One of my goals this year had been to earn the California triple crown by riding three double centuries. But after I tweaked tweaked my knee and managed to create a few other soft tissue issues by training for and completing my first double of the year in February of this year, I pulled way back on the mileage.
Since then, I’ve pretty much stuck to riding 2-4 hour rides and have done a lot more cross-training. Seems to be working, more or less, as long as I don’t try to get too heroic with the mileage.
So it was with a bit of hesitation than I decided to ride the San Diego Randonneurs Kitchen Creek Brevet this last Saturday with my friends Esteban, Aaron, and Joe. At 200 kilometers and 11,000 feet of climbing, maybe this ride wasn’t exactly what most people would call knee-rehab friendly! But I figured there were a few good bail-out options, so if my knee and other issues started to flare up, I could always call it a day.
The other thing that made this ride hard to resist is that I know from experience that the whole route is just stunning, winding over low-traffic country roads that take you through a number of different ecosystems, from desert chaparral to pine forest.
Foolish decision perhaps, but sometimes you gotta heed the call of the open road:
Esteban in full aero tuck:
Me and Aaron riding, photo by Esteban:
At the checkpoint about 55 miles in, we were feeling high energy. My knee was doing OK, even if my left calf kept threatening to cramp up. I had ideas that I might even finish the entire 200K rather than bail out early. So it was a bit sobering to look at my Garmin and realize that 55 miles in we had actually descended slightly more than we had climbed!
That was about to change.
Kitchen Creek road is an epic piece of narrow mountain road beauty. If you close your eyes and wear enough Rapha, it’s almost like a mountain pass in Europe. Call it the Col du Ruisseau Cuisinier. In 14 miles, it climbs unrelentingly from the desert up to the pines at grades of 5-12% (and even steeper in a few short pitches). It starts as a two-lane road:
But after a few miles and a gate that prevents car traffic for a good section of the road, it narrows quite a bit:
Kitchen Creek is a challenging climb in the best of times, but this one was especially tough due to high temperatures. I think the ambient air was only high 80s or so, but the heat radiating off the pavement can create a heat index that is much higher. My Garmin was claiming 104 degrees, and it felt like it:
Looking back down after the initial part of the climb:
Suffering as I was, I did stop a few times to smell the flowers:
As we neared the top after a good 1.5 hours of climbing, we finally hit pine trees. They don’t look like much, but the smell and cooler air above 5000 feet was very welcome.
Once we finally got to the checkpoint at mile 70 near the Mount Laguna summit, I was feeling pretty cooked. The knee was doing OK to so-so, but I didn’t want to push it, and my left calf was still feeling crampy. Since the car was only 10 miles away, all down hill, and completing the ride would involve anther 50 miles and 5000 feet of climbing, it wasn’t a tough decision to call it a day. The fun had gone out of it, and I didn’t want to risk injury after not having done a long ride in 3 months.
With the heat and cramping issues faced by others, I was in good company: Joe, Esteban, and Aaron decided to pull the plug too. Aaron probably coulda and woulda finished (he is wearing Rapha after all), but decided to show solidarity with the rest of us:
The payoff for the Kitchen Creek inferno was a screaming 10-mile descent back into Pine Valley that at least allowed all of us to finish the ride with a little adrenaline rush and a smile. The view from Esteban’s cockpit on the descent:
Coming down, I had a number of bugs splatter on the windshield of my glasses:
That, my friend, is why we wear eye protection. Nothing like bug guts on your eyeball!
In hindsight, perhaps this isn’t the ideal time of year to do this particular 200K with the possibility of heat that exists inland. But go too much earlier, and you risk not being able to climb Kitchen Creek due to snow. I found this out the hard way in February of this year when we pushed our bikes through 2 miles snow near the top, feet frozen into numb, wet bricks for the ride down. High times:
All in all, it was good to get out, the company was superb, and I’m glad a did it. But I think I’ll be putting my long-distance “career” on hold for a good number of months yet. That’s OK, as the 3-4 hour mountain bike rides are a lot of fun, and the hiking, core work, and other aspects of cross training aren’t too bad either.
Full photo set here. You can read Esteban’s ride report on his blog here and see his full photo set here.
