Earlier this week I read this posting of a mountain bike ride with the Night Riders: “Yes, we are having a Halloween Full Moon Night ride this Friday. Bats and howling Coyotes guaranteed. We will however attempt to limit sacrifices to the crash-gods. Meet 7:00pm at Hunting Hollow.”

It sounded like a lot of fun so I decided to join. Maybe it was because I showed up at Witching Hallow, instead of Hunting Hallow, that only one other person showed up, Thom. We waited for about 30 minutes thinking that maybe there might be another brave soul who would venture off into the dark with us during Halloween. But no one else showed so we decided to head out.

As we were climbing I noticed more frogs than I had ever seen before. They were darting back and forth as I made my way up the hill. What could cause all these frogs to cross our path. Then I suddenly saw a BIG frog right in the middle of the road, staring up at me. I had been careful to not run over any of the frogs, but this one was almost tempting me to run over it. Maybe that might release the curse from some prince, or maybe a monster. I decided to make a quick turn and avoid collision.

We had climbed for over an hour when I noticed up the road what look like 2 eyes reflecting back from the spot light on helmet. I stopped and paused to figure out what it might be but it was too dark to see. The full moon was hiding much of it’s face behind clouds, casting a creepy shadow on the earth. I started to ride on and then this creature darted off. It looked like it was flying but I was not sure. Could a bird’s eye shine back like that?

Up around the next bend, I saw it again and as I proceeded it darted off again and this time I was sure it was flying. Then a third time I saw the eyes off in the distance in the middle of the road. Thom said there were two of us and we bigger so we should go ahead. I followed behind him, peaking around his bike, and noticed once again it flew away. Then I remember we had been guaranteed bats on this ride.

I had turned my light on dim to save battery power as we were going up a rather steep section. All of a sudden my handle bars began to sway back and forth, like a divining rod. I nearly went over due to the force. I quickly turned my trusty BR Light on to bright and then my handle bars settled down.

After about 8 miles of climbing we decided that we had enough of the creepy creatures so we headed back down. I was a bit concerned as we approached the area where that flying creature was lurking. As I went around a bend, something flew up right in front of me, almost hitting my face. Thom saw it and can vouch that I am not exaggerating. It was an owl, or a bat, or some creature that only comes out on Halloween.

The air was turning cold but I was not about to stop to put on my jacket. We hammered down the hill and my heart rate only settled down when we reached the cars. It really was a Halloween Ride.

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You can tell that fall is in the air. Not the real cool temperatures as some parts of the country, but much still cooler than the long and warm summer we have enjoyed. We decided to go on one of the club rides on our tandem that started in Paicines, about a 25 mile drive from our home. The route took us on a beautiful Panoche road with very little traffic. Panoche Rd. was originally a stage coach route used by many of the early California pioneers in particular those people that were doing business with the nearby, New Idria (Quicksilver) mine.

Jime and Eric take off but we are able to hange with them on the tandem for awhile.

The first 10 miles is mostly flat, with some rollers, then there is about 7 miles of climbing, nothing real steep but it all adds up. Then it is down to the valley and a strong tail wind that took us at speeds in excess of 30 mph to the Panoche Inn. This Inn is about the only thing out in this area. No fall colors to see, unless the sagebrush can be counted.

A check of the flag at the Inn showed the strong tail wind we had enjoyed so far.

With 27 miles already in, we had the option to ride out to New Idria or Mercey Hot Springs. I rode the New Idria route in August and the road is real rough. The group we were with decided on the later option so we headed out the 8 miles to Mercey Hot Springs. The Hot Springs was known about by native Indians and was shown to a man “John N. Merci” who acquired the land for the purpose of raising sheep. Merci, who had his name changed to “Mercy” to be more Americanized, sold the property in 1912 to Frederick Bourn, a San Francisco based real estate developer who is responsible for the construction of many of the building still existing today and now being renovated by the current owners.

