Last week, we did the hardest single climb on our schedule: Old La Honda Road. Mapmyfitness.com rates it a category 2 climb, which is the third-hardest climb rating on the pro cycling circuit. (There’s also a category 1 and an “HC,” which is essentially “beyond hard.”) It was four, grueling miles long with no flat spots, just parts that weren’t as steep as others, and gained about 1400′ in one chunk. Phew!
But there were many miles before it, and many after it as well. So we’ll start at the beginning.
We met at Foothill College around 7:15am. That’s pretty damn early for yours truly! After a little pep talk from our head coach, we circled the campus to warm up (it only has one, one-way access road, so you have to do that), then made our way south on Foothill Blvd. to our hill climb area: Mt. Eden Road.
I hadn’t been on Mt. Eden Road in a long time, since before Christmas, and after all the other road work we’ve done, I was happy with my improvement. I climbed it pretty quickly and was not very tired at the top. Then we descended the other side and made our way back to Foothill via Cupertino roads.
We stayed on Foothill for a long time, passing Stanford and turning left onto Sand Hill Road. That’s where the big climb sort of began, but since it’s not particularly steep at that point (not even a category 5) it doesn’t really start until we turned right onto Old La Honda Road. This is what I would call a goat trail if I were on my motorcycle. It’s very twisty and narrow, sometimes necking down to a single lane, with some busted-up pavement at the very top. That’s good because it keeps cars and motorcycles away. I ground my way to the top at a pretty good pace. I even caught one of the riders from the faster group, so I felt pretty good about myself (to be fair, he sometimes rides with our group, so he’s kind of a tweener).
The top of Old La Honda is an intersection with Skyline Blvd., a popular motorcycle road and one I know very well. We turned right and headed north on Skyline to the intersection with Hwy 84, AKA “Alice’s” named for the restaurant that numerous cyclists and motorcyclists frequent. There, we turned right and headed back toward Woodside—and sea level.
The descent of Hwy 84 was fast, but it’s so twisty I never got going faster than 35 or so. That’s okay, though. I’m careful on this road on my motorcycle, too, because it gets a lot of traffic.
After going through “downtown” Woodside, we turned left on Cañada Road and kept going north to Edgewood. This was a nice stretch of road with a wide bike lane and very little elevation gain. We took Edgewood to Alameda de las Pulgas in the San Carlos/Belmont area. There was one climb at the beginning of Edgewood, then a fast descent to Alameda. San Carlos has a few little hills, which are mostly annoying because, combined with numerous stop signs, they really throw your rhythm off. It was around this point my knee began to hurt.
I’d been to The Spokesman between the Calaveras Ride and this one to work on my upper body positioning. I got a much taller, longer stem and a new, rock-hard saddle with a narrower shape. Unlike my old saddle, which flared out at the sides at a certain point, this one allowed me to sit comfortably in one position. Yes, my “sit” bones hurt, but I know that will fade as I get used to the seat. Anyway, Wade warned me that all the adjustments we did might take another ride or two to get used to, so I wasn’t too concerned about the knee pain. It was manageable with some stretching at every break.
Because of this pain, I decided that discretion was the better part of avoiding injury. So when our coach offered us the option of cutting out the final climb up Elena Road, I went along with the group and voted “no.” We spun our way back to the campus on Foothill and called it a day after about six hours on the road. Total mileage: a bit more than 64 miles.
I was pretty wiped out the rest of the weekend, but there was no knee pain after I got home. My calves were pretty tight on Sunday and Monday, though, like they were on the verge of cramping at times. So I think I’ll start doing short, 10-15 mile spin rides on Sundays to flush some of the residual lactic acid out of my muscles.
Tomorrow, we have a 60-mile buddy ride, so I’ll probably take it kind of easy because we won’t have any support along the way. But after that, we have two 80-milers and another 60-mile buddy ride before our 30-mile send-off ride, then the big finale: SOLVANG! Coach Patrick told us at spin class that Old La Honda was harder than any climb on the century route, so I’m feeling pretty good about my ability to finish the century. I just have to get used to dealing with issues that pop up on longer rides, like getting enough calories, salt and water and remembering to maintain proper riding form. But I think I have the physical strength, and will soon have the endurance, to finish.