11/11 through 11/14/09 – Lion’s Valley and Laguna/Cuyamaca Rides!
Good afternoon friends,
Today has left me ill from the effects of the change of weather, germies spread from the sick kids at my wife’s work, a ride in 40 degree weather, and probably just plain old exhaustion. Slept about 6 hours today, but still feel pretty sluggish. And NO, it’s not the Swine Flu:)
Last week was a fun week with some great rides. On Wednesday, since many of us “govies” (Government Employees), had the day off for Veteran’s Day, we decided to take on the Lion’s Valley Ride in the Jamul area. This is a 45 mile loop and is an extension of the Honey Springs Ride where we take off from the Eastlake area, head east on Otay Lakes towards Jamul, make a right up the grueling climb of Honey Springs Road, then turn off to Lion’s Valley towards the Filippi’s at the top of the hill and loop back around again. 
Wednesday’s ride had Cardio-freak turned road biker Mark Estrada, Pat Moneda in his first road ride back from hiatus due to hardcore studying for an Engineering exam, and 
Mr. Alpe d’Huez himself, Ben Herrera joining in for the fun.
One of the best parts about Wednesday’s rides was the Lion’s Valley portion, where after a couple of rollers through the Jamul area, we got to take on some wicked downhill descents where we reached speeds of over 45 mph!
Now, here’s a lesson for the day for all of you readers from highly experienced road and mountain bikers to newbies just enjoying the weekend rides — ALWAYS MONITOR YOUR EQUIPMENT BEFORE RIDING AND IF ANYTHING NEEDS REPLACING, REPLACE IMMEDIATELY. So you might wonder what happened that sparked this issue?
On a part of the descent through Lion’s Valley where the switchbacks have you leaning as much as a 45 degree angle through some of the turns, I was leaning heavy into one of the left turns when I heard a loud POP and my right foot came flying off the pedal at 30 mph kicking my chain off! My buddy Pat behind me said he froze as my whole bike wobbled as I had to regain my balance with oncoming traffic flying by on the other side of this two lane road. What was the problem? I had a worn down cleat for my Look Keo pedals that needed replacing, but stupid me, I decided that I could switch the left cleat to the right foot and vice versa and buy myself “one more ride” before heading to the bike shop to pick up replacement cleats. When I pulled off to a safe spot on the road, I examined the cleat and the entire front portion of the cleat broke off. So, essentially, I could only pull up on my left pedal for the rest of the 15 miles of riding we had to do to finish up the ride. Not so much fun.
On Saturday morning, Pat, Ben and I ventured out for a 50 mile ride through the Laguna/Cuyamaca area. This ride went through portions of the previous QMDC – Pine Valley training ride that we did a couple of months ago. Tons of climbing. This was a brutal ride, but absolutely beautiful as it went though the mountains of Laguna and Cuyamaca leaving you with some breathtaking views that one normally doesn’t see on rides through the North County.
Saturday’s ride was completely different from the Pine Valley ride not only on the route that we took (we didn’t go through Cleveland National Forest), but was drastically different in terms of weather. Prior to the Pine Valley ride, all of the riders were given notice to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate throughout the week because of the high temperatures on this ride due to the sweltering heat that the valley portions had awaiting us. Saturday? Completely the opposite. When we
started the ride, it was about 40 degrees and was completely miserable. Armwarmers, knee warmers, high socks, Nike dri-fit underneath the jersey and wind vest were no match for these conditions.
Oh yeah? And remember how I hate wearing gloves on road rides? The Laguna/Cuyamaca ride was definitely my breaking point. Which brings us to the second tip for the day:
DON’T BE A MORON: Because of the fact that on the coldest of cold days on the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge when our brave Qualcomm riders and Challenged Athletes rode through the mountains of Big Sur, I shed my gloves off after the first five minutes of climbing, I made the idiotic decision that I never have to bring my gloves on any of the rides from here on out. WRONG. After the first descent of Saturday’s ride, my fingers weren’t only numb, but I could hardly clinch my hands on my brake levers making it not only hard, but painful to use my hands because they were frozen. Luckily for me, I have a great support crew, and my buddy Ben, the surly veteran he is, had an extra pair of gloves that he gave me only after my hardheaded will was broken and gave in to using gloves. It turned out that I had to wear them for the entire ride just to defrost my frozen fingers!
Overall, we had a great day. The cleats were replaced and we had an awesome time climbing through some great ascents up Cuyamaca and through the Pine Valley area and also got to enjoy some fun descents on the way back around. The winds were also quite a factor around Lake Cuyamaca and we definitely had to stay close through portions of the ride where we felt like we were pedaling a 19 mph pace, but were only going 12! After the ride, we were all happy to pack up, and jump back into Pat’s truck where we could enjoy the heater on our way back home.
NUTS AND BOLTS:
As a quick update to some other things off the bike, my wife and I celebrated our 2nd year wedding anniversary on 11/9/09 and we had a great time as we headed out to Mister A’s in downtown for a delicious lunch followed by a gondola ride through the Coronado Cays for a lovely day!
Last week I had a chance to check out an awesome movie that is only playing at select theaters at select times and documents the amazing feat for your hero and mine, Lance Armstrong who recently won what is perhaps the most grueling mountain bike ride in North America that takes place every year called the Leadville 100 – RACE ACROSS THE SKY. If you get a chance, definitely check this one out. It was so worth my $12.50 for a ticket and $15 for popcorn and a soda! Check it out at www.raceacrossthesky.com
One last thing, if you didn’t notice from the pics from the Laguna Ride, the Bailey got a facelift last week as the new Ksryrium ES wheelset came in! Not only are they gorgeous with their shiny red anodized hubs and single red spoke, but they’re absolutely “zippy” on the road as well. Maybe it’s the close to half pound difference in weight from my previous wheelset, or the shaved portions on the rims between each spoke, but these wheels made for some fun climbing on Saturday. I’m just happy the missus wrote it off as “YOUR ANNIVERSARY PRESENT” and didn’t give me too much grief for a new wheelset:)
Have a great week everybody and its back to bed for this guy.
-BB