Saturday, March 15, 2008

RR: Sycamore Canyon with Martha's Grove


I wasn't sure I would be able to get a ride in this weekend. After a beautiful week of amazing weather, the forecast Friday was for thunderstorms and hail on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. With CERT all morning on Saturday, and the Ready's going away party on Sunday afternoon, I had all but resigned myself to a weekend on the stationary bike.

But on Saturday afternoon, CERT class ended a little after 12:00 (instead of 2:00 as scheduled) and despite some spotty clouds and wind, the weather was pretty OK. I seized my opportunity, threw the bike on the back of the car and headed over to Sycamore Canyon to take care of some unfinished business from last Sunday.

Since I would be riding alone, I decided to start from the Poway side near Martha's Grove, rather than the Santee side that I've always started from in the past. I figured the Poway side is much closer to my house, and it would give me a little more time to ride. This turned out to not be the case.

My GPS navigation unit in the Acura, which Rachel and I affectionately call "Sheila," is generally pretty accurate. But Sheila let me down today. She said I could take Scripps Poway Parkway directly to Sycamore Canyon Drive. This is not the case. As a result of Sheila's idiocy, I had to drive all the way to the 67 and double back through Poway to get to Garden road, which eventually took me to Sycamore Canyon Drive. With the time that cost me, I could have driven to Santee and started from there.

Eventually I arrived at the Poway trailhead, and elected to ride Martha's first, then take the trail through the canyon toward Santee, and then just double back to the car.

I started up the trail to Martha's with some sense of trepidation. I had only ridden this section of trail once before, and had walked several sections on that trip. This is the trail that Joel fell on during a solo ride last year, resulting in a brutal gash to his knee that required surgery. I had not ridden it since my first time back in November 2007, so I was nervous. My goal, however, was to ride it without walking any of the sections, as part of my 2008 Goal List.

I started up the short uphill section of trail at the very beginning, and was feeling pretty good. Near the top I spun out a little bit in some soft dirt, and had to put my feet down. I walked the last 5 feet to where the trail leveled out and had a view of the Grove, and re-mounted the bike to continue.

I rode the next couple of easy sections with no trouble, until I came to another short, steep, uphill climb that I had forgotten was there. I didn't have enough speed built up when I hit it, so I made it about halfway and once again spun out in some soft, rutted dirt. So I walked the last 12 or so feet to the top of that section, and rode on to the part that had me concerned from the beginning.

As I approached the first tricky technical downhill section, I rode up to the edge where the first dropoff was and checked out the best line. After picking out the one that looked the best, I walked back a few feet and went for it. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough speed, and buried my front wheel in a rut right at the beginning of the first drop. I didn't fall, but did have to put my feet down, which I had wanted to avoid. Rather than hike back up and try again, I decided to just keep going from that point and try to make the rest of it without stopping. I cleaned the rest of that section and approached the even more difficult one a little farther down, where Joel had had his accident.

I kept up my speed a little more through that section, negotiated the dropoffs and the ruts, and kept my weight all the way back behind my seat. I almost cleaned that section without stopping, but did have to dab once at the end, which disappointed me. So it looked like I wouldn't meet my goal of cleaning the entire section today, but I had come pretty close. It was actually the short loose climbs that gave me the most trouble, which I had not even considered when making the goal list.

I did take this picture at the Grove, which is beautiful:

I finished the techy part of the downhill section and continued through the actual Grove. As I rode through the singletrack toward the Ranch House and planned to ride on to the gate and toward Santee, I looked down and realized that I had forgotten to start my Garmin GPS for this ride. I was pretty bummed. I wanted to have a GPS record of the Martha's section so I could go back and review the parts that I had ridden. I also just like having a complete record of each of my rides. So I made a quick decision.

