The pasta feed was right in the garden den of our Motel ride headquarters. The food was plentiful and reasonably priced. Our group of ACTC members staked out a table and began the carbo frenzy. The cast included Jim "mountain dew" Baker, Teri "wonder woman" Duffy, Eric "paris bound" Fabricius, John Blaine, and Graham Flower. The crowd was small but it was clear that we could expect the usual crowd of serious ultra riders. Large contingents of riders from the Fresno Cycling Club, the Sacramento Wheelmen, the Orange County Wheelmen and the Bicycle Club of Irvine were readily apparent.
The first hint that this might be a pretty serious ride came with the registration and the discovery of some bonus miles. We were, the route sheet showed, signed up for a 220 mile ride, not a 200 miler.
The ride started with a mass start at 5:30am. We got remarks from Hugh Murphy and Chuck Bramwell. They were the usual type of fair; recognition of Paul Kopit for taking over the lead in career double centuries from Paul von Tungeln and recognition to Eric Norris for being a triple crown winner for ten years in a row. A significant portion of these remarks were drowned out by the rumble and whistle of a passing train.
As the remarks wound up, the mass of lycra squeezed out the front of the motel parking lot and headed down the Sierra highway for the first leg of our journey. I got separated from the others, but knew I was ahead of them so I pedaled along waiting to warm up a little bit, noodling as it were. A couple miles into the ride I made the curious observation that although I felt good and was pushing normally, my bike computer was registering surprisingly low speeds of 13-14 mph on what appeared to be a flat road. After puzzling over this question for a couple of minutes I began to believe that a surprisingly strong crosswind had something to do with the missing speed. I had for several minutes been concerned that in my hasty tire replacement in the hotel before the ride, I might have knocked my bike computer sensor askew. As I looked down the line of bikers in front of me, leaning at a 5 degree angle to the vertical, I became more and more convinced this was not the case.
The main thought that ran through my head as the strength of the wind from the west became clearer was that we were going to turn straignt into it in a few miles and travel down a 60 mile canyon straight to the west. This could be the wind ride from hell. I also noticed that the mountains straight to the west, which we would be climbing to nearly 6000 feet in a few hours, were completely enveloped in clouds. Good thing I brought my rain gear.
12 miles down the road, we began the turns to the right. Jimmy's remarks at the turn made it clear to me he had also thought we could be headed for a 60 mile wind tunnel. After a mile or two of heading east on a highway we turned left onto Soledad Canyon Road. Hugh Murphy himself was standing in the road directing us to turn. The road began a 20 mile + descent at a gentle grade. Traffic died off to near zero and more importantly there was no significant wind. I checked the altitude at the turn and discovered another clue to the missing speed. In 12 miles we had apparrently climbed about 700 feet. The distance to the turn was an exact match to my bike computer, hence, I hadn't screwed up my cyclecomputer.
The next few miles were very enjoyable. Great views of the San Bernadino mountains to the left and a smaller ridge to the right. The road was slightly rolling but generally down and the place took on the ambiance of the rural desert very quickly. At one point we were crossing a bridge down this canyon as a large rumble was heard. At first I thought a semi had snuck down onto a very rural road, but a look over the bridge revealed that an Amtrak passenger train was whizzing down the same canyon. A little further down, we came to a point where it wasn't clear how the road was going to get out of the narrow canyon, the walls seemed too high. A tunnel, with no lights, provided the answer.
After 25 nice miles or so the density of houses started increasing and we rolled into Valencia, a northern upper middle class burb of LA. Traffic increased as we got caught at several lights. Soon we were headed away from population again. Along this stretch I saw what looked like a person taking pictures. As we got closer I realized this was a sherriffs deputy with a radar gun hiding behind a telephone pole. Fortunately, he was after cars, but his tactics were starting to remind me of Lake County. After a couple turns we launched onto a valley highway and headed towards Ventura. There was some high speed traffic here, but not too much and we cruised along a fine highway with full shoulder. This section was pretty flat with some rollers, but the asphalt was new and smooth and it was very pleasant. Along this stretch we saw the Baird Tandem, which we had followed under various conditions at both Death Valley and Solvang.
Pretty soon we pulled into rest stop #2 in Fallon. Just before we did so, the awful sound of "bump ....Pffffsssttt" struck the paceline. Not seeing Jimmy and Teri in the group, I stopped and looked back and was relieved to see this had not struck them. The hint was watching the poor afflicted biker throwing a glove into the pavement in obvious disgust. We heard from him later that he had hit a piece of angle-iron in the road and after finishing fixing his rear, he realized his front had gone down in the meantime.
Leaving the Fallon rest stop we wound through some quiet residential streets before heading across a bridge and into orange groves. At one point I saw a large building with Sunkist written on it. We wandered through the countryside and left the town behind. After several miles of rolling green countryside we came into another town, Santa Paula as it were. Having been misted pretty good and noting the mountains to our north were completely enveloped in clouds we considered stopping to buy a box of garbage bags, as Jimmy and Teri had left their rain gear behind. We decided against. Soon we were heading out of Santa Paula and climbing on Ojai road. This was a gentle 4-5% grade which took us from near sea level to about 1600 feet. The descent on the other side was pretty good as well. We cruised into Ojai to rest stop #3 at mile 96. To this point we had averaged 17.1 mph.
