Long Ride Against the Wind
Early this morning, just after I got up, I knew I wanted to be a little more on the ball today. I mapped out my route early and got myself ready. I probably waited too long to eat, after spending the morning putting $90 worth of change through a machine at a grocery store. I ate about a pound of pasta a little over two hours before my ride. That should do the trick.
I didn’t bother to check the weather. Instead, I decided that, unless something really bad happened, I was going to try to follow my route as closely as possible. It wasn’t going to be easy. The route I mapped out looped around Sunnyvale before heading south toward the mountains—up through Saratoga toward the gap, climbing past Mountain Winery and over the very steep grades of Mt. Eden Road, around Stevens Creek Reservoir, up Foothill Expressway against a blustery wind, up to Portola Valley, through Woodside, down the hill, and home through Stanford’s campus and a sweep through Los Altos. The wind was strong today and I battled headwinds for most of the ride.
As I was about to turn down De Anza Boulevard for the beginning of the first section of climbing of the day, I finished my 15,000th mile since I started cycling in 2002. No time to quit now, though. Still have more than 50 miles left to go today. A street festival in Saratoga messed me up, but they let me ride through, before I started to lose my speed averages in the foothills.
After stomping up the hills just north of Mountain Winery (oh, my goodness, they are STEEP), I started to regain some of my clock on the way through Los Altos. But, by the time I finished climbing through Portola Valley, I was cramping and starting to hurt. I filled my water bottles, walked off the spasming muscles, and got back on my mighty steed for the last 30 miles home. The crosswinds coming down the Woodside plummet were strong enough that, despite my hoping for a descent over 40 miles an hour, I ended up with a fairly puny maximum speed. I mustered the power to maintain a decent enough kick on the way home (although the sun set on me fifteen minutes from home) to avoid putting an average speed in my log under 18 miles an hour.
This ride was my longest yet by more than 3 miles. I need to ride this one more. You don’t get to be strong on hills by riding on flats all the time, do you?
Today: 66.82 mi; 3:42:09 (18.0 mph avg; 35.5 mph max)
Sept : 446.75 mi; 23:29:01 (19.0 mph avg; 35.5 mph max)
2005 : 5693.26 mi; 303:00:28 (18.8 mph avg; 46.0 mph max)
Goal : 5000.00 mi (693.26 mi over : 113.87% complete)
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