Sometimes impatience has its price. I wanted to get a good long ride in this weekend, and was bummed to see that the weather was expected to be in the mid to high 90s after the previous weeks of unseasonably cool temps. While I considered just going out for a quick two-hour mtb ride, impatience got the better of me and I decided to try something a bit longer. Since I hadn’t ridden my monster cross bike in a number of weeks, I decided to make a long multi-surface loop of the day, about half dirt, half pavement. I’ve ridden Boulder Creek road a number of times, but never taken a turnoff down Cedar Creek fireroad that links up with Eagle Peak road, so time for some exploring.
The day started well enough for the first couple of climbs and I enjoyed the cool morning temps. My hands were even a bit cold for the first 5 miles or so. Finally, the rubber hit the dirt:
The first sign that the day would be a rough one came when I finally arrived at the turnoff for Cedar Creek and looked down to realize that my bottle of perpeteum–four hours worth of calories–had fallen off the bike at some point. As this was one of the hilliest sections of the ride, it was painful to have to double back several miles to find it, but I needed those calories to finish the ride. Having retrieved the bottle, I made it back to Cedar Creek and enjoyed the isolated beauty of this little ridden fireroad:
About this time, it really started to heat up. My Garmin was claiming over 100 degrees, but at least the scenery was nice.
This is about where the fun ended. As I was climbing out of Cedar Creek to Eagle Creek, I got a dramatic flat that emptied the tire in a couple of seconds. I decided to push the bike to the top of the hill where there was a little shade. I only had one spare tube, so decided to try to patch the flat tube to conserve my good tube. Now, you'd think that by this point in my life I'd be good at patching a tube, but this turned into a 45 min comedy of errors: patch the tube, get everything put back together, cameback on, ready to ride, and poof! The tire goes flat again. I patch the tube a second time, get everything put back together, just about to ride off and poof! At this point, I have no more patch glue, so I'm forced to use my only spare tube and just pray that it holds for the rest of the ride. I install it, get it inflated with my mini pump, only to unscrew the valve core as I'm trying to remove the pump. Poof! All the air goes out. Then I do the same thing again. Finally, I manage to get it inflated and remove the pump safely.
I begin the steep ass climb on Eagle Creek out of that hole only to start to bonk from the heat. For the next 15 miles or so of constant climbing, I just feel like shit: pedaling in my granny even on the flats, and stopping to push my bike up several hills. The heat is going to my stomach and my body keeps trying to throw up. It's getting seriously hot, and my water is starting to run low. A rancher passes me in his truck, rolls down the window, shakes his head, and wryly says, "Better you than me!" Yep, the only fools out this time of day are mad dogs and Englishmen.
My water runs out just before I make it to a USFS fire station. Unfortunately, there is a sign saying the water is unfit to drink since it failed a water quality test two days before. I decide to drink it anyway since the hour-long climb up Engineers road to lake Cuyamaca is the only way out. Girardia won't kill me, but dehydration might.
After finally making it to the general store at Lake Cuyamaca, I bought some clean water, and a Red Bull, which helped revive me for the ride back to Descanso. By the time I made it back to my car, I was pretty cooked. According to my Garmin, 54 miles and 8000 feet of climbing, with an average temp of 94 degrees. All in all it's a great route, but next time I'll wait until the predicted high for the day is in the 50s or 60s.
When I finally made it home, I had a great elk and avocado salad. Sure tasted good after a day of sucking down sports products!
Paleo Vélo 