Idaho City

I am a few weeks late in posting about my last two rides, so I’ll do my best in capturing them in this blog and the next.

About 3 weeks ago, the plan was to ride out to Idaho City from Harris Ranch. That Saturday night, we had, what I heard later, to be upwards of 80 mile an hour winds. Sunday morning, the air was fresh, nice and cool. On my way to the meeting point at Harris Ranch, I was driving past a golf course and saw that huge tree branches, severed from their trees, were hanging on power pole wires. One power pole had fallen over and the wires were caught in a tree. Tree debris was all over the roads and I was wondering if our ride to Idaho City would be filled with avoiding fallen debris on the roads. Thankfully, we had very little to contend with. We had 5 miles from our starting point to the beginning of the Hill Top hill, which is just about perfect for a warm up for me. I still struggle to breathe and pedal for those first 5 miles, but after that, I get in my groove and am ready to roll.

I am finding that I am getting stronger with each ride. This one, I didn’t have to stop on the way up to the top of the hill to take a break. Once at the top, going down the other side is always a blast-unless you get the willies when you see snake carnage on the side of the road-like I do. Something would shimmer and glint in the sunlight and I’d realize what I was seeing and would swerve slightly to avoid running over the bodies. Some of the snakes that I saw looked like they could have been 2.5” in diameter. Hmmm-that sounded almost like the road was plastered with snake carnage. In reality, I think it was only 3 snakes on that downhill portion of the ride, but three snakes is 3 too many for me.

We came to a part of the road that was under construction. There was freshly paved road, but it was one lane and controlled by a traffic light. So we sat at the red light and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

FINALLY, it turned green and we let the cars go first. As soon as the last one went, the light was turning yellow and we took off. There is NOTHING like being on a freshly paved road on a road bicycle. WOW! So smooth-it’s like butter.

The rest of the way to Idaho City is a gradual climb. A climb so gradual, that a 15 mph speed is not difficult to achieve. Not difficult, that is, unless you have a hollow spot in your stomach. About 5 miles away from I.C., I asked if we could stop so that I could put a little somthin’ somethin’ in my tumbly to quench the rumbly. We stopped long enough to do that, but apparently that was too long. I had been keeping up with Joe and Brad really well, drafting behind them. Once we got going again, I absolutely could not keep up. It’s like an energy zapper was at that particular place in the road and stole all of mine.

When we got to Idaho City, we stopped at Trudy’s for breakfast. Joe said that it is tradition that we stop and eat there. We all sat down and figured out what we wanted to eat. I was concerned that if I ate anything, it would re-visit me on the side of the road on the way back. Especially on the back side of Hill Top. I asked Allison if she wanted to split something. She agreed, so we split a breakfast burrito. Oh man! It tasted good, and splitting was definitely the way to go. Three of the 5 riders that day had never ridden to Idaho City, so Joe offered to pay for breakfast and we all thanked him. His reply was, “Don’t thank me until the end of the ride.” This was said with a twinkle in his eye and a bit of an evil grin playing around the corner of his mouth. I’m thinking, “Uh oh. I think I’m in trouble.”

On the way back, we had a head wind. This particular section of the ride, I was thinking, “In order to survive, I have GOT to keep up with Joe and Brad.” So I tucked in right behind them and all the way through the canyon, I was able to do just that. Joe would “pull” us as we would draft behind him. Then Brad would take Joe’s place and Joe would fall behind me. Allison didn’t want to draft-which probably helped build her endurance and strength, and she didn’t fall far behind us. Mary was coming at her own pace and was behind Allison. (Mary amazes me-riding with a broken tail bone.) At one point, Brad asked if I wanted to try pulling to see what it was like or if I wanted to save my energy. I said both. So I pulled out in front. I looked down and saw that I was going about 24 mph. We rounded a curve and all of a sudden, within about 50 feet, I was down to 19 mph. Part of that was headwind, the other part, just not being used to pulling people behind me. I heard Joe in the back say that it was a nice easy ride back behind me. But as I slowed down a little more, Brad asked if I wanted to keep going or if I’d had enough. I told him I was getting tired, so Joe pulled up in front of me. This put Brad behind me. Pretty soon, Brad could see that I was struggling to keep up with Joe so he jumped in front of me so that I would have the advantage of two stronger riders pulling me. That helped a lot.

Finally, we got to the part of the ride where we started climbing again and then, we were each on our own at our own pace. Head winds coming at you when you are going up hill is NOT fun, but we all did it. My breakfast did not re-visit me, in fact, I think it really helped me finish. I was the last to the top of Hill Top (which, by now, does not surprise me), but I made it…without stopping. From there, it was mostly down hill all the way back to my car.

67.5miles, 4 hours 57 minutes. 13.6 mph Average Speed. 35.6 mph Max Speed Total Miles on my bike: 578.5.