August Big Ride - Local Hills!

Attendees:  Vince, Noah, Adrian and Kevin (Noah's buddy)

Vince's Strava stats (with 26 achievements!)  http://app.strava.com/rides/1210301

The original plan was to do a ride through some hills in Malibu where Mapmyride showed 9000+ feet of elevation gain in 82 miles.  Due to availability or interest, we decided to do a local run instead.  We were suppose to do a ride through SART, but after having eaten an actual peanut butter, jelly, and bacon burger at Slaters 50/50 in Anaheim yesterday, I opted to keep the spirit of "big ride" and changed the route to do a lot of the local hills to burn some of it off.  Participation dropped last minute, but 5 of us still made it out to play.

It was good that Vince came out today even after running 6 miles yesterday.   He actually even showed up early thinking that the departure time was a half hour earlier than what I indicated rather than his usual fashionably late self.  I think we need to do that to him more often. 

Noah brought his buddy, Kevin, who we've ridden with up Baldy before and on a crit.  Both of them met up with us on Jamboree/Portola and were out attacking the hills with the rest of us.  Adrian also came out (finally), and was just as game as the others to do some hill charging. 

We added a few new hills (N. Cannon front and back side, Chapman and Ridgeline near Cooks) and definitely need to do both more often.  The rest of the hills were Cannon, Nohl Ranch, Chapman, Silverado, Modjeska, Santa Marguerita, Jamboree (both sides) and the canyons (both directions).  All of this equated to 6300 feet of climbing today.   Not too shabby.

Noah was not feeling too great today, so he wasn't attacking the hills the way we're accustomed to.  Plus, he was on his Look bike, which is not his climbing bike, so it will be scary when he gets his new bike.  From how he felt going up Nohl, I think he's decided that he'll be putting a compact crank on his R5.   That's going to be scary.  He and Kevin ended up calling it early because of how he felt and skipped out before Silverado.  The local route definitely was a better choice for today.

In his place, Vince was definitely on attack mode on the hills.  He was not only attacking it with us, he was also defending the jersey when others would challenge us up hills like Silverado and back through the canyon.  I sure am glad he was out to do so, as each time, I just didn't have enough.  This was a great outing for Vince, and I think if he was worried about having lost ground after his crit crash, he shouldn't worry any more. 

Vince did offer to tempo ride after we finished Ridgeline, and even I have to admit I fell for it.  Adrian was starting to feel the hills when we took the break at Cooks, so the plan was to soften the pace some so we can keep going through the entire route.  Going up Live Oak, however, I thought I had a good pace to keep us all together.  The next thing you know, Vince took off again despite dominating most of the previous hills we did earlier.  BAM!

Despite being a trooper and doing all the hills, Adrian had enough by the time we went up Santa Margarita and Marguerite.  He was going back via Irvine Blvd, but Vince and I ended up going back through the canyons.  We did skip Glen Ranch and Saddleback so that Adrian doesn't end up waiting too long for us...thank God!  My legs started cramping after Cooks and then really popped midway through the canyons after we started mixing it up with a guy on a BH bike.  If the BH bike guy didn't have a flat going up Dump hill, I would never have seen him and Vince again. 

Damn good ride today, and I think all of our legs are feeling it (still as of this writing).  Thanks to those who made it out and keeping the training up.  We'll have to do this same route again soon...when it's not as hot.