).
I am still conflicted about bike paths in Europe. On one hand, the bike paths are great for poking around the city - something I took advantage of on numerous occasions. But then you better go slow, at 10 mph or so. Maybe 15mph tops.
When I do want to ride faster, the only real option is to jump on the road and ride with cars. But in many cities that feature bike paths there is essentially no bike lane infrastructure at all. No bike lanes on the side of the road, not even a food-wide lane - nothing. So you are sharing the lane with cars, often moving at the same speed in the city but much faster in the suburbs and rural areas. The drivers are courteous and go around you carefully but I could tell they don't expect you to be on the roads and would prefer you rode on the bike paths. Other riders on strava commented that drivers would yell at them to get off the road - this never happened to me though.
Given a choice, I would actually (selfishly) prefer SoCal style of commuting where we have bike lanes (sometimes very wide bike lanes - 6 feet or so!) along fairly wide roads, sharing with cars - rather than have a dedicated, buffered bike path along the sidewalk commonly crossed by pedestrians and small side streets - this design is much better for commuters in the dense cities, but even there faster or more experienced cyclists might prefer the roads shared with cars.
What camera/ photo editor are you using to obtain the dramatic sky and rich color? Thanks!
a lot of shots are taken with Canon S100 point and shoot (but very good in that class). I now upgraded to Sony RX-100, probably the best point and shoot (the type that can still fit in your cycling jersey backpocket). But often my photos are from my iPhone 4S. Sometimes you can't even tell which one is which.
For image processing, I like Snapseed a lot. Simple and can be done on iphone or ipad. This is what the dramatic skies are produced by, for the most part.
Hi Oleg, I love your Cycling Adventures tumblr. Quick sizing question. What frame size do you ride for your road bike (I see you have the 58cm CX BAB)? I'm leaning towards the 60, as I ride a different CX bike that, while labelled 58cm, seems closest to the Ritchey geometry. My road frame is 58 though. Cheers.
I would go for 58 if I were you - whenever you decide between two frame sizes, I would go for smaller one - you can always get longer stem and extend the seat post a bit (or move the seat back) but it will be a lot easier to pack and somewhat lighter/stiffer too.
Hi Oleg. This is a great blog! I appreciate how thorough you are in reporting your adventures. I am interested in a Breakaway for an upcoming 2 Mo stay in Japan and was wondering how you chose the CX frame over the road frame. Have the CX capabilities been something that is very useful every time you travel or is there not much of a difference besides personal preference? Thanks!
syntectonic, I like CX a lot due to ability to put in larger tires (up to 40mm at least, more commonly I run 35mm tires) and ride off-road or use for touring. Versatility is a major attraction to me. I even run it in CX mode when I am not traveling, which supplements my carbon road bike nicely when I want to ride trails.
The downsides are pretty minimal, but include: (1) needing to use mini-v brakes (my preference) or cantilever brakes for large tire clearance. (2) less aero profile for fork and rear triangle, again, to accommodate larger tires.
The upside is that you can do road or trails equally well. For more than 80% of my trips, road would work just fine, but sometimes I bring it in CX configuration, or both (just bring different tires).
However, if you are absolutely sure you have no desire to ride off-road, on gravel, snow or dirt, or run larger than 25mm tires, and don't think this will ever change in the future, road version will work just fine.
Hi there. Enjoyed reading about your adventures. Considering a breakaway cross for myself as my one-bike-to-do-it-all solution. It looks like you gave a 54 cm frame. Can you give me your opinion as to how the ritchey feels. In other words, ride quality over an extended time, 20-40+ miles. How does it feel to other bikes you have riden? Thank you.
Tiato - I ride 58cm Ritchey Breakaway CX frame. In short - it rides as well as any steel frame. Smooth over rough pavement, glides right over. Sort of like cadillac (Ritchey) as opposed to compact (lighter, modern carbon bikes). Carbon fork soften vibrations helps too. Compared to steel frames (especially old-school),
Ritchey Breakaway is actually relatively light for a steel frame, despite 100g or so extra weight over regular steel frames due to coupling system - again carbon fork helps. Of course compared to carbon bikes Ritchey is a bit porky - about 2 lbs heavier than my carbon frame. Noticeable a bit during extended climbing or rapid accelerations, but not bad overall. I use it on our fast and aggressive group rides on occasions.
