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2001 Grizzly Peak Century Ride Report
(Sunday, May
6 in Moraga, CA)
The "Death Warmed Over" Ride
I was a tad trepidatious about this ride, as at 108 miles, it would be the
longest ride I've ever done (by 1 mile :), and at 8500 ft of climbing, it would
be one of the hilliest.
I awoke at 5:15 on Sunday morning (uggh!), suited up, did a tire pressure
check, and found that two of my rear spokes had come almost completely
unscrewed from the spoke nipple, yet my wheel was still perfectly true! How
odd is that? After reattaching the spokes and loading up the car, I hit the
road for Moraga, arriving at about 6:15, in plenty of time to meet my target
start time of 6:30. I registered with no problem then thought I'd hit the
bathrooms before starting riding - mistake! The situation was completely
reversed from the usual - there was a HUGE line at the men's room, with no
line at all at the women's! So I didn't start riding until about 7 - oh well,
no biggie.
The ride consists of two loops, one 70 mile, and one 38 mile, both starting
and ending at a high school in Moraga (this was the lunch stop too). The
first loop headed down Canyon Rd. up Pinehurst, and up Skyline to Grizzly
Peak. A nice, but not too steep climb. I really like riding on
Grizzly Peak - the views looking over downtown Oakland, across the Bay Bridge
to SF, and over the Golden Gate are spectacular, and they continue for a
number of miles! After Grizzly Peak, it was a short trip on Wildcat Canyon to
the first rest stop. They had lattés! Yay! :-) Definitely a first for a
bike rest stop for me. They also had lots of yummy nutbreads and such.
From there, we went east past San Pablo Res., through the Tosco petroleum
processing plant in Martinez (very ugly, but sort of an interesting maze of
pipes, tubes, and smokestacks), and out along the Carquinez Straits. By this
point it was getting pretty warm, but not too terribly bad. I think there was
a rest stop somewhere along here, but I'll be darned if I remember it :-)
Then the first real steep hill of the day - McEwin Road. Rather a nasty hill!
It went on at I'd guess a 12-14% grade for about .7 miles. The ride organizers
had a bunch of inspirational/funny signs dotted along the road, which took my
mind off of the climb nicely. Once at the top, it was a nice fun descent back
towards San Pablo and the "Three Bears", a series of well-known
hills that I'd never ridden on. Turns out they really weren't too bad,
especially with a rest stop at the top of Mamma Bear. It was
getting very warm at this point, though - my Cateye was reading 95°, which
was probably a few degrees high, since it was mostly in direct sun, but then
again, so was I! There was a nice descent between Mamma Bear and
Papa Bear which cooled me down somewhat. Alas, like Mamma, Papa
Bear was completely exposed with no shade anywhere - ooof! If there was
a "Baby Bear" climb, I didn't notice it :) From there it was a
straightforward trip back to Moraga for the end of the 70 mile route, lunch,
and the start of the 38 mile loop.
Lunch was great with some really yummy BBQ chicken and tabouli-like salad -
mmmmm. After checking in and picking up the ride sheet for the final loop, I
again hit the road. I found it a tad difficult to stay motivated to complete
the whole ride, since after the 70, I was right back at my car and could very
easily have called it quits then. But I figured I was making really good
time, and still felt pretty good, so what the heck. I should have known that
my unscrewed spokes, the unheard-of men's bathroom wait, and my hesitation at
doing the second loop were perhaps omens of things to come ;-)
The second loop again went out Canyon Rd (not very creative, but AFAIK there
really isn't any other reasonable way to get west from Moraga) to Pinehurst
(the other direction from the morning loop) and out to to Redwood Rd. On
Pinehurst, I met a woman on the Lukemia Team In Training, Sigrida, and we
rode together for pretty much the rest of the ride, as we were riding just
about the same pace. There were a bunch of flares at the intersection of
Pinehurst and Redwood blocking access to Redwood Rd. South. We were taking
Redwood north, however the loop was supposed to return via south Redwood.
Hmmmm. Sigrida said she'd seen smoke from the top of Pinehurst, and a bit
later someone confirmed that there had been several fires in that area (that
sounds a bit suspicious to me!). We continued on Redwood up to Skyline south
of where we were earlier in the day. Along the way, we were passed by a very
courteous motorist, who honked his horn at every single cyclist on the road,
and flipped everyone the bird, even though everybody was riding single file
and there was plenty of room to pass without even crossing into the other
lane. I think he was just jealous of our bikes :) After climbing Redwood, we
went south on Skyline and "descended" (there were a lot of uphills!) into
Oakland/San Leandro and entered the Oakland Zoo - a short, but pretty steep
climb into the Zoo grounds, then a very, very steep descent back out. I don't
know if there was a better alternative, but some of the roads we were routed
on in Oakland en route to Lake Chabot weren't in very nice areas (Macarthur
and 98th Ave), so we hurried through those.
The climb up to Lake Chabot was very pleasant and was somewhat cooler since
we'd returned from the inland east bay area. My legs were definitely feeling
all of the riding and climbing by this point, though, and my uphill speed
dropped considerably. After Chabot, it was east to Castro Valley and the
final rest stop on south Redwood Rd. We saw a lot of riders with the neon
wristbands of this ride going the other way and figured they'd probably been
turned back due to the fires on Redwood Rd., but we hoped that it'd be cleared
up by the time we got there.
No such luck! At the final rest stop at mile 93, we were told that the
estimate was "1 hour to tomorrow" for reopening Redwood. We didn't think much
of the idea of waiting an hour only to find that the road would be closed all
night, so Sigrida & I contemplated the options:
- bike to Castro Valley BART and take that to Orinda BART. We didn't like
that option because it wouldn't have made for a 100mi ride, would have
required at least one transfer, and its really hard to walk up and down the
stairs at BART carrying a bicycle and wearing road cleats!
- Go back the way we had just arrived. We didn't much like this idea
either, as it was about 25 miles back the way we'd just been, it was
not in the least bit flat (we especially didn't relish the thought of
climbing Golf Links Rd & Skyline again), and I, for one, don't much
like riding on the same roads in two directions.
- Head east to San Ramon, north to Walnut Creek, and west back to Moraga.
This was an unknown distance, but definitely not very hilly at all.
A bunch of us decided we'd take option #3. Sigrida & I took off before
the rest, as I knew the way to San Ramon, she knew the way to Moraga from San
Ramon, and the other folks looked like hammerheads who would easily catch us
anyways, which they did a few miles down the road :)
I was very glad that Sigrida was about my speed, as we traded pulls going
north on San Ramon Rd (not one of my favorite roads to ride on, as its long
and straight, but its a good direct way to get from A to B...). After what
seemed like an eternity, we arrived in Lafayette and picked up the
Lafayette/Moraga Bike Trail, which took us 6'ish miles back to Moraga and the
finish. I was very, very tired by this point and my legs were starting to
cramp. I'd been pacing myself for a 108mi ride, not a 128mi ride, so I had
almost no legs left! Given the heat and the fact that it turned out to be
exactly the length of the Markleeville Death Ride, we dubbed this ride the
"Death Warmed Over " Ride.
When we arrived, to our surprise, there were still a bunch of folks there (I
guess lots of people got so many extra miles they felt the need to keep the
course open longer (it was supposed to close at 5:30 - we arrived at about
6:40)). I signed in and got my patch & t-shirt. I had pretty much
resigned myself to them being out of food and having to subsist on Clif Bars
until I got home, but the wonderful folks at Grizzly Peak Cyclists saved a
bunch of chicken and tabouli, so Sigrida & I devoured a platefull of that
before parting ways and heading home.
Overall this was a great ride - more epic than I had anticipated, but
hey, it was my first 200k ride! :-) The route was interesting and
challenging, the support was very, very good.
Ride Stats:
| Distance: |
128 mi (20 "bonus" miles due to fire detour!) |
| Total Time: |
11h 51m |
| On-bike Time: |
9h 39m |
| Average Speed: |
13.3mph |
| Maximum Speed: |
47.8mph |
| Total Climbing: |
~8500 ft |
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