Instead of taking the trail back toward the gate, I hung a right at the next section of double track and hooked back up with the dirt/paved road that led back up the hill toward the parking lot where I started. I decided to climb back up that road, re-ride Martha's with the GPS on, and then continue my ride toward Santee from there. It would involve climbing that road twice, which is pretty rough, but it would also mean another chance to clean all of Martha's and get a complete GPS record. It was worth it.

I spun back up the paved road, stopping once to take off my jacket. I made it back up to the upper lot where the Martha's trailhead began and started over. I was a pretty tired from the climb up the road, but didn't want to stop to rest because I was already about 40 minutes behind my desired pace. (20 minutes from Sheila's bad directions, 20 minutes from the first lap down Martha's and back up the road.)

As I climbed the short part at the beginning of Martha's again, I vowed not to spin out. I wanted to ride the entire section without unclipping at all. I don't want to ruin the suspense, but it didn't happen. But the news overall is still good.

I did spin out again at the very top of the first section, and had to walk the last 5 feet once again. The trail wasn't packed at all, and I just couldn't climb the last few feet without spinning my rear wheel and losing my balance. I also had to walk the last 10 feet up the other short uphill section, much to my disappointment. For that one, I tried to keep my momentum up approaching it, but just didn't have the legs. The road climb may have had something to do with that.

But even with those uphill walks, I maintained my goal to ride down each of the techy parts without stopping or dabbing. And as I approached the first one, I took the right line, kept up my speed, and made it through the rut that derailed me the time before. One section down, one to go.

With my newfound confidence I tore through the next section that I had dabbed the time before, and didn't stop or dab once. So I was pretty happy about my downhill performance during my second run.

From there I sped through the Grove, took the dirt road south past the Ranch House toward the gate, and rode through the Canyon toward Santee. I took this picture along with way, which was right past one of the several stream crossings that I had.
I rode all the way to the big electrical towers on the Santee side, rested for about 3 minutes, and rode back. I didn't ride back as fast as I could have, because I knew I had to contend with the steep climb up the paved road back to the car. As I approached that climb, I was pretty tired already, but set a personal goal to make it up without stopping to rest or walking the bike. I had to drop all the way down the my granny gear, but I was able to do it, which I was happy about.

I made it back to the car in just under two hours of GPS recorded time (I probably rode for about 12-15 minutes before turning it on). I was pretty proud overall of my performance, even if I did not completely meet my 2008 goal of cleaning all of Martha's. Ironically, in my mind when setting the goal the portion I was most worried about was the difficult technical downhill portions that I had to walk back in November, which I actually did clean today. I hadn't even been thinking about the uphill approaches when I made the goal! But words have meaning, and when I say the goal is to clean the whole thing, that means the whole thing, so I'll have to wait for next time to try it again for the full completion credit.

Here was the view from the parking lot:

In any event, I went home happy. I rode Martha's twice, had a nice cross-country ride through the canyon, and made the final climb up the paved road without stopping or wanting to pass out. So I count the day a success, especially on a weekend when I thought I wouldn't even be able to ride at all. As an aside, I may start this ride from the Martha's side again, but only if I'm planning to only ride Martha's and not the rest of the canyon. Otherwise, its worth the extra few minutes to drive to Santee and start there, because it makes the ride flow much better. That way, I start out with fun cross country riding as a warm up, climb the paved road in the middle, go down Martha's after that, and finish with another fun cross country ride back the the car. That route is way more fun than coming out of the chute negotiating Martha's and finishing with the punishing climb back to the car.

Here are the stats:
Total Distance: 13.4 miles (+ ~1.1 miles un-recorded on GPS)
Total Time: ~1:52:32
Ascent: 1235 feet
Average Speed: 7.1 mph
Top Speed: 21.2 mph
Bike: Specialized FSR XC Pro
Map:

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1 comment:

DougSully said...

Nice RR again!! Don't worry about that DH at the beginning of Martha's. That second section makes me go "Full Pucker" everytime. Everytime I clean it, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

We're doing Noble this Saturday at 9AM.