As any steel frame, not as aero as molded carbon either. CX is probably less aero than road, since the gap to accept larger tires is greater, but I think the trade-off is worth it. Even though head tube is pretty short (shorter than on my carbon bike), so if you are riding in the drops you could be actually *more* aero overall.
As with any steel bike, it does not feel as stiff as carbon, but to me Ritchey feels like a regular steel frame - no noticeable flexing at all. Even during accelerations and hard efforts.
The wheelbase is a bit longer on CX model than regular bikes I ride (by about 4%). This is typical for CX and adds to stability a bit. The head tube angle is a bit more relaxed too (72 deg instead of 73.5 or so). The difference is minimal though.
Just came across your blog as I'm looking to buy a Ritchey break away. Ritchey seems to love to throw out the disclaimer that "some airlines might charge" extra baggage fees. From what I've gathered on your blog, doesn't look like you've been charged at all in your 30+ trips, just curious if you could confirm though.
Correct - never been charged, not once, including several foreign trips where you often have to re-check your luggage after customs. I think the fears of getting charged oversized fees are grossly exaggerated. I was a bit worried about it early on but now don't even think about exceeding legal dimensions, nobody cares to check.
The reasons I think is that the case is so close to the "legal" dimensions, and because it looks like a regular suitcase, most checkers don't bother measuring. They may ask what's inside (for insurance purposes or such) but even if you say a bike (not recommended but I admitted this several times) they are fine with it. I suspect in case of a hard-sided case with similar dimensions they would be a bit more inclined to measure it.
I think maybe twice or so in all of my 40+ trips the agents pulled out a tape measure. They let it "slide" each time, but once it required a few "Come on!" phrases from me. Technically they could have charged me but they didn't.
Most of the time check-in agents are more interested in weight of the large suitcase than their dimensions.
Which is one of the reasons I am holding on to my soft-sided bag and not yet jumping towards hard-sided bag, which is heavier and leaves very little room for tools and other gear if you don't want to exceed 50lbs limit (often I put heavier stuff like tools and shoes in my carry on and use bulky but light items - like clothes - in my Ritchey bag). Soft-sided case comes in at just under 13lbs empty, so with the bike, pump, shoes, helmet, tools&gear I often get the total weight at 48-49 lbs, just under the 50lb limit. The hard-sided S&S cases are usually about 17-20 lbs empty, and that means at least 4 lbs less gear that can be included.
The other reason is that the extra 2-4 inches of size allows for much more variation in how you can pack your suitcase. In standard S&S case you likely have to remove the cranks and deflate the tires, and even then packing is very very tight - not only this lengthens assembly and disassembly, as well as packing for you, if TSA agents open the case they may not get everything easily back in. To me, this extra hassle, especially over the long run, is not worth not worrying about small probability of paying the fee. Even though at times I wonder if having hard-sided case would be better in case of some catastrophic damage event, for now soft sided case provides plenty of advantages and bike holds up very well inside. I never had a broken spoke or any other item damaged.
If you are worried about being charged (and it could happen to me too one day), I would suggest using curb-side checkin wherever possible, where agents are less cranky, more efficient and work off tips - so less likely to give you hard time over extra 2 or 4 inches. Also, normally in busy times when there are lines of people behind you waiting to check their luggage, the airline agents don't have time or desire to go searching for tape measure and spend time adding three double-digit numbers in their heads (one of the few times when poor math education works to our advantage). I could only imagine them deciding to measure when there is no line whatsoever and they have nothing better to do.
Mentally it may help to "reserve" some nominal fee amount, say $50-$100, that you set aside and mentally accept that you may have to pay it for every 20-30 trips or so. Over this many trips you will save $2,000-$3,000 in airline fees, so accepting a fee once in a while means you only pay $2-$5 per trip over the long run, which is perfectly acceptable to me.
So even though I was still never charged, if or perhaps when I do run into an agent who wants to stick it to me and charge the luggage fee, I will not agonize too much over paying $50, knowing over the long run the bike saves me thousands of dollars (for me, $3,100 currently in fees alone), as well as a lot of time and portability while traveling.