Some of the guys from the south county that I ride with for both road and mountain bikes were with us so Ann took this photo of our group. Where is Chuck?

Paul, my team mate for the Furance Creek 508 was also there.

We then headed back to the Panoche Inn were be bought lunch.

It is an interesting Inn inside. There must be about a thousand one dollar bills that people have signed and pinned to the wall and ceiling.

The strong tailwind we had enjoyed on the way out meant a strong headwind returning. Going into a headwind on the tandem is not quite as hard as on a single bike because you have the power of two to fight against the wind but the wind drag of only one person.

We ended up with 71 miles by the time we finished. It was a very nice ride.

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We usually climb Henry Coe each Wednesday evening, starting at 5:15 pm. Now that the days are getting shorter, than means we need to use lights to come back down the hill. It was rather warm today so Jim emailed me and suggested we ride earlier. I called and said I could do a 4 pm start. Jim, Doug and myself all met on Dunne Ave. at the bottom of the climb. The next race in the Winter Series is going to be a hill climb up Henry Coe, so wanted to get some benchmark.

Doug is a very good climber, faster than I am. We rode together during much of the climb but he went ahead toward the end. Using the start/end locations that the San Jose Bicycle club uses for a 6.77 mile hill climb, my first time was 42:17, with an average heart rate of 158 and a maximum of 170 (while chasing Doug at the end). Here is the heart rate curve (click it to enlarge).

I never went into the red zone, except at the very end, but was pushing close to my lactage threshold. I think I can possibly take enough time off in a race to break 40 minutes. I timed the second climb and it took 45:40, with an average heart rate of 153. However for this time I stopped at the regular regroup location and waited for the rest of the riders so it is not quite an accurate measurement.

It was geting dark before we reach the summit (my second time) and the temperature was dropping, as expected. At the top I added more clothes and waited for the rest of the riders. Jim and Doug had decided to not go up a second time becasue they did not bring lights, as I had done.

We all seem to have much better lights than last year and during the decent the road was lit up like a car was driving down. Kley has a BR light as I do. Todd was borrowing a light from Chuck because the one he ordered had not yet arrived. Both Chuck and Todd were having problems with the mounting of their lights because they were trying to attach them to the aerobars. My BR LIght worked great. I am really sold on the new LED technology. Todd has ordered a HID light so I am curious to see how much brighter it is. I like the LED light design because it can be more robust and it is easy to have different power settings to achieve extended battery life on a charge. I am quite happy with the BR light I bought.

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Today was a club ride that included a climb up Mt. Hamilton. We started at 8:08 am from the school on Kirk.

Shortly myself, David H and Joe F were out in the front. David was particularly pushing the pace hard, so hard at the beginning I almost dropped off. But I thought I was training for the Everest Challenge and needed to hang on. We were moving so quickly up the hill I realized this might be a good chance to set a new PR going up Mt. Hamilton.

I looked over at David’s bike and noticed he was climbing in the Big Chainring!! I suppose I could make it up Mt. Hamilton in the Big Chainring but certainly not at this pace. After awhile Joe dropped off the back (later he told me had had skipped breakfast)! I kept with David for several miles and and as we were nearing the top of the lower Mt. Hamilton climb I did drop back for awhile. I kept pushing myself and eventually I caught back up (probably David slowed down to let me catch up). David was still in his big chainring. I guess he wanted to finsih the entire climb that way.

I went to get a drink and guess what, I had fogotten to put my water bottles on the bike. Fortunately it was cool, in the 60′s. I figured I could make it to the summit without any water. My old PR was 1 hour 40 minutes from the school. As we got within 5 miles from the top my quick calculations showed I could easily do better. The final time was 1 :34:09 from the school. From the base of the Mt. Hamilton road we did it in 1:28:54. I had finally made the climb under one and a half hours. It was kind of the perfect storm, cool weather, less weight due to no filled water bottles, and David pushing the pace so hard. You can see from the chart below my average heart rate during the climb was 158, peaking at 166. We averaged 12.4 mph.

