I managed to work in a quick North Hodges ride this afternoon before the Bronco game, primarily out of a sense of obligation. With Rach still out of town my time is my own, and I wanted to get some miles in when I had the chance. I was a little tired from 22 miles at San Juan Trail yesterday, so I wanted to do a ride that was fun but not too strenuous. North Hodges was the perfect fit.
When I arrived at the parking lot near the Self Storage, I realized that there wasn't any water left in my camelback from yesterday's ride like I had thought. So I threw a multi-tool in my jacket pocket and decided to ride without a camelback, something I almost never do.
I rode the basic North Hodges route, under the bridge, up the short hill, down along the lake, across the creek, up the fire road, up the ridge trail, down toward the lake, along the singletrack that parallels the road, through the fun singletrack that lines the west side of the lake, finishing at Hernandez Hideaway. When I reached HH, I realized that it had taken me just over 33 minutes to get that far. I decided at that moment to see if I could achieve a "negative split" for this ride, meaning I would try to take less time to ride back to the car than I did to reach the midpoint at HH.
I was already a little tired at that point, but spun a higher gear through the west side singletrack and along the road in order to try to make up time, and then prepared myself for the short, steep climb up to the ridge. I had not been able to clean that climb during the back-half of the Archipelago Ride, but today I sucked it up and grunted my way to the top. Without stopping to pat myself on the back, I spun through the ridge singletrack as quickly as I could. I did get hung up on the section where you have to get up and over a series of rocks during a turn on the trail, but after a dab was able to keep going. (At some point I really need to get to where I can clean that spot. Its ridiculous that there is a section at Hodges I can't clean...)
As I descended from the ridge and pedaled along the fire road that runs just above the lake, I could see that a negative split would be tough to get. I was also tiring significantly at that point and had one last climb near the end to contend with still. Despite my negative projections, I flew down the fire road as fast as I could, crossed the stream, and turned big gears during the singletrack along the lake. Time was slipping away as I approached the final climb, and I rode up as fast as I could. As I reached the summit of that last climb I was at the one hour four minute mark, meaning I had to make it back to the car in less than two minutes to achieve a negative split.
I flew down the last descent, rode toward the freeway, then under the bridge and big-ringed the last section of "trail" toward the parking lot. As the stats below prove, I made my negative split by a mere three seconds, tired but pleased with my accomplishment.
It was a fun "training" style ride, and I was pretty happy to have made it to Hernandez Hideaway and back in an hour and 5 minutes. I may try to shoot for under an hour next time just to make things interesting.
Once again Rachel had the camera, but I think I have enough pictures of Hodges and the pace of this ride didn't lend itself to photos anyway.
Here are the stats:
Total Distance: 12.21 miles
Total Time: 1:05:57
Ascent: 805 feet
Average Speed: 11.1 mph
Top Speed: 20.9 mph
Bike: Intense Spider XVP
Map:
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment