Friday, June 3, 2011

Over-Estimating My Abilities, OR...

...Dennis was right!

Last night Dennis was looking at my route for today. He said William Heise was too far. I would be climbing most of the day. Well, he was right! Instead of Wm. Heise, I am at Burnt Rancheria in the Cleveland National Forest about 1/2 mile from Mt. Kahuna. I'm about 15 miles short of my plan.

I started at about 9:00 am. Dennis took photos of me riding and in front of his house. First thing I got to do was go down the hill I had gone up yesterday. That was to be one of the few hills I went down! I went through the rest of Lakeside following the route except for one change Dennis recommended. Instead of Lake Jennings Park Rd., I went on Blossom Valley Rd. It took me to the same place without as much climbing--thanks Dennis!

From there I was on the ACA Southern Tier Route. It was pretty much non-stop uphill. Along Alpine Rd. there was a lot of construction. Cool thing was that the flaggers would let me go through, but not let any cars go through at the same time. It was great because it was ALL uphill (not even one break)! The only bad thing was that I felt I hadto keep going to not delay the cars too long. I rode about a full hour uphill without stopping. At Alpine, I was finally able to take a break. Then it was more up and more construction. At one point I came up behind another cyclist stopped at a flagger. He was asking the flagger if he had seen bikes with all the bags on them. I said, "You mean like me?"

Finally I got to Hwy 8. Still going up, but no more construction. I was running a little low on water, but I knew I didn't have too far until I would get off 8 and come to a restaurant and store at Descanso. When I got to the restaurant, I had a piece of chocolate cream pie and loads of water. The waitress filled all my water bottles (with ice too).

I left Descanso and next reached Pine Valley about 5 miles later. I got to come down a long hill into Pine Valley. But, of course, went right back to climbing. I reached the intersection of Southern Tier and Sierra Cascades at Old Hwy 80 and Sunrise Hwy. Turning onto Sunrise, I was officially on the Sierra Cascades Route! Sunrise, basically, just headed up into the mountains. The sign said 11 miles to Mt. Laguna. In Pine Valley I had realized I wouldn't make it to Wm. Heise. I just couldn't go fast enough to make all the miles. Plus, I was getting tired, even though I'd only gone 30 miles.

As I was riding up the Sunrise Hwy, I would stop and rest about every mile or at the pull-outs. After about 1/2 of the 11 miles, I was stopping every 1/2 mile (pull-out or not). My legs were okay, but my arms and shoulders were very tired. I'm glad I have been doing pushups at home, otherwise my arms would have just fallen off! It takes constant strength to steer heavy Stella when I'm only going 3-4 mph.

Finally passed 5000 ft. I still hadanother 1000 ft. to go. When I finally reach the top, I got to come downhill about a mile to the campground. This campground costs $20! There is no H/B rate. But, they do have showers ($1 for 4 mins.).

I've cooked a quick dinner of rice and chicken. Now I'm going to crawl into my sleeping bag!

Miles: 42.19
Ave. speed: 6.1mph
Ride time: 6:48
Actual time: 8 1/2 hours
Subways: 1
Lizards: too many to count
Snakes: 1 (dead--Yay!)

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