RR: Black Mountain

I had an interesting ride this morning that started out rough and only got worse, yet by the end I was still in a better mood than when I started. I must be making some progress in my approach to life.

I had a fairly limited window in which to ride this morning because of some home improvement projects and Christmas shopping that I had to do, so I was conflicted about where to ride. I'm a little bored with all of the regular stuff that I've been riding, and wanted something new. Doug invited me to go with him to explore some Ramona trails which I've wanted to do for a while, but he couldn't start until 10:00 a.m. and I didn't have the whole day available. I had also gone through another unfortunate two week layoff since my last ride and wasn't sure where my fitness would be.

My indecision led to laziness, and I elected to just stay near home and ride my local route to Black Mountain, with maybe a trip to the summit tacked on for good measure. As I started out and pedaled through the 4S trails towards the mountain, I figured that the least I could do to shake things up was to try to climb the rocky trail up the north face of the mountain to Miner's instead of riding Carmel Valley road to the paved climb up to the trailhead.

As I started the dirt climb things weren't too bad, but they deteriorated rapidly. My two weeks of 12 hour work days and no exercise exacted their toll about a third of the way up, and I was off the bike and huffing way earlier than I should have been. The dirt climb was a poor choice for me today, but would have been quicker and more fun than the two road climbs if I was in the right condition. I'll definitely try it again sometime soon, but need to get back on the stupid stationary bike beforehand.

I eventually reached the top and made my way over to Miner's. I was once again beset by more HAB than usual, and I was questioning my decision to even go for a ride this morning. I had done so well on Miner's just a few weeks ago, and it was particularly frustrating to be performing so badly today after having some great success back on November 30th. I was also unable to clean that fun techy section today that I had made a couple weeks ago, which was demoralizing.

As I essentially pushed my bike up Miner's clockwise, I considered just doing the loop and skipping the ride to the summit like I had tentatively planned. I felt like crap, and didn't want to continue to suffer during the limited down-time that I had available today. As I neared the cut-over trail that would mark my decision point, I looked back toward the north and was treated to an amazing view of the snow-capped Palomar mountains.

As I turned toward the east, I could see that the Cuyamaca mountains also had significant snowfall visible from where I was.

The views immediately changed my whole demeanor and attitude, and I decided to make the trek to the summit to see if I could get an even better view.

I rode pretty well through the cut-over, even cleaning the tricky G-out near the end, and then made the HAB up to the main fire road. I spun along the fire road happily toward the summit, where indeed the view were spectacular. I stopped near the top to enjoy the views to the east before continuing to the summit to check out the mountains to the north as well.

As I made it to the summit, I rode toward the edge of the road and planned to stop for a minute to take in the views. As I stopped and tried to unclip my left pedal, my shoe rotated outward but the cleat remained stationary, stuck in the pedal. I unclipped my right shoe quickly before I fell over, and realized that the left cleat was rotating underneath the sole of the shoe while still attached to the pedal.

I played with it for a minute or two, rotating my ankle around trying the get the cleat to unclip, but with no success. I eventually was forced to take the shoe off my foot while the shoe was still attached to the pedal, and spent about 10 minutes trying to dislodge the cleat and shoe from the pedal, frustrated but amused at the situation.

I tried all kinds of tricks, but eventually had to just put the shoe back on try to wrench it free by twisting my ankle. That method finally worked, and after the shoe came unclipped, I discovered the culprit that caused the problem: I had lost one of the screws that held the cleat in place, which caused the cleat to rotate on the bottom of the shoe instead of disengaging from the pedal.

The screw was apparently long gone, so I tightened down the remaining screw and clipped back in, hoping that tightening the one screw down very tight would keep the cleat from rotating. I put the shoe back on and clipped in. I then tried to unclip to test it out, and the cleat rotated inside the pedal and stayed clipped. Crap. I wrenched the shoe free again, and this time elected to remove the cleat entirely, meaning that I would be unable to clip in my left shoe at all. The Shimano M505 cleats that I was using have almost no platform, so pedaling was going to be a little rough, but I figured that was better than being stuck to the pedal during the entire descent down Black Mountain.

Time was also a factor at this point. I had things to do today and my mechanical issues had cost me about 25 minutes that I had not factored in when planning out this ride. I made it down the Gorge Trail without dabbing, but did stop to snap a picture on the way down so that I could illustrate why I have dubbed it the Gorge Trail.

I also almost made it up the steep climb at the end of Gorge but my left foot slipped off the pedal during my final lunge and I stalled briefly, forcing a dab.

I cleaned all the switches going down Miner's, and because of my pedal issues and time concerns, elected to just ride the main trail down the north face of the mountain back to the 4S trails to home. Even with all the pedal nonsense I made it home in less than two hours, which was nice. With the rough start fitness-wise and mechanical issues I would have expected myself to be frustrated at the end of the ride, but the views of those snow-capped mountains really had an effect on me, and I was in a great mood the rest of the day.

One thing that is becoming clear is that my occasional two week gaps between rides really hurts my endurance and sets back my fitness considerably. I need to do something during the week to make sure my fitness doesn't drop as dramatically as it did these last two weeks when I was unable to ride. It looks like the stationary bike may be the only option...

Here are the stats from today:

Total Distance: 8.57 miles
Total Time: 1:59:51
Ascent: 1702 feet
Average Speed: 4.3 mph
Top Speed: 31.6 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:

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