Annual (almost) Century

Seems like every year Justin and I do one road century.  Well, this year I almost did a century.  I wound up about 2.6mi short, and no, I didn’t ride around the block or do an out and back down the street to finish up the mileage!

Mostly because we had climbed 10,300ft, and if you look at the climbs you can see most of them are pretty short but also really steep.  So, we all basically called it a day!

Saturday we headed west for a social ride with the crew plus (Steph, Dan, Chris) to open up the legs before Sunday’s big century attempt.

Post-ride we stopped off for Mexican eats before heading to one of the coolest man cave’s ever built (er, at least that I have seen).  Had a blast hanging out and chatting, and narrowly missed checking out the goods at Oakley’s store before heading to Rock N’ Road for some needed (and some frivolous) goodies.

We finished up the evening drinking (sampling?) copious amounts of IPA before hanging out in the living room playing sports massage and going to bed way too late.

Sunday we were up early to double rainbows – what does it mean?? Perfect way to start any massive Sunday ride.

The brave started arriving around 8 am for the neutral roll-out down to the bike path, which would drop us off at Aliso for our first pit stop of the day.

After that we pretty much started climbing up hills, descending right back down them, and then climbing steeper hills. Lots of out and backs on the steepest, gnarliest climbs you can find. They were tough, and then they got more tough. We got some sweet views, well, what we could see through leg burning sweat dripping haze anyway.

Justin’s bike after hill #5

Top of the last one!

Bike path back to Irvine for our next stop – Rock N’ Road!

We lost 3 guys at our coffee stop in Laguna Beach, and lost 3 more in Irvine. It was down to 6 as we headed out toward Santiago Canyon.

I had a low point heading out there, and once I realized a few miles in that were only JUST passing Blackstar I got a little despondent. I was riding in no man’s land between a group of 3 up front and Steph and Chris behind.

I decided I’d just plug along and then all of a sudden got hit with a 2nd wind or something. Pretty sure my chain was still attached, but I just felt really good and caught up to the boys, and kept going. We regrouped near Whiting, and got a soda at Cooks Corner before conquering the last 2 climbs of the day. I imagined they were going to be pretty horrible, but they weren’t as bad as I thought they might be. Chris took us on a slight reroute to try to gain some mileage, but I think by the time we’d finished up the detour everyone (er, there were 5 of us at this point!) was feeling the heat and ready to be out of the kitchen! So, we headed back to the starting point a little shy of the hundie.

Solid day of riding none-the-less, but I think we all agreed we would NOT do it again!

Post-ride dinner (though the garlic bread didn’t make the shot)

Not sure what’s on tap for next weekend! Depends on how the body’s hold up I think. I was feeling okay this morning, but hit the gym. I think mainly I need sleep!