We took a full half hour at this rest stop, mindful that we were about to hit the biggest climb of the day. I ate a cup of soup, hit the Tums and salt tablets, ate some canteloupe, and hit the goo flask pretty good. We then got a little tour, thanks to the course of downtown Ojai. Turning right we headed up Highway 33. For some reason, Jimmy was needing to start the climb slow. I decided to take off my heart rate monitor and mount it on my handlebar and climb to the monitor. Soon we came to a double tunnel (two in close succession) before we knew it we were on the side and were enveloped in mist. We separated with Teri going off the front, Jimmy hanging back and me staring at my monitor and the mist most of the way up this rascal. The entire hill Jimmy measured as 38 miles, and it entailed about 6000 feet of gain. The fog was really thick, and at some points visibility was measured in tens of feet. After a while I saw a rider ahead cranking up on a white Kestrel and sped up to catch him to make some conversation. He had tweaked his knee on Central Coast and was feeling it again. So we talked about injury prevention.
The route sheet showed an intermediate descent at about 3500 feet going into Sespe Gorge. About this altitude, Jimmy came cranking by me, asking "where's wonder woman?". I indicated Teri was probably at the top enjoying lunch by now. By this time I was getting tired of being a gorilla in the mist and was frustrated that 400-500 feet above where the route sheet had showed an intermediate descent there was still no sign of it. I finally concluded that maybe there was no intermediate descent. Shortly afterwards it appeared and at last I got a breather. The descent was no fun at all as 5 feet of visibility didn't allow much speed to be built and alot of the road here was deeply scored by grinding in preparation for resurfacing. But after a few tenths of a mile, a wonderful thing happened, as we came out of the mist and saw sunlight for the first time in quite a while. We probably got a mile or so of break and then again the climb started up again, but this time in the cool sunlight. Soon I was overtaken by a biker who was moving faster than I and this caused me to step up the pace and keep with him.
A couple miles up the road we came accross a stopped biker who seemed to be in trouble. He was very dizzy and out of water and food, he had been leaving some marks of his own in the drainage next to the road. We gave him a couple power bars, but couldn't help with the water because I had run out as well a couple miles before. (I had not wanted to carry a full 100 oz camelback up to lunch). But things worked out perfectly as a couple of women acting as sags for their husbands came by and were able to give all of us significant water. The afflicted biker was only about 5 miles short of the lunch stop. We continued to climb, clicking off the miles at a descent pace. The biker I was riding with had been prevented from finishing this ride the last time it had gone over this mountain by snow and hyperthermia, he had sagged. This time he was determined to get it done but was worried by having broken a spoke and his wheel was wobbling a bit. Lunch came into view, at last. A turkey sandwich and swiss cheese jumped into my mouth as did a cup of noodles and two sodas. Another Goo injection was performed to revive flagging blood sugar. Apparrently a number of people had stopped to supply help to the flagging biker who was bonking 5 miles short of lunch. The Lunch stop sag had been sent back to pick him up. Before we left he came into the rest stop.
Leaving lunch at the "wolf's grill" there were a couple more miles of climbing to the final summit of this climb. What awaited was a panoramic postcard view of the Los Padres National forest for many miles to the north. Now we had 5-6 miles of ripping downhill before we reached Lockwood Valley Road. Now we were cruising along this road for miles. At this point the course became familiar territory to those who had ridden this ride before, so we were able to get some warning of what was to come. Lockwood road gently rose along a box canyon for several miles. Jimmy pointed out the niche in the ridge above through which the road would pass, we still couldn't make out the road in the distance. The valley was very serene but was progressively narrowing. I watched my odometer carefully, every mile climbing at such a gentle pace was a mile we would not have to climb a steep grade. I knew we were about 10 miles from the rest stop which should come at mile 146. I also knew that Heartbreak Hill ended just before the rest stop. With about 2.5 miles to the rest stop the road started to steepen and we went up a couple switchbacks with grades in the 8-9% range. suddenly after being alone on the road for a few miles we had several other bikers for company. We all shifted to granny gears and crawled on up. One poor biker was pushing his bike up the hill. Up above I could see a female biker from BCI taking pictures. I thought she was getting the scenery, I overheard at the rest stop that these were apparrently blackmail shots taken of her fellow rider walking his bike up Heartbreak Hill.
At this rest stop there was nothing left but diet drinks. I ate some sugar cookies and drank 3 sodas. We stayed here longer than some other stops as Teri had developed a cleat problem and the sag driver here had the tools to do a fix. I also retrieved my lights here, glad not to carry my heavy Nicads up all this climbing. Leaving this stop we got a nice rolling descent for some period and then we headed into what had been described as rollers. Rollers, hell. These things weren't rollers in my book. To me a roller is something that has alternate climbs and descents and the climbs are short enough that you can get a substantial way up 'em with the momentum from the last descent. These things were more like half mile to two mile climbs with descents of a similar length. The flats and downs were very pleasant here, but I was ready for the climbing to end, trust me on that. Finally we reached one with a big barn off to the side, this must finally be the Owl's Barn summit. Over the top we went and now it was time for a 10 mile downhill. The last seven of these required no brakes at all. At the end of this stretch we came screaming in to the Flying J ranch in Lebec.