Joe reached the Lick Observatory just as David and I were headed on to go down the back side of Mt. Hamilton. David was kind of enough to let me use one of his water bottles, which I drank down at Isabel Creek and handed back to him since he was turning around at that point. I then biked another 13 miles, with climbing, to reach the junction. There I bought a Gatorade and put that in my water bottle cage.

I waited for awhile for Joe and thought maybe he had headed down Del Puerto Canyon while I was buying some liquid at the Junction cafe. I did not see him on the way down and only saw him on the way back up. I told him I would meet him at the junction where we were going to eat lunch. I measure the grade over the steepest section of Del Puerto Canyon and got 9.5% over 0.4 miles. It was a steeper climb that I remembered it to be. Maybe it was because I had pushed so hard earlier in the ride.

After lunch, Joe and I headed back towards the back side of Mt. Hamilton.

I felt pretty good making the climb. I took several splits and found the steepest was 9.5% over 0.5 miles. Just about the same as Del Puerto Canyon.

After taking on some more water at the top, we headed back down the front side of Mt. Hamilton, getting to the cars around 4 pm. This graph shows the overall day. You can see my heart rate was much higher while climbing the front side to set the new PR. I backed off conisderably after that. (click graph to enlarge)

Final stats were:

Miles: 92.7
Total Climb: 10,279 feet
Average Speed: 14 mph
Total Moving Time: 7:25
Average Heart Rate: 134

Categories: Cycling Group Rides, Training
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In our bike club, ACTC, we have 99 different hills we climb that we call billygoats. One of those is Welch Creek, wich some club members think is the most difficult of the 99. On today’s ride I had a chance to do the climb for the first time on my new bike with only a double crankset.

I wanted to get some data on the climb because I am on a committee that is looking at how we rank the billygoats. Welch Creek is rated as a 6, the highest rating we give to a hill climb. This chart shows the profile of the altitude and my heart rate for the climb. I took a split at the official start of the billygoat (1), bottom of the real climb (2), at the bottom of the steepest section (3), at the top of the steepest section (4) and at the top of the climb (5). The splits can be seen on the distance axis. I think I picked the right spot for the steepest section after I look at the heart rate curve and see that is where I took my heart rate the highest during the climb. Click the graph to enlarge.

If I look at the splits in my Polar heart rate monitor software, I see the grade for the steepest section is 15.6% over a distance of about 0.35 miles.

I am not sure how accurate this measurement is but it is pretty good. The grade of 15.6 compares closely with the grade I measured in a similar manner on Armsby over 0.4 miles. They felt roughly the same, with Armsby being a bit more difficult.

So is Welch Creek the toughest climb? I would not say so. Since I have used the new bike with the double crankset, the hardest time I had making the climb was going up the On Orbit section on Bohlman I did on July 19th. Since that was awhile ago, my conditioning may be better or worse so it is hard to compare. I dug out the data for the climb. For the On Orbit section I get a grade of 15.9% over 0.3 miles. So for the tough climbs Armsby, Welch Creek and On Orbit are all about the same grade over about a third of a mile. Unless I had a better way of measuring the grade or power output, I will have to settle for with the fact that they are all tough climbs.

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Today was the annual party hosted by Peggy and George with a club ride before. We usually do a ride up Henry Coe, then down in the valley, before climbing back up to their house. However due to a fire in Henry Coe that road was blocked so Gary, Joe and I decided to do some hill repeats before regular ride so we could get in the climbing we wanted. We were also joined by Ken.

I rode from home and met Gary, then we rode over to Thomas Grade to meet Joe and Ken and did five hill repeats. This is a good hill to do repeats on because it is not too long (takes about 7 minutes to climb) and there is a fast descent down Dunne Ave. so you don’t have too long of a time between repeats.