Two years ago, in August of 2011, I took my brand new Ritchey Breakaway for it's very first trip, to San Francisco's Bay Area. That time I rode Mt. Diablo, all over San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge.
Fast forward to October 2013 and this was 7th (yes, 7th) time my Ritchey travelled to Bay Area, and 38th flight overall.
I did two long-ish (60+ miles, 6K+ ft of elevation gain) rides during my visit, due to time constraints of my 4-day visit.
First day I started in Woodside, rode around Portola, went up Page Mill Road, crossed over Skyline and was descending down Alpine towards Pescadero, until one wrong turn took me into a (completely deserted) camping grounds in the middle of redwood forest.
So the first ride was fantastic until the disaster struck about half-way through, around mile 32 or so, I was a little lost and was climbing a dirt road that was at least 20% gradient steep, and my rear derailleur snapped in half! I stopped to examine the damage - luckily, the spokes and the wheel were ok, but derailleur was in two pieces. I was on a tiny road - a pedestrian path really - in a camping area, some 8 or so miles away from the main road (also quite deserted, but the one that has a car or two passing every 10 minutes or so). I tried converting my chain to single-speed, and after some struggling with getting the chain length just right, I was on my way. I was stuck with a fairly unfriendly, non-climbing gear ratio so I had to walk a few slopes steeper than 10%, and I also had to pedal like crazy on the flats and gentle downhills, as I was spinning out at 18mph.
Lucky for me, the single-speed setup survived just fine for 30 miles, till I got back to the car. A quick trip to a local Palo Alto bike store and I was an owner of new derailleur and chain, my Ritchey is back in business.
On the second day I rode up Old La Honda, then descended into Pescadero via Pescadero Creek Rd., then went up Stage Road via San Gregorio to the coastline by Half Moon Bay, and then back climbing via Tunitas Creek and descending down King Mountain Road. No technical problems the second day.
Both days had a fantastic weather, in the 70ies, bright sun and blue skies. Amazing views (see below), I wish I could ride even more.
This is the first time I brought my Ritchey with me to Asia. I have recently (since last December or so) travelled to China, Japan and Hong Kong but each time the combinations of the weather and the logistics of the trip didn't cooperate with bringing Ritchey along. I think each time I regretted a bit not having my Ritchey at some point, since I could probably find a few hours of riding.
This time I was going to Beijing, China, for about 5 days. The pollution forecast didn't look good (high levels of pollution) but having learned from past experience I decided on taking Ritchey with me anyways. It worked out great!
By now, since September of 2011, (a little over 2 years since I bought it) my Ritchey Breakway went on 36 trips, including 5 countries on 3 continents, as well as many cities in US, including Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, DC, Baltimore etc. San Francisco is by far the most frequently visited city, with 6 trips so far and 2 more trips planned in October!
If I brought a regular-sized bike instead of Breakaway, the 36 trips would have cost me at least $2,900 in airline fees for oversized luggage (e.g. this trip to China would have cost $400 in luggage fees).
I was a bit worried about Chinese customs but it went without any issues.
Cycling in Beijing was dicey (Manhattan downtown in rush hour with their taxis and bike messengers is quiet suburbia in comparison) - the drivers don't give you an inch, and a lot of cars are driven by aggresive maniacs, plus there are millions (literally) of bikes, mopeds, scooters, motorized carts, motorcycles and pedestrians: one needs nerves of steel, constant attention and good urban-riding instincts to anticipate traffic around you.
It was a lot of fun nonetheless. No close calls really, just have to be super-vigilant and anticipate what happens next.
Leaving San Diego.
Arriving in Beijing Airport
This is how I roll: Timbuk2 Co-pilot rolling suitcase, Timbuk2 Command Messenger Bag and Ritchey soft-sided suitcase.
It's not fog - it's pollution. Air Quality Index is 200 today, which is very unhealthy. Can barely breathe, and can feel it in my throat - eyes are burning. It feels similar to when we had wildfires in SoCal in 2007 and were breathing smoke - except here it's like this all the time.
Ritchey in front of the North Gate to Forbidden City.
My Ritchey in Tiananmen Sq.
I made it to Tiananmen Square.
Hongshan Hutong
In this city of 12 million everyone rides a bike. Even when it rains.
Everyone rides, even in the rain
Hipster fashion of fixed gear reached Beijing!
