About 20 years ago, when I lived in Fallbrook and drove a Jeep, I used to drive my jeep up to Palomar Mountain and find dirt fire-roads and trails along the way to justify owning a 4×4 in rural Southern California. One time, somewhere amongst the 12 miles of switchbacks rising up over 6000 feet elevation, I passed a guy riding a bicycle up the 9% grade. I distinctly remember thinking, “what an asshole, why would anyone want to do that?”
On Friday, I became the asshole.
Since my recent foray into the world of road cycling, I’ve made it my goal to do all the things I always thought cyclists were crazy for doing. The next two crazy rides on my list was Palomar and a century distance (100 mile ride). Since I don’t often have 6+ hours to dedicate to the saddle (the amount of time it would take to ride 100 miles), I took the opportunity of an extra day off for the holiday weekend, that my wife and kids were still in school, to cross both rides off my list.
I started from my house, about 3 miles inland from the Oceanside pier and not more than 50 feet above sea level, and headed east into some of the more remote, winding hills in all of San Diego County. At a point that’s usually part of the return loop on longer Saturday shop rides (where Circle R Dr. meets W. Lilac Rd.) I continued east through Escondido, Valley Center, and Funner (yes they actually re-named the Rincon reservation “Funner, CA”) before reaching the base of the mountain climb.
Dear Valley Center, I understand that your economy is about evenly split between ranching and drug trade, further evidenced by the number of syringes I saw on the side of the road, but I urge you to have a bake sale or gofundme or something to pay for resurfaced roads.
The roads through Valley Center and Funner were the roughest, most painful and dangerous I have ever ridden. Bad enough that if I ever do it again, I will look for another route to get there.
The climb was epic. I started the ascent at about 9 a.m.; cloud coverage was just burning off but the temperature didn’t get too hot. The views were incredible and the traffic minimal, mostly just a few other cyclists that I passed on the way up.
I stopped briefly at the 5000 foot elevation sign, to gel and hydrate and take it in, not realizing I only had about a half mile left to the summit. The legs were shaky but I got back on and pushed to the top.
At the summit, the local store was not open yet to get fresh water, so I continued down a long descent, and long gradual climb, toward the observatory. I never realized how much more down and up hill there was to get to the telescope and I was nearly out of water. Luckily the gift shop at the observatory had a few cold water bottles to sell so I refilled, re-sunscreened, cliff bar lunched and headed back.
The descent down South Grade Rd was wild. Not a lot of traffic, but my paranoia had me slowing and looking back at every turn. World class bike handling practice on the 20+ hairpins; I feel like I learned more about my bike on that stretch of road than I had on all my previous rides combined.
By the time I got to the bottom, it was midday and hot. I stopped again in Valley Center for more water. By that time, the rough roads had taken their toll on my sit bones; my ass was so bruised, the last 30 miles I had to go to get home required lots of weight shifting, readjusting and otherwise unnecessary-out-of-the-saddle riding that made it really difficult to complete the trek. By the time I made it back into Oceanside and had about 10 miles to go, my leg started to cramp and I had to soft pedal just to keep moving forward and prevent it from locking up completely.
It took me nearly 7 hours of ride time, with an extra hour for stops, which was about 1-2 hours longer than I thought it would take. The Garmin counted 103.5 miles and about 8900 feet of ascent. It was a great challenge and I am really happy to cross both accomplishments off my cycling to do list and glad to have the insight and experience under my belt to know what to expect for Giro De San Diego in October.
