After about a year of researching, test-riding, researching, etc. Charmaine pulled the trigger and bought a new bike. She narrowed it down to a Trek Madone or a Specialized Ruby. She had done several test-rides with each, but never at the same time. No cycling shop (that she could find) carries both brands. So she rented the Trek for a day and took it to the Specialized shop. Finally she rode a few loops with each of her favorite bikes and realized right away there was a clear winner for her… the Specialized. After a good fitting, some adjustments to the bike, some adjustments to her shoes, etc. She was ready to ride the Kitchen Creek loop today.
Let me just say that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. We had originally planned to meet up with Ryan and Julie at their camp site on the shore of Lake Morena and ride from there. But after we arrived in the morning, we decided to adjust the route a little to avoid riding along Buckman Springs road on the south side of I-8. It’s a 55 MPH zone with narrow lanes and no bike lane. Also there was quite a bit of traffic on it and nobody was going below 60. That’s not ideal, so we cut it from the ride.
Instead of leaving from their camp, we parked our car at the rest stop where Buckman Springs Road meets I-8 at Exit 51. From there we took Old highway 80 around to where it meets Kitchen Creek Road where we started our ascent. I didn’t give my legs a day off this week, and I could tell on that ascent. Charmaine was also discovering that the new insoles in her shoes and the new geometry of her new bike were causing her to use her muscles in a slightly different way. Bottom line: we were hurting. Ryan, on the other hand, was a climbing machine, but he was kind enough to wait for us from time to time so we could all stay together.
After about 8 miles there was a sign that said, “Pavement ends 400 feet”. Suddenly I wondered if we were even on the right road. I hadn’t paid any attention whatsoever to our planned route. I had no idea how much climbing there would be or what roads we were supposed to take, etc. Luckily, the pavement didn’t end. The two lane road ended and there was a gate. Beyond the gate was a narrow single-lane road about the width of a golf cart. It seems that it’s only used by cyclists. Suddenly the ride became awesome.
Still showing my lack of understanding for what was in store, I started snapping pictures with my phone of the road leading up to where we were. In my mind the top was just around the next corner. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The golf-cart sized road seemed to go on forever, and almost always up. Every now and then it would flatten out and even descend a few tens of feet before heading right back into another climb. The climb wasn’t steep, but it just kept going. I think we climbed about 14 miles straight before we finally hit the top. But it was awesome in the true meaning of the word. We took our time, stopping often to take more pictures, drink more water, and just rest our weary legs (in my case, at least). It was great.
Then we came to the other gate. We had climbed from 3200 to 5800 feet with almost no flat spots and almost no descents during the climb. The narrow lane of Kitchen Creek Road was in pretty bad shape. It would be dangerous and probably stupid to ride this loop the other direction (descending Kitchen Creek instead of ascending it). But I wondered what the descent would be like on the Sunshine Highway. I didn’t wonder for long.
Within minutes we were down. It took 2 hours to make the ascent and only a few minutes to make our way back down to the car. The Sunshine Highway isn’t in the greatest condition, but it’s a big road and I found myself going faster than 40 MPH on several occasions. That descent was really fun.
We rode back to the rest stop along Old highway 80. I was surprised to see a checkpoint setup by Border Patrol on that road. At first I didn’t know what to make of it, but they didn’t care a bit about me (I was heading towards Mexico and not coming from Mexico). I had made the descent a little faster than everyone else (finally being bigger pays off), so I just made my way to the car and waited for everyone else to get back. That was a great ride.
https://app.strava.com/activities/45549744
After uploading my ride to Strava I noticed that my heart rate monitor crapped out on me about 40 minutes in to the ride. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m not too impressed. I’ve been having a really hard time getting my phone to see the monitor. I have to unpair and repair it via bluetooth almost each time I use it. That doesn’t seem right to me. But still, I had a really good time on the ride today.