Beijing bikeshare system. First hour is free. Subsequent hours are 1RMB/hour, which is about 16 cents in US Dollars. The system requires registration, with 400 RMB deposit (about $70) - you can use the subway card to check bikes out.
Today AQI was much lower, about 80. Much easier to breathe.
Crazy looking skies and mountains in the distance as I exit Beijing suburbs.
Winding road leading to Miaofeng Shan.
I made it to the top of Miaofeng Shan.
The winding road I climbed on is seen from the top.
Ritchey at the top
View of the mountains half way down the Miaofeng climb.
This is why air is so polluted here.
Bikes and mopeds have their own (often separated) lanes.
A monk stands next to Lama Temple.
Opera House in Beijing.
a hipster on a fixie.
Bandanas are used as pollution masks.
Early slopes of Miaofeng climb.
This boy was spinning a rope of noodles just like italians spin the pizza dough.
X-Games in Beijing Olympic stadium.
Hmmm.... Brains! Good food for zombies and Chinese delicacy.
"...Now I'm back in New York City and the bike has survived all of this, requiring only the most minor adjustments. (Sure, it's scratched to hell, but if your bike isn't scratched you're not using it right.) At this point the bike has undertaken something like 20 or 30 flights and visited at least four countries (five if you count Portland as a separate country) and I have yet to pay an airline bicycle fee. I'm sure I've thoroughly "jinxed" myself with all of this, but if you went ahead and bought yourself something stupid like that matching crabon cyclocross "pit bike" or that electronic shifting "upgrade" instead of getting yourself a dependable and versatile travel bike then I feel sorry for you and laugh at you, unless of course you never travel by air, in which case I hereby redact everything I just said.
And with that, I leave you with your sorrows or joys or indifference as the case may be, and I look forward to returning to my routine and my mediocre New York City-area bicycle rides." -- BikeSnobNYC
Two years ago today, on Sept. 7, 2011, I embarked on my very first trip with Ritchey Breakaway - to San Francisco. That day I did Mt. Diablo for very first time. It was fun.
Since then I took Ritchey on 17 different trips, including 4 different countries, saving over $2,500 in airline fees alone. I replaced an old broken shifter, 10-year old aging front derailleur and installed a new, compact handlebar for comfort, but other than that the bike has basically the same components . Of course I did replace cables, chain and handlebar tape but other than that no major problems - not even a broken spoke (many Ritchey owners complain of broken spokes during transit).
Next up - trip to Beijing, China, as well as Chicago and San Francisco.
"I am the worst person I can be when I'm behind the wheel, Which is when I'm at my most. ... I am the worst person I can be when I'm behind the wheel, Which is also when I'm at my most dangerous."
Another Monster Climbs Trip is now behind us. From June 7 to June 9, 2013, twenty San Diego Descenders have taken part in what will go down forever in annals of history as "Monster Climbs VII". Ok, so maybe not THE annals of history, but since it's now on the internet, it will surely be preserved in some form of electronic history for future generations to shake their heads in disapproval at the collective lapse of judgement that became Monster Climbs "Vee-I-I". VII of course in ancient roman numerology stands for seven, as it was the seventh time Descenders plead highly contagious but temporary insanity for a weekend in June to indulge their deeply hidden sadomasochistic desires and climb some of the highest, steepest and most challenging roads in Central California. The route was organized by David "The Man with the Plan" Voris, with the help from David "Details and Logistics" Guidotti serving as treasurer and coordinator. Also present were Rick "Nice!" Bienias, David "Travelling Ninja" Sheehan-san, Rob "CrashTest" Verfurth, Mike "Private Dancer" Hodges, Dave "Need for Speed" Ernst, Oleg "Gigapixel" Shpyrko, Geoff "Microbrewer" Barrall, Len "The Elder" Nathe, Eric "Ironman" Rehberg, Matt "Fast and Furious" Babb, Claus "Der Panzerwagen" Schulze, Jim "The Youngster" Wingert, Bill "Crikey, Mate!" Wood, Bob "The Running Man" Proulx, Jeff "Gentle Giant" Sutherton, Eileen "Queen of the Mountain" Blasi, Jeff "Your Derailleur is misaligned" Cresap, and Mike "Strava Sucks" Farkas.
