California Climbing: Day 4 - Challenging Newton at his own game

California Climbing: Day 4 - Challenging Newton at his own game
Author of this post: Scott Larson

Ride day: 1/3/2012
View the entire California Photo Album

From March 31st to April 5th 2012, Leon, Mike and I traveled to California to check off some of the climbs Leon has on his "100 of the toughest climbs" list. I was very excited to get out of the cold and rain and go the the "mythical" warmth of the central valley and the Sierra mountains. 

The last day (for me). We woke up and drove out to Three Rivers and ended up parking just through the entrance to Sequoia National Park. Leon said that the climb started a mile back so he rode down the hill to get the first part of the climb while Mike and I got ready. This was by far the warmest day of the trip, and I didn't even put arm warmers on. This climb was supposed to be about 18 miles and somewhere around 6000 feet of elevation gain. It also had about 100 switch backs. 

We started up the hill and knew that after about 10 miles there would be some construction that we would have to go through. After climbing for about an hour and a half we reached the person holding the stop sign and told us that they let cars through once an hour on the hour. She also told me that they would not let us ride through the construction zone, if we want to go through we would need to find a ride. It was also about 3 miles in length, so we decided that skipping it would kind of ruin the purpose of "riding" up a climb, so we turned around and decided to go ride another climb that was on Leon's list that we didn't expect to have time to get to. The decent off of the climb was a blast though! All of the corners were predictable (no decreasing radius) and the pavement was excellent with no gravel on any apexes. You were able to fly through most of the switch backs at full speed leaning your bike almost completely over, challenging Newton at his own game. Luckily Newton didn't show up and we made it down safely! 

Mike decided not to ride the second climb so Leon and I stopped at the car to get some more water and rode down the highway to Mineral King Rd. We got to the road and it immediately went up. The pavement was very poor, and at some places merely gravel. We rode about 6 miles before we decided to turn around. I think the full climb was something like 22 miles, and we didn't expect to have time to ride the entire thing. On the way down while getting bucked like a cowboy on a mustang, I managed to lose a water bottle. Luckily that was the only casualty of the entire trip for me. After that it was to Fresno Airport for me and Leon and Mike continued on to Santa Cruz. 

*I make no warranties to the accuracy of my facts, figures, stories or claims.

California Climbing: Day 3 - Tan lines and hot peppers

California Climbing: Day 3 - Tan lines and hot peppers
Author of this post: Scott Larson

Ride day: 1/2/2012
View the entire California Photo Album

From March 31st to April 5th 2012, Leon, Mike and I traveled to California to check off some of the climbs Leon has on his "100 of the toughest climbs" list. I was very excited to get out of the cold and rain and go the the "mythical" warmth of the central valley and the Sierra mountains. 

Mon. April 2: We decided that because we were just coming back to the hotel that evening, there was no reason to start before it was warm enough to ride without knee coverings. We drove up to this place called Squaw Valley (not the ski area) and parked at the side of the road and were off again. I couldn't find my GPS so I'm not certain that we actually rode that day, but both Leon and Mike had theirs and promise me that the ride was real. So, if we rode, this is what I remember.

The climb was similar to the first climb we did on Sunday. It was long and not very steep. It was really warm on the way up which was good because I was working on my tan lines. Half way up I made the observation that the descent would be all on the inside, meaning if you were to crash, you would have the entire slide across the outside lane to consider how much it would hurt will hurt when you finally go off the cliff and land at the bottom. Leon and mike were nonplussed.

There were less gas stations on this climb, but we ended up in the snow at King's Canyon National Park and found the biggest sequoia tree I had ever seen. Once at the top we put all of our clothes on and continued down. Again, similar to Sunday Leon turned left, but I continued with Mike back to the car. On the way down Mike and I held up a minivan going through some real fast curves. I think he was unhappy to wait, but Mike was nice enough to pull over and let him go by. I on the other hand wanted to continue going fast and didn't want to wait for him to go around us so I made him follow me for a couple more miles.

Once we got back to the car I guzzled another coke, deposited my jacket and grabbed a vest to ride back to our hotel. Mike drove back up the hill to meet Leon on the other climbs he was doing. I had a really good ride back to the hotel except for a headwind. Leon and Mike showed up a couple of hours later, and Leon looked very wasted, while Mike told me about the french fries and coke he had eaten in a bar he found while waiting for Leon. 

After they cleaned up we found a Mexican restaurant and sat in the bar to watch the NCAA finals. Mike was rooting for the Jayhawks because he is from Kansas. We had a cute Mexican waitress and she challenged me to eat the chilly pepper that was on my plate. I ate it and it wasn't very hot. She was surprised, and I asked her if it was supposed to be hot. She said that they are very hot.

Don't laugh, this is serious!

California Climbing: Day 2 - April Fools Day

California Climbing: Day 2 - April Fools Day
Author of this post: Scott Larson

Ride day: 1/1/2012
View the entire California Photo Album

From March 31st to April 5th 2012, Leon, Mike and I traveled to California to check off some of the climbs Leon has on his "100 of the toughest climbs" list. I was very excited to get out of the cold and rain and go the the "mythical" warmth of the central valley and the Sierra mountains. 

Palm Sunday & April Fool's Day! 

The joke was on me because Leon had a super steep climb and I still only had my 11-23, but I'll get to that in a moment. Finally, a truly nice day, but we had no palms. Instead we traded the traditional palms in for some ponderosa pines or lodge pole pines. My arbor identification skills aren't very good, but at least I knew they were pines. 

We started off early that morning and drove to Prather, just south of Oakhurst. The first climb was more of a grade than a climb. It was a steady climb from 1500 feet to 7000+ feet over about 20 miles. We rolled up it slowly taking in the sun and the views of the valley below. After climbing for nearly two hours we entered this small town that consisted of a gas station, and the town was buried in several feet of snow, but the road was clear so we kept climbing. Finally, after several more miles of riding between snow banks and Cadillac Escalades, we reached the top. It was somewhat anticlimactic because there was no real way to know you had reached the top other than Leon saying that the road we stopped at to put our jackets on was the top. 

The three of us turned around and started the cold decent. On the way down Mike continued the way we came up but Leon and I turned left and wound our way down a goat path to the hamlet of Tollhouse. We had an exciting decent through some switch backs and some super steep sections. The cars just cut lanes so you never know if the next corner will be your last. Finally we reached the bottom and found another gas station that marked "Tollhouse." I was expecting a cookie factory, but apparently it just wasn't to be. We turned around at a bridge and started the climb to the top. Originally Leon said the climb was supposed to be 13 miles or something, but I questioned him about how long he expected the climb to take, I thought it was easily rideble in less than an hour but he thought it should take closer to two hours.  Then he realized that he made a mistake on the distance and the climb was only 6 miles but it gained 2200 feet! Ouch, this was my April Fool's Joke! 

That climb hurt so bad, and parts of it were more than 15% for 1/4 of a mile Leon said. The good news was that close to the top where the steepest part of the climb is there was a fire station, so if you decided you needed to go into cardiac arrest, help would be close. Once we both made it to the top we rode down the hill and managed to get hailed on for a couple of miles. Hail hitting your face at 40 mph is not fun. 

We continued down and met Mike at a different gas station. I guzzled a can of coke and we drove over to a subway to eat lunch. After lunch we drove to Dinuba, which was surrounded by orange groves. Leon only wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner so Mike and I went to Panda Express. For some reason they post calories on their menu and we calculated that our meals were about 2000 calories each! We deserved it after the two climbs though.