I also checked the total climb and if we start the climb from Hill road we get just 500 feet, enough to qualify to be a billygoat climb in our club. The first climb I did in my big chain ring, ouch! I checked later and found the overall grade is about 8.2%. This chart shows my heart rate dropping, as we were stopping to pickup Joe where he parked. The No. 1 and 2 on the horizontal axis are the splits for the beginning and end of the climb. I kept my heart rate down somewhat because we were doing repeats.

Thomas Grade Climb (Click graph to enlarge)

After doing the five hill repeats we biked over to Peggy and George’s house for the ride start. The ride took us down to the valley and over some more moderate climbs over Willow Springs, then up Croy Canyon. On the way back the four of us were joined by Brian. Off of Sycamore we climbed a hill that Gary knew about but no one else had climbed called Armsby. It is a real nasty hill (see the chart below). I measured the grade on the way back down from points 10 to 11 on the graph and it came out to be 15.7% overall for a half a mile.

Armbsy Climb (Click graph to enlarge)

We then headed over to do Rolling Hills, another very steep hill. This chart shows the elevation and my heart rate going up (in my double crankshaft no less). I did a split at the bottom of the steep part to the top (points 13 and 14) and the average grade is 14.9% over 0.4 miles, a bit less than Armsby. The maximum grade on rolling hills is higher, I believe. Still I felt that Armsby was by far the tougher climb because it had a higher overall grade over a longer climb and there was no spots, as on Rolling Hills, to get any breather. It is a constant UP!

Rollings Hills Climb (click to enlarge)

This chart shows the entire day. I rode 90 miles, including the mileage back home after the party. (Click graph to enlarge)

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Yesterday I was one of the three ride leaders for the club’s UDT (Ultra Distance Traning) rides. These are geared for training to ride in Ultra Distance events. I lead the fastest paced group and was joined by Gary F. and Joe F. at the start. I have refered to the three of us as the 3 F’s. Later on the Page Mill climb we were joined by Brian C. I am not sure, but yesterday’s club ride seemed like the fastest I ever did, with that amount of climbing.

Here are the stats for the ride:

114.5 miles
8,880 feet of climbing
16.6 mph average speed
Total Time: 7:44
Rolling Time: 6:53:39
Average HR: 140 (165 maximum)

Here is the heart rate curve compared with the altitude (click graph to enlarge).

Looking at the curve, I was not in the so called “red zone” that much, but I was sure pushing hard to keep up with Gary and Joe. The average speed of 16.6 mph shows we were really moving, considering that we climbed so much over the course of the ride. I guess my legs are the limiting factor at this point.

We kind of played a game also to see if we could come in under 7 hours for the first 100 miles. We reached that mileage with a total time (including stopping) of 6:58:55, and had climbed all but 400 feet of the total for the day. We almost missed this target because of the stoplights on Foothill.

After the ride I felt that I was in good enough shape to do the Everest Challenge so I signed up. This is the USCF California/Nevada State Climbing Championship that involves climbing 29,035 feet over a two day race, on 9/22-23. I still have some time for some intense training. See my prior blog entry on an attempt to estimate my performance for the Everest Challenge.

Categories: Cycling Group Rides, Ultra Cycling Events
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Earlier in the day Ann and I went on a 6 mile run before we headed to San Jose. The weather was getting warmer as we finished the run but became much warmer as the day proceeded. On the way home the car thermometer was showing 107 degrees!

When we arrived home around 3:30 pm, I was glad to see that FedEx had left the package I had been expecting with the BR Light I had ordered. I quickly put it on the charger and then got ready to ride. I usually do the Henry Coe ride on Wednesday at 5:15 pm, but this time I wanted to ride it from home, even though the tempeature was hot.

With only a chance for a 30 minute charge on the new light, I mounted it on the bike and took off. I made it to Eric’s house just right at 5:15, as everyone was getting ready to ride. We headed up Dunne Ave. to climb Henrey Coe. Doug was riding with us this time and he is a faster climber than I am so I knew I would have a challenge. I went ahead of everyone at the beginning and about half way up Doug decided to jump and join me. We road together until we were about to the crest before the mid climb decent and he jumped out in front and then went down faster than I can. By the time we were starting to climb again, my legs felt weak all of a sudden. I have been climbing Henry Coe with a couple of gears to spare, using a 39×21. But it seemed hard for some reason so I shifted to the 39×24 and eventually the 39×27.

I thought, gee maybe I need to take my bike with the triple crankshaft on the Everest Challenge if I was having such a hard time pedaling. Could Doug have worn me out so fast?

On the climb, near the top there is a short decent, then the cattle guard to cross, followed by the steepest part of the climb, sometimes we call it the wall. It is short but the grade is tough. I started to climb, using what I thought was my lowest gear, and was struggling to turn over the cranks. I looked down to see what was happening and notice I was in the BIG CHAIN RING. I guess I forgot I had shifted to it at the mid point decent and that is why it seemed so hard to pedal the last couple of miles.

I had no choice but to grind it out in the big chain ring since I could not shift now. This was the short, steep pitch, that earlier I worried about when getting my new bike with a double crankshaft. Now I was climbing it in the big chain ring. I made it but it was tough.

I was a bit behind Doug as we made it too the top. We decided to go back down the hill and ride up again with the other riders. I noted that we went down 1.7 miles before met up with them, almost the length of the Metcalf climb.

I had checked my time for the time trail segment of the Henry Coe climb and it was 43:32, with an average HR of 158, maximum of 170, over the 6.9 mile segment. Last week Jim had mentioned that 40 minutes is considered a very good time, so I have some ways to go yet. As a comparison, Ann and I had taken 58 miles on the tandem last week.

After the decent it was back to Eric’s house for some snacks. I waited until 8:15 pm, when it was getting dark before I rode the 13 miles back home because I wanted to test out my light. It worked great and I will write up in a separate entry my impression of this new light.

Data for the ride ws 52.2 miles, 3 hours 37 minutes, average HR of 133, average speed of 14.5, maximum speed of 41.9 mph, total climb was 3,900 feet. From this heart rate curve, you can see I rarely went into the red zone, and then only when I was trying to climb with the big chain ring.

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It is Tuesday so that means two rides, with the first ride with two people. Around 11:30 am, Ann and I headed out on the Tandem up north. We first went up Mantelli, then to Watsonville Road to Uvas. We took Uvas all the way until we bailed out at Bailey, I mean turned right at Baily.

Ann thought we were kind of dogging it today, she said we were not going as fast as we were on Saturday on Uvas. I guess I was a bit tired, at least until I saw a Specialized rider ahead of us about 5 miles before we hit Bailey. I knew we could catch him, which we did. He followed us on the Bailey turn and was closing the gap as we were climbing the short section before the decent. So, I had Ann stand with me as we powered over the short climb. I looked in my rear view mirror and see we had dropped him big time.

I guess I was being conservative on the decent because he nearly caught us. I thought at least he would not turn right on Santa Teressa as we would, but I was wrong. We had a tail wind now so we cranked it up to 24-25 mph. He could not close the gap. I was thinking if he was able to ever close the gap, he might be shocked to see a couple of senior citizens on the tandem.

I had plenty of reserve so I knew we could stay ahead of him all the way to Morgan Hill, that was until some city bus passed us an then cut right in front of us to make it’s stop. I had to almost come to a stop. The Specialized rider was back far enough that he swung out around the bus and got ahead. No fair I thought.

Well that was enough, we both needed food and drink because it was hot, about 95 degrees. We stopped at Erik’s Deli in Morgan Hill and split a sandwich and bowl of soup (our typical lunch there). Then it was back straight home, for a total of 44 miles, averaging 17.1 mph. Not so slow I thought.

