Monday, March 1, 2010

Post-Ride Vander-Blog - 2/26/10 - Chesebro, CA

- Ride length: 16+ miles Time: ~3 hours
- Technical Difficultly: Moderate
- Oh Sheets: Pretty much just Hector
- Climbing: Pleasant w/ exception of hell-hill
- Temp: 70's
- Track: See Ron's google link below
- Rating: A- (it was an A until Hector got us lost)

Tim V's Notes:
So I made the decision to join the "left-coast crew" (Scott, Hector, Ron, Juan) for a "Friday Cheezwhiz ride". As usual, Hector masterminded the ride and all I had to do was show up at Cheseboro @ 1100. Did I mention that Hector planned the ride. "Plan" is an interesting term because as it turns out there was a fair bit of this ride he'd actually not ridden. More on that later. Did I mention that Hector neglected to give a clear indication of ride distance. He mumbled something about 9 or 10 miles and I'm thinking ..."10 times 1.5 = at least 15 miles...and I've got 1 bar and 1.5 liters of water". So we started the ride @ 1120 or so. The 1st four miles are a leisurely uphill non-technical ride with the exception of the "staircase". Staircase is a classic 50 foot or so section that requires one to pick a line and then hope you've got your mojo going. Apparently none of us had that particular form of "mojo" as none of us made it...though Ron and I came pretty close. Juan just skipped that mojo altogether. After another 1/2 mile or so we came to an intersection where some really nice downhill singletrack started. I made the mistake of talking to some downhill dressed guys while Hector and the boys took off. "Downhill boys" made some false claims of excessive poison oak...so I donned my uber-sexy arm warmers. This downhill had some rain induced technical sections (nicely rutted) and here is where I ran into Juan picking his way carefully downhill sans the bike. I eventually caught up to Hector and proceeded to "tailgate" him down another technical section. Does everyone know that Hector has some mild form of vertigo? Well, I forgot...and then suddenly remembered as Hector lost control and dislodged a large rock (perhaps boulder is a better term) onto my path. Hector managed to not crash and I chose a new line...so it all ended well. At this point Hector tells me..."oh yeah, this is where we turned back last time". In other words, we're now on an adventure vice a ride. Sweet! Fortunately, we've got "new school" with us. That would be Ron and his ultra functional iPhone. We ride on for another mile and then come to our first real uphill...and this turns out to be a "hell-hill" of sorts before mellowing out. At this point Hector doesn't exactly know where we are...only that we've gone about 9 miles. At this point, I'm thinking another liter of water in my camelback would have been a wise choice. We then proceeded to ride on an up and down fireroad...a fireroad that was supposed to end at the top of each visible section...but somehow extended and extended. But then, just as Ron said, we ended up back at the intersection of the downhill single-track...and had a nice 4 mile or so fast ride back to the car. All in all, a really great ride. Juan has post-ride beer drinking (I mean carbo-loading) photos.

Hector's "clarification":
A clarification, we were never lost. After Tim's "hell-hill", Ron and I tried to alter the planned ride to make it easy for those complaining of the hills and extra miles. However, we ended completing the planned ride.



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