27 miles, 1589 ft of gain with Sandra. Well, Sandra said she is always looking for different routes and courses with elevation gain. She mentioned one time, never having headed east on Baseline from Mills and other close starting points we use. So I mapped out a route on Strava to see how long and how much gain we would have heading east on Baseline, up Benson, then up Euclid from 24th up to the chapel stretch. Man, that thing always feels steep ha ha ha!
I was actually doing pretty good but then got a cramp in my hammy just after the stop sign. Well dang it! I looked down and the grade said 13%. OK, I can see that ha ha ha! I waited a bit for Sandra to catch up. The cramp went away fairly quickly, like 30 seconds but I took a bit extra to take a pic of the road behind us to show the grade. Of course the pic doesn't do justice. Sandra stopped for a bit too then headed off while I was taking the pic. It was like a blink of an eye and she was half way up the final stretch. So I hopped back on, cramp gone, tried to catch her before she hit the top just to see if I could ha ha ha! I did, just before the top, no cramp so that was good.
While we climbing Benson, about a mile from our start so not too much of a warmup, she said, "man this is tough!" as we crossed over the 210 fwy. It's a long stretch and from what I have seen, she likes to break up the long stretches by taking side streets to break up the climb. I myself like the long stretches. For instance, heading up Wheeler, I turn off Baseline and go straight up while she likes to turn on Emerald, work her way up and across side streets that dump us off half way up Wheeler. She says she gets bored on long straight stretches but honestly, I think there is a reason the group she rode with took the zig zagging roads up ha ha ha!
So going up Benson is a decent stretch and she said it was tough while we were on it. I told her that if she thought this was tough, she was going to curse me once we hit the chapel climb ha ha ha! And I think she did! But once we were done with the climb, she was pretty happy with it. She kept telling he how a nice section that was. The usual rides seem to be pretty flat other than Wheeler. The little hill on Baseline just west of Town Ave is usually the tough one. But after doing the chapel hill at the start, all the rest of the hills felt like ant hills ha ha ha!
Since we did the climb at the start of the ride, I asked if she wanted more. She seemed to not want to do much more but then said she would just follow me. She said she was getting tired since she had ridden everyday this week. OK, no more big climbs. But at the last second, heck, why not a little more seeing the rest is not very hilly and we can cut the flat section short. It is a mid week night ride and the usual is about 20-25. We ended up with 27 as I had figured so didn't need much more this eve. But I did say, heck, lets go up Wheeler half way. Using her back roads of course to ease the pain. But once we were on, it was a breeze. Again, anything after the chapel hill is an ant hill ha ha ha!
The entire time after the chapel hill, she kept telling me how cool this course was. I liked it too. The only thing I think would make it better, is that we try to hit the Benson downhill with a little bit of daylight. That was only because it was the first time going down in years and I was not sure of pot holes, ruts, tricky curbs or whatever so it was a bit scary and we babied it down most of the way making sure we could see what was coming up. Now that I/we know it's fairly smooth, it will be nicer next time.
I did though take her up Benson, across 21st to San Antonio, to 24th, then across to Euclid for a reason. She says she doesn't like long uphill stretches so I wanted to end up on 24th and Euclid right before hitting the chapel climb. I didn't want her to see Euclid from below heading up. I thought maybe if she got tired by the time we hit the fire station at the top, she might be tired and say that was enough and not want to go up the chapel ha ha ha! We got there and she was fine so it worked. Maybe, maybe next time or a ride in the future, I'll take her straight up Euclid from 17th or 18th just to see how she reacts.
So I cut Baseline short heading west seeing we had plenty of miles already. So we went down San Dimas Ave. Up to Gladstone, across to Walnut then continued on our usual route back across Bonita. I was surprised as she started to fade on Bonita. I asked if she was ok and she said the weekly accumulation was getting to her. So I slowed a bit and told her to take my wheel to conserve energy since we still had to climb to Baseline for the finish.
She did then we caught up to a couple of guys around White. They saw us and picked it up ha ha ha! On any other day, we could have easily caught them but knowing Sandra was starting to struggle with a climb coming up, I kept it down. Never really that important to catch the other guy anyway.
But we rolled up on them at the Garey stop. They looked back at us and asked how many miles we were doing. 27, and have about 22 already with 1200 ft after heading up to the chapel. They were somewhat surprised while saying wow! They seemed impressed. So we continued on with them ahead about 20 yards then they turned and went down Towne Ave.
Sandra and I finished with the usual ending to our rides heading back up to Baseline. Of course, second ride in a row, at the end, Sandra said she forgot to start her Strava on her cell so she totally missed her ride ha ha ha! I tagged her on Strava to use my info second time in a row. Maybe next time, I'll refuse her request just so she misses a ride ha ha ha. Just kidding.
Up, Benson over the 210. Not all that bad but just before the fwy, there is a short steep section. Kind of strange, like 7% for about 10 feet, how did they do that ha ha ha!