I had about 1 hour before I headed with bike and car to Morgan Hill to ride the Metcalf Mauler from there. It was 101 degrees on the car thermometer as I arrived in Morgan Hill at the trail head. Good thing the heat does not bother me that much. I felt fresh a the beginning of the official ride in San Jose and hammered down Santa Teressa, this time South to Bailey where we turn left. I was the first one up Metcalf but my time was no PR, about 14 minutes. No one challenged me, I guess because of the heat. After the official ride I biked back on the bike trail to the trail head. I ended the day with 92 miles total.

Categories: Cycling, Cycling Group Rides, Cycling with Family
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Joe lead the club ride today for Furnance Creek 508 training. Myself and Gary showed up. I think the warning in the ride description about the need for strong wheels, and winds, scared some people away. Joe’s wife, Rosa, was there to drive their SUV vehicle as a SAG. We would need that because there was only one place to get water. It turned out to be a 128 mile ride and very difficult. I had been out on these roads before but never tried to do it at the the speed we rode today. For some reason my legs felt like lead from the very beginning. It was a long, hot and hard day riding.

I brought back some Mavic wheels from Utah because they are strong (and on the heavy side). I put them on my older Trek bike and installed the aerobars, all on Friday night, after driving all the way home that day from Utah. I am thinking to take my older bike for the FC 508 so I wanted to test it out.

We started the ride in Hollister and biked first on Southside over to Tres Pinos, then highway 25 to Paicines, then turning left on the Panoche road. We did not stop until we hit the Panoche Inn where we got some water because Rosa had not yet caught up with us. We then headed further on toward New Idria. The road gets very rough out past that spot, with twisting turns and up and down. I tried to use my aerobars at times but it was almost impossible because it was so bumpy. There was some forest fire out there because we were being passed by many big fire trucks, from CDF. When we were almost to New Idria, we were stopped and could not visit the ghost town, I guess because of the fire. We decided to eat our lunch which we had loaded in the car with Rosa.  The image below shows the route we took (click to enlarge).

There The way back found the headwinds we expected. I felt wasted and didn’t attempt to keep up with Joe and Gary. I saw that they were drafting behind Rosa in the car so I knew that I would fall even further behind. About 6 miles from reaching the Panoche Inn, Rosa dropped back and pulled me in. Drafting behind a SUV, especially with the headwinds makes a hugh difference.

Back at the Inn I drank a couple of cokes and ate some more bars and filled up my water bottles.. Then it was the ride back to the start. Again I fell behind the othr riders and again Rosa dropped back later to pick me up. She said Joe was only 0.3 miles ahead so I drafted behind her until we caught Joe. The two of us drafted for awhile but then Joe dropped off, I guess because of the pace. It also took a lot of effort to draft behind the vehicle because you have to ride your brakes and pay close attention. I used the draft most all he way back to Highway 25, but we never to catch Gary. I then biked on my own and finally caught Gary, who had stopped at Tres Pinos. In went in the store there and bought a pint of chocolate milk. I could not seem to drink enough. I drank that right down and then Gary and I jumped on our bikes and went the final 8 miles back to to Hollister. It was now 5:20 pm, rather later for the miles we did, but it was a hard ride.

I found this information about the New Idria town on the website.

A part of a mercury extraction plant of the New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company.

The New Idria Mining Company was formed soon after the discovery of cinnabar (quicksilver ore) in southern Diablo Range of central California in 1854. The town of New Idria began around 1857 and about 300 men were employed at the mine by 1861. The first school opened in 1867 and the New Idria Post Office opened in 1867. In 1894, the New Idria Post Office dropped the word “New” and the town become known as Idria. The New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company closed 1974 and the town has since become a ghost town.

New Idria is a California Historical Landmark (#324) and home of the world’s first Gould Rotary Furnace. The Gould Rotary Furnace revolutionized ore processing technology worldwide.

The New Idria area is known for its abundance of rare minerals such as Benitoite, named after San Benito County. Gem quality Benitoite is only found in this area of the world.

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