At Springmeadow. Everyone got a hat.
A few hours later, we are at the bottom of Onion Valley. It's 100 degrees.
Mountains are getting close.
The Lone Rider ahead.
At the start we got a surprise gift - Rick distributed Descenders Hats to all Monster Climb participants (a new gear item currently available for purchase from the team store, contact Rick for details). We packed our bikes and gear into five cars, had some delicious coffee and pastries courtesy of Voris household, posed for the group photo (below) and drove off towards Bishop.
We stopped for brunch at Adelanto. It was not even 11AM but it was already very hot. At least 90ies hot. Next stop was bottom of Onion Valley. There was some road construction but we managed to find a nice shaded trailer parking area. The heat was relentless. We took some group photos (Len, Sheehan and Bill are not in any of them as they took off before the photos) and took off for Onion Valley.
Onion Valley (12.5 miles at 7.8% average, peaking at 12%, climbing 5,169 ft) is ranked #1 toughest climb in California, 5th in the United States (2nd in Continental US), just ahead of Horsehoe Meadows and White Mountain.
Oleg: "I ran to the car to put my camera back and by the time I got on the road everyone was gone! I was the last man on the road. Three years ago we all rode through alluvial fan as a large group, but this time we split into small groups 1-3 large almost from the start, as everyone was eager to get going due to the heat. I rode with Ernst and Claus for a while and then got to chase riders ahead. It ended up great as I took photos of everyone climbing on Day 1 except Rick and James who were obviously way too fast for me - those two were waiting as I got to the top, barely broke the sweat."
Rob: "It was HOT going up Onion Valley. Bob P smoked himself going up the alluvial fan and needed to stop under the shade of a tree. Mike Hodges rode well to catch me and then I pushed hard to break him. He fell off on the final mile up Onion Valley but rode much stronger each of the next two days."
It was brutally hot in the valley but got cooler as we climbed. By the time we reached the top it was nice breezy 70F.
We hung out at the top as riders came in one after another. As the sun was setting, we headed back down. The descent was fast, as should be expected, considering the composition of riders. Oleg was solo-ing off the front, chased by Ernst and Matt, followed and soon joined by Sheehan. As a result, Descenders had the top 7 spots in the Strava Onion Valley Descent segment - which included Sheehan, Matt, Ernst and Oleg from 2013, as well as Arlyn, Mike McGowan and Rob's times from 2010.
Some of us (notably Hodges, who was screaming loudly) took a quick swim in the cold brook running through the valley before driving to Bishop, the same hotel we were staying in 2010. The hotel manager, himself an avid cyclist, had prepared signs "parking reserved for San Diego Descenders" waiting for us in the parking lot - nice touch!
Dinner involved huge amounts of pizza and homebrewed beer provided by Geoff. We had specially reserved tables by the brook, and Guido even went an extra mile and made special edition "Descenders" Logo plastic cups. Attention to detail!
We hung out till it got dark, just talking, drinking more beer and viewing some cycling videos.
Day 2: If the first day is "appetizer", our second day is the main dish - this year included a carbon copy of second day of 2010 edition of Monster Climbs. We aim to ride close to 100 miles and climb over 10,000ft, riding up Pine Creek (Cat 1, ranked 49th in California), followed by Rock Creek (HC climb ranked #10 in California, #20 in the US). We left the hotel and were soon spinning easy towards the support car, parked about 10 miles ahead (driven by Rob, Bill and Sheehan). The peaks of the mountains were covered in snow back in 2010 but not this year. We refilled the bottles and started the Pine Creek. Jim scored a KOM on Pine Creek to the mine segment, and Descenders now own the top 5 spots of this segment on strava, including 17 out of top 20. On 8-mile descent many of us averaged 38-39 mph.
Back at the car, we were already suffering from the heat. Many riders used socks filled with ice and placed behind the neck, underneath their jerseys, to keep themselves cool.
We took it relatively easy on the ride towards Sherwin Grade leading to Tom's place. We had some snacks and refilled our bottles and headed off for the Rock Creek Climb. Finishing at around 10,220 ft, Rock Creek is the highest paved climb in California (of course nothing compared to Colorado's 14,000 footers). Many of us were already affected by high altitude, suffering from combination of heat in the lower valleys, and altitude as we climbed higher.
