Have you ever finished a ride and had trouble keeping
the clutch pushed in at a stoplight afterwards?
It was a nice and sunny Southern California day and I
could see some of the local mountains peeking through
the haze at me. The wind seemed to be coming out of
the North at a slight clip, so the mountains that were
peeking seemed like a good choice to start my new
Monday groove. After last week's debacle of little to
no riding due to being completely wiped-out from my
new schedule, it was time to move my ass.
Not having to battle much traffic to get to this
particular target location has now become a rule, due
to proximity. It sure is nice to get there quickly
and get to riding. The weapon of choice was the
singlespeed and I knew it was going to at least be a
lung challenge with a 25 miler that has about 4,000
feet of climbing in it.
The route starts with a little bit of little traveled
pavement and the light, dry breeze confirmed my notion
that the prevailing wind would be from the North.
There was a silver truck with a bike rack parked at
the FS gate, so there was a high possibility that
there were going to be others out on the trail. The
freshest set of tracks were being made by a set of WTB
Velociraptors and they were in a pretty straight line,
indicating the rider was not weak. I doubted I would
catch up with them.
The lower reaches of the fire road climb were in good
shape from the recent rain, hardpacked and fast. This
made the singlespeed choice seem like a good one. The
Live Oak and Sycamore canopy made things really cool,
but I knew that as soon as I busted out into the
exposed chapparal climb it would warm up a bit.
As predicted, the open space out of the canyon bottom
revelaed higher temperatures almost immediately. I
began to taste my breakfast a little and reigned it
into a slow standing grind as the pitch increased.
Content with the slow grind, I settled in with some
John Lee Hooker going through my head..."I'm
bad...just like Jesse James..." I'm not sure why that
particular song was there, but it was. After a few
turns, I saw the other rider whose tracks I had been
following. He was in the saddle spinning away up the
climb. I caught him and he asked if I had a wrench,
so I stopped and asked, "What kind of wrench?" He
needed a 5mm allen to tighten up the pivot bolt on his
Intense Spyder. It took quite a few turns to get that
sucker tightened down properly, but it did the trick.
I had no original plan for my ride, so after this dude
(Tom) introduced himself I figured he was friendly
enough to ride with for a while. The usual banter
back and forth made the climb quite a bit easier.
After a short down, the last part of the climb started
up. The road got a little more gravely and loose,
which was the point where I realized that my lungs and
legs were probably going to have to give in to more
hoofing than I normally enjoy on this route, which for
this main part climb is usually zero on the SS. A
loose rock started it and I ended up walking a few
spots before the first crest. That wasn't the end of
that either.
Tom had no problem using his gears as we traversed
along the ridge, cleaning all of the climbs. One
thing that slowed him quite a bit was that he had
forgotten his helmet, so the descents were what kept
us aligned in each of our handicaps of the day. I was
a bit bummed for him though because the downhills were
in a lot better shape than the last time I had ridden
this route in April. My legs and lungs were pretty
spent by this time, so I spent a good portion of the
steeper and more loose climbs hoofing it.
The singletrack we had sought to attain throughout the
ride appeared after one last climb on the ridge route.
It was a bit cool at the top, but that was ok with
me. Tom donned a long-sleeve shirt he had in his pack
and then it was off to the races. I led out on
purpose because I wanted to see how fast the top
section was on the SS. It was pretty rippin' fast for
a while and then as it steepened a bit, the tread
became filled with gravel-like rock with bigger chunks
here and there. The SS didn't like that all that
much, but handled it just the same. After a
particularly steep pitch into a flat, I decided to
pause there to let Tom lead the rest of the way down.
It was nice to have someone to keep me in check,
especially since I wasn't feeling up to par. I could
do this downhill a disservice and say the rest was
uneventful, but it never truly is because there is so
much on it. My favorite aspect this day was that the
brush on the sides of the trail had almost grown
together in some places, obscuring the trail. That
litle extra thrill factor on a trail with blind turns
and exposure makes it anything but uneventful.
Even the road ride back to the vehicles was somewhat
eventful. Some goober in a Corvette saw to that,
speeding by us twice in some demented kind of display.
Peacocks like to show their feathers and squack, but
that's all they are good for. Some people's kids...
Back in my truck and headed home, I noticed that the
clutch seemed a bit heavier than normal and when it
was held down at a light, my leg was shaking. I need
to ride more.
JD
The whole idea of music from the beginning of time was for people to be
happy - Robert Plant 1970