Hey everybodies, I spent a bit of time and got all my photos together from the ride. I took about 80 total (probably 10 spurts of 8 or so), and they are at this location:
http://henry.sandi.net/students/2008/wedwall/chuck/qviewer
This is the first image in the gallery; just a route with some averages.
It’s a JavaScript photoviewer I made back in early 2006, and, as far as I know, it works in all browsers including IE6! So bring it on and clickz0r! Grrr, it better work in IE6 … heheheh
I intend at this point to make this short, but if any of you know me, you know I can be too verbose, so this will probably end up being a hell of a long post. You guys don’t have to read it if it’s longer than a couple paragraphs!!!
Anyway, about the ride… whoohoo, it was a doozey for me, and I was thrashed afterwards! Didn’t really chafe much, but once I made it home, I slept probably 33 hours out of the next two days of the weekend.
I started out on a bit of a climb to get out to Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) from my college, UC Irvine, as we’re behind a bit of a hill. I was doing about 11.5 mph or so up the hill, which isn’t bad, but it’s not a great way to kick off your shot at getting a fast average speed for the day! By the time I’d gotten down the other side of the hill to PCH, my average was up to 12.2, much better than 11. I left hungry on purpose, so I could stop at a Subway in Newport Beach and get a footlong Jalapeño-filled meatball sandwich, which I would then inhale. After sitting around for a good half hour, I continued south on PCH for the REAL beginning of the ride.
Through Newport Beach, the hills are manageable, and on the flats, I found myself cruising between 14.5 and 15.5 without much effort; on the downs, I’d be consistently in the 15s, touching 16s, and on the slight ups, usually around 12. My average through Newport Beach was a good 13.5 or so, and caused my average to climb to 12.8 by the time I hit Laguna Beach’s limit.
Once I got to Laguna Beach, which is more hilly, my average didn’t really drop, I think because I was warming up more and getting used to my uni a tad better; there were many more hills, which I crawled up around 10-10.5mph and raced down around 17-18 with my shiny new brake (yippee!). Flats were still within 0.5mph of 15.0, and by the end of Laguna Beach, headed into Dana Point, my average speed for the whole ride had climbed to 13.3. That means I must’ve been averaging in the high 13s through the hills to get it to climb that far from 12.8mph with only doubling the total distance travelled.
Dana Point is the beginning of the end of the hills for this ride, as it’s a huge downhill to a stretch of very slight rollers that pull you along the coast for the next 45 miles (to Torrey Pines Grade). Down the Dana Point hill on PCH, I was spinning 16-17.5mph, keeping it relatively under control in order to prevent UPDs. At the bottom of the hill is a stoplight, but, luckily for me, it had just turned green, so I sailed through at 17 miles an hour, passing all the cars that had just begun to accelerate. It feels GOOD when that happens, doesn’t it??!!
After Dana Point are San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, San Onofre campground, and Camp Pendleton (Marines base) until Oceanside, which is right about the halfway point of the ride and will be my first stopping point for some fuel. Through all these towns/places, it’s relatively flat, with the exception of a decently sizable hill in San Clemente.
I pegged my pace between 15.7 and 16.2mph on the first portion of the bike path going through San Juan Capistrano, which lasted a couple miles; once it opened back up to the road, I slowed back down to 14.5-15ish; by then, spinning just kind of felt second nature, and, though my groin muscles were a bit sore, it was easy to ignore them… so I just spun away on the flat ground until Oceanside, having gone in the emergency lane of the freeway, Interstate 5, to get past the Marines base. (It was dark by then, and they don’t let cyclists on the base after a 3:30 or 4 PM.) My average for the 25-ish mile stretch from Dana Point to Oceanside was a cool 14.4mph, which I am pretty stoked with! My previous longest time going 14.4mph was a fund-raiser back in November, and that was only for an hour (14.4 miles) instead of for 25 miles :).
(I could only take pictures of my shadow!)
But I could get one of myself every NOW and then, but only really like this, grimacing in concentration trying to balance, look up, and hold the camera right. I have bad balance compared to all you guys!
At Del Taco in Oceanside, where I put some half-fat, half-food calories in me and filled up my bottles, I had 6 tacos and a bean/cheese burrito, and bought 4 more tacos to stuff in my jersey pockets in case I got hungry later. Took my sweet time, too. Probably rested a whole 40 to 50 minutes there!
Going through Oceanside and southward to Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, and Del Mar, the last of the flattish riding, my pace started to fade a little bit, from the healthy 14.5-15.5 flat spin to a more realistic 13.6-14.3mph. With stoplight deceleration and the occasional small hill climb, this worked down to a 13.3 average for this section of the ride, which was about 23 miles. Not blistering, but good enough to cover some healthy ground, methinks.
By the time I got to The Hill (the hill of all hills, at least as far as the Irvine-to-San Diego-ride is concerned), which is Torrey Pines Road (known as Torrey Pines Grade), I was feeling pretty down, and had gotten hungry again. I stopped at the bottom of the hill and stretched my legs and tried to take a picture of it (which really didn’t work, see below, LOL (and that’s as photoshopped-up as it gets!)), and climbed on my uni… I thought I’d fly up it, but it hurt a LOT more than I thought it would. I barely held 8 miles an hour up it, when I thought I’d be cranking a healthy 10. It’s about a mile and a half long and 500ish feet of gain. (6-7ish percent grade, I think). By the top I felt a bit lightheaded and dizzy, and I knew this was the beginning of the end for my fast riding. Even at the top, I struggled to keep 12 miles an hour once it flattened out.
After Torrey Pines Grade, you go through UCSD’s campus to get to a road called Gilman Drive, which is a long-ish, shallow descent. Problem is, I always get lost at UCSD, so I figured I’d make it be a rest time to get my legs and head back, and I just slowly rode around the campus looking at all the buildings. I need a few extra miles to make it into a 100-mile ride anyway, because it’s really only 95 to my house. I probably spent a half hour at UCSD riding around and eating my four tacos I’d stashed in my jersey, and I eventually found my way onto Gilman Dr. down to its intersection with Interstate 5, crossed under the freeway and hopped on…
(This is me and my uni at UCSD just after I ate the 4 extra tacos. Yum(ck), fast food tacos kept warm by body heat and moist by sweat!!1!oneone! (hey, it’s actually not that bad!))
… the bike path through Rose Canyon that leads to Santa Fe Rd., which takes you to Morena Blvd, which takes you to Friars Rd, which takes you to the stadium, where you get on a road that takes you up a NASTY, HORRIBLE, RUDE, disgusting, slap-in-the-face climb called Twain Ave., which takes you to Waring Rd, which takes you to Navajo Rd., which takes you to Jackson Dr., which takes you to my street, which takes ME to my BED! I was officially in San Diego, but BOY, I was going SLOW. Talk about a 13mph average going on downhills all the way down Gilman and through the canyon, and a 8-9mph average on the slight uphills toward my house, not to mention the 4-5mph I had behind me climbing Twain. OH, and BTW I stopped and bought two chicken sandwiches at Carls Jr. which gave me another 25 minutes of rest time. HEHE. w00t for rest! I take my time when I eat! (But then you get cold and regret spending so long, because you go back out into the night and your sweat freezes you until you warm up again, lol. You get what you pay for!). Anyway, the last bit of my ride, I was really hurting for speed. I felt okay on my Coker and didn’t UPD, but I had almost no power to go fast at all.
I finally made it home at about 12:45 AM, and fell asleep on my bed as soon as I touched the sheets. I did manage to wake up an hour later and take a shower though (phew, good thing… LOL)
I think I’ve got a pretty good 60-65 mile Coker ride in me, but my endurance hits the wall around 70, and I cease to be able to spin lightly and easily while keeping balance. But heeeecck, it was a fun ride. I wish I’d gotten to go with someone! (hint hint, ShannonG and/or onelesscar!)
I put my ride into the Ride The Lobster // Mediterranean Uni Tour Long Distance Effort Calculator (available at http://www.unitours.org/Unitours/tours/MUT/Rating.aspx ), and, at 160km with 700 meters of climbing and 500 meters of descending, it reads a difficulty level of 375. I did do about 62 miles of the ride at night, though, which is right about 100km, so if you add in the night riding to the subjective section, it climbs to 609. Honestly, I don’t know why riding at night adds a whole point per kilometer; in my view, it’s no more difficult than riding at day, and it’s quite peaceful. I put a screenshot of the diff thing in here. Donno why, can’t hurt I guess.
Ummm, if any of you guys read all this, let me know what I can do to get you your ten minutes back, because it was probably a waste of your time. I see things based on how fast I go and whether it’s up or down, so, unless you’re masochistic, it’s gotta be pretty boring to read about…:o
Oh, and this was the second ride of the two-day qualifier ride for Ride The Lobster, and I’ll probably use the majority of this post in the writeup I submit. The “first” ride, which I did Friday night before I left on this big one, was pretty short; it was a 17-mile round trip to get some brake handle parts and batteries and junk from a bike shop and to get some Fish Burritos at Rubio’s (good restaurant!). Once I got back, I went out again with friendly group of slower cyclists and hung on for dear life on my Coker everywhere but the hills, where I could get my retribution for being on a unicycle… hehehe. The Friday night ride ended up being a healthy 32 Coker miles, with about 300m of climbing. Since it was all at night, it barely pushes the difficulty rating above 125 (to 130), so, that, combined with this century, means I’m all good for RTL if I can get my passport! W00t, I can’t wait!!
I think I did this just to prove to myself that I could do a big ride without a geared hub. I’m super excited to get it, but all the big, strong, fast Coker dudes did all their long rides and touring the old way, with 1-1 drive. I know I could never bring myself to ride 100 miles with a geared hub and force myself to stay in first gear, so I just had to do it the old way once before I “gear up” for RTL.
Edit: replaced some photos with smaller versions.