Potato soup sure tastes good at mile 170. Actually it was potato vegtable, but it sure did taste wonderful. Had two bowls. It was just getting dark. At this stop we learned that we were probably 2 1/2 hours ahead of the Straggling end of the riders and 4 hours behind the leaders. The Tandem which we had been alongside off and on all day and had also seen at Solvang (where I had sucked their wheel for many miles, particularly into a 30 mph headwind near the coast) and at Death Valley (where Teri and Jimmy had followed them up Jubilee and Salisbury passes and we had met at lunch), decided to quit at this rest stop. It looked like they were suffering from all the climbing.
Starting up from this rest stop is an immediate climb of about a mile and a half. We started up this thing with back flashers on but front lights off. One car, surprised to see us there and occupying part of the right lane decided to give us a total blast of his horn. Finally we summited this next to last climb and had a quick descent into Gorman. Now we turned on full lights as we wound through Gorman and down Gorman Post Road. Here we hit the last climb of any real magnitude, about a half to three quarters of a mile that kept getting steeper towards the top of the ridge. This was about mile 180, 40 miles to go, mostly flat and the wind was mostly behind us now. The miles on Highway 138 seemed to fly on by. As we rolled along we lost two of our three front lights pretty early, but we kept on rolling. Fortunately the course was pretty simple from this point and Jimmy and Teri had driven this part on Friday afternoon so we could sail along in the dark without too much concern. We turned off of our highway and onto a side road. From the mileage we knew we must only be 5 miles or so from the next rest stop. In the distance we could see Lancaster many miles away but looking so close. There were no local houses along these desert roads for the most part so it was very dark out there, very quiet. Finally a dim light came into view, the rest stop was here.
Potato soup, two more bowls. This was a one man rest stop. Kermit Ganier was our host. After we had been here a couple minutes another rider came in. Lynn Katano of BCI. Apparently Hugh Murphy skimps on porta potties, there was none here. Kermit instructs Lynn that "the girls bush is over there and the boys bush was over here". Its pitch black so it isn't a problem. Couple more minutes and another couple riders come in. This time it is a tandem carrying the Halls from Fresno and a separate single. The entire 25 miles from the previous rest stop we had not been in sight of other riders. A couple more minutes and a private sag drives up. The women are expecting to see their husbands who are on a tandem and who they haven't seen on the road to this point. These are the same women that gave me water 100 miles ago when we were stopped helping the distressed rider near the lunch stop. Neither we nor the rest stop attendant have seen their husbands leading us to suspect they may have missed the turn off of Hwy 138 in the dark. Soon we saddle up, changing batteries in my light and Jimmy's. Off we go. Kermit tells us we have 23 miles to go.
We sail along at a moderate pace. This part of the course is a single road but it does some zigg zagging in the desert. A few miles out the wind seems to have suddenly gotten cooler and turned into much more of a cross wind. Its blowing pretty hard. There are short sections where we turn directly into it and it really slows us down for these small segments. We start to see some traffic, mostly cars coming towards us. This really stinks because alot of these clowns aren't killing their brights when they see us and I can't see the road at all right as they go by us. But It's clear now that we are getting close to the edge of Lancaster. Now we seem to have a car coming up behind us, I move to the edge of the road. But wait a second, its not a car but the Halls' tandem cruising by at a high rate. Alvin Hall is a 290 pound man, so these guys fly on the flats. Teri and I see Jimmy jump on the train. At this point Jimmy was maybe 100 feet in front of us. My main reaction at this point is "aw shit....effort". Teri and I are far enough back that its going to require a couple tenths of a mile of pretty strong effort to latch onto this train. Teri goes slinging on by me trying to latch on and this finally causes me to act. As we go under a streetlight I can see we are doing 28 and even though we've managed to latch on I'm breathing hard for more than a mile. I can see that we only have 5 miles or so and this encourages me to hold on. Now we are starting to hit lights. This slows them down a bit and I can see we must be within 2 miles or so. Finally we make the last turn a little more than a mile from the motel. This last mile, however, is straight into that darn wind so it's a bit of a struggle.
Now the Desert Inn comes into view and we turn into the parking lot and roll down to check in. It's 11pm, it's taken 17 hours plus. My odometer registers 220 miles and nearly 13,000 feet of climb. I sit down after checking in and grab a cold diet soda. I don't care about eating, I just want to sit still and drool a while. (drooling is about all I can do at this moment) I sit and listen to the conversation of the bikers eating their pasta for a while, but I don't say much. After 30-40 minutes and a couple cokes, I walk to my room, shower for a good long time and quickly fall face down into my bed.