Oleg: "Matt, James and I climbed Rock Creek together. And by together I mean James was pacing us while Matt and I struggled to keep up. In 2010 there was still plenty of snow at the summit, so much in fact, that we had to walk our bikes through some sections of the road. This time was much warmer. Dipping our legs in cold water of the stream while eating snacks and recovering from the climb was fantastic! The descent was fun as well, Matt, Voris and I really mixed it up - I ended up averaging 41mph over the final 7 mies. On the way back Jim and I had some fun on fast Sherwin Grade descent, chased by Matt and Ernst. "
Following the short climb and sweeping descent of Sherwin Grade we slowly pedaled back to the car and then to hotel. The "Sweeper Team" was Rob, Guido, Jim, Voris and Oleg.
The day continued with beer drinking by the pool and finished with a fantastic dinner at Whiskey Creek. Thanks to Guido for organizing it, down to little details.
The third and last day we were doing something different. While Days 1 and 2 featured roads most descenders rode before, Day 3 called for White Mountain, a new road to most. White Mountain, Ranked #3 in California, just behind Onion Valley and Horseshoe Meadows, climbs 6,200ft in 20 miles, with a summit above 10,000ft.
If the first day was an appetizer, and the second day delivered us the main dish, this third day was supposed to be a dessert. A very filling, heavy dessert worth of 10,000 calories. The kind that also fills you with regret, as you wished you saved some room for during the main meal, and then you decide to share it with friends, but they want it even less than you as they are working on stuffing themselves with their own dessert.
We checked out of the hotel and drove to the Big Pine (interesting how nobody wanted to ride to the start on our third day!). An obligatory group photo and we were off - a few flat miles to warm up, but not much warm up was necessary as it was already hot.
Oleg: "The sun was beating on us and I felt the worst at the start and better as we kept climbing. Several riders: Hodges, Cresap, Farkas - took off as soon as we started climbing, while I rode with Rick, Voris and Matt. Good company. Jim also took off in pursuit of fast time. Eventually Rick, Matt and I caught and passed early escapees (except for Jim, of course, we didn't see him till summit). It was very hot, when we passed Farkas, Matt decided to keep Mike company, so it was me and Rick from there on. Rick was kind enough to ride at reasonable pace, so I was able to keep up. At the support car (located half-way up the climb, courtesy of Bob Proulx) we refilled the bottles and Rick took off, but at 'Rick' superfast pace. Rick ended up getting a KOM from a pro Nate English on a White Mountain 10-mile climbing segment from 168 to the summit. QOM is held by US Champion Alison Tetrick, she beat me by almost 40 seconds, but in my defense, she probably wasn't stopping to snap some photos."
Summerson book describes the climb as 20 miles with 5.9% average, peaking at 11%. It sounds challenging, but not as brutal as it is in reality. What the book fails to mention is that there are a lot of shorter sections at 15-18%. Or at least they felt like 15-18%, which is the only thing that really matters. Many descenders opined that the #3 CA ranked White Mountain climb, especially the second half from the left turn to the summit, is actually more difficult than #1 ranked Onion Valley or #2 ranked Horseshoe Meadows.
Despite the suffering, we were rewarded with amazing vistas of mountain ridges, combined with crazy cloud formations (see photos below).
At the top we had a nice surprise - the park rangers, on request from Voris, brought us several coolers with iced water. It was fantastic!
We sat around waiting as more riders were coming in. The bristlecone trees were quite something. Some of them were older than dirt, literally - 4,500 years old, and to recycle Voris' joke (it's a pretty good one), Descenders felt right at home.
The descent wasn't scheduled till noon but many descenders felt compelled to leave early. At around 11:58 Sheehan arrived at the summit. He was pointing to his watch, as he made the time cut with whole 2 minutes to spare! Nicely done.
The descent was fast. Matt, Ernst, Oleg and Sheehan set all sort of records, despite descending into a bit of a headwind. The final 9 or so miles of descent featured some dicey sections where the road felt a bit like rollercoaster - you are actually airborne a few times, often just before you need to make a turn. In the final few flat miles following the descent it felt like we are in an oven. 100F at least in the desert. We changed out of our sweaty clothes, using local source of water at the campgrounds for a quick wash - the lady running the campground grumpily and rather rudely refused our offer to pay for our temporary and rather minimal use of campground facilities.
On the way back we had a stop at the Lone Pine, "Mt. Whitney Restaurant" for lunch. We have been to this place in 2010 as well. The sign claims this is the "Best Burger in Town". Considering the size of Lone Pine it's not much of a statement, but we are tired and hungry, and the burgers taste fantastic. Then again, any food would taste fantastic considering the ride we just did.
We drive back to San Diego, reminiscing on the weekend spent and already planning the next year's ride. To the Monster Climb 2014 - the Mountains are Calling. Again.
Mountains have been calling us... Non-stop... For about a year now.
Chasing the group through the Onion Valley. AFF. Alluvial "F'ing" Fan.
Ernst and Claus. Looking sharp, boys.
Final mile.
Panorama at early slopes of Onion Valley.
Jim, Farkas and Rick at the top of the Onion Valley.
Everyone made it to the top. Farkas and Bill Wood are missing from this photo.
Time to descend. Fast!
Back at the hotel. We are a beer-drinking club with a cycling problem.
Private Party. But we are all invited!
We needed a lot of pizza.
Table is set. Note Descenders Custom plastic cups.
Dinner.
Day 2:
Very early breakfast at the hotel
Ready to roll from the hotel parking lot. Amazingly, we are on schedule!
We are biking over THERE!
Smiling. For now.
More pointing.
First climb: Pine Creek.
Chasing.
Almost there!
Top of Pine Creek. Voris and Ernst finishing - nice teamwork, guys!
Chilling at the top of Pine Creek.
Ernst at Pine Creek summit.
Voris and Rob: staring lovingly into each others eyes (Rob generously provided reflection of his shades while Voris re-applies sunscreen).
Oleg does his best Ernst imitation with Ernst's beautiful Giant.
Staying cool and collected: Voris makes use of sock filled with ice behind his neck.
Transition towards Rock Creek.
Oh, Hodges!
Brief and rare descent
Guido at Tom's Place.
Jim and Voris. Looking rather haggard.
Eric and Eileen.
And we are climbing again. Rock Creek - highest paved road in California, just above 10,000ft.
The creek cold water felt great!
Brrr.... That feels nice!
There's about $100,000 worth of bikes right there
Returning back to the hotel
Dinner at the Whiskey Creek restaurant - the same place we had dinner at 3 years ago.
Sharing food, drinks and war stories.
Day 3:
Group photo before the start.
The first flat miles.
Everyone is still together. Not for long.
Amazing views as we climb
Relaxing at the top of White Mountain.
Top of Bristlecone.
Voris is happy to see iced water coolers left by kind park rangers.
Dave, Dave and Dave. Sheehan summits.
Sheehan made the cut with minutes to spare! It's not even Noon! The brochure says we do not descend until noon.
Sheehan. The man. The legend. Yet another Monster Climbs - and today is his wedding anniversary.
Time to go downhil.
Just before the descent: Guido, Oleg, Voris, Sheehan and Matt. Ernst took the photo.
Guido and Hodges descending.
The downhill speed deamons - Ernst and Matt. Voris just behind.
It's ALL downhill from here! (9 miles of it).
Sheehan and Oleg broke away in the end.
Comparisons between 2010 and 2013:
Before Onion Valley climb - in 2010 (left) and 2013 (right).
Rob seems to be even happier climbing the Onion Valley alluvial fan section in 2013 (left) compared to 2010 (right).
Climbing through Alluvial F' Fan in 2013 (left) and 2010 (right). Note the snow at the mountaintops in 2010 photo.
Onion Valley in 2010 (left) and 2013 (right). Or maybe the other way around, I can't be sure.
Onion Valley Summit in 2013 (left) and 2010 (right). Much bigger group in 2013.
The road from Bishop to Pine Creek - in 2010 (right) we could see snow-cover mountaintops in June, while in 2013 (left) the snow is all but melted.
The cows and dogs cheer on Descenders as we pass towards Sherwin grade in 2010 (left) and 2013 (right).
Pine Creek Summit in 2010 (left) and 2013 (right).
Ernst looks much more tired at Tom's place in 2010 (left) compared to 2013 (right), despite similarly hot temperatures and identical course.
