The great turkey ride of 2005
Posted on 28/11/05 23:48
So Kristal and I decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner at her place in Santa Cruz. I had wanted to try riding my bike from my place to Santa Cruz, so I figured the hot turkey (in our case, Trader Joe's fish) dinner waiting for me would be incentive to pedal hard.
So I set out from my place around noon and rode across San Jose to Los Gatos and up to the Lexington dam. I was already tired by the time I got to the top, and my journey was just begining. I still had to pedal over the Santa Cruz mountains! Here's a view looking out over the resevoir:
From here I rode around the west side of the resevoir on a single track to Old Santa Cruz highway which parallels Highway 17 for a while. This is where things got really tough. I won't lie, I had to stop quite a few times, but I was pedalling up to a 2000 foot elevation.
Not much up there except trees and lots of curves in the roads, but I did pass an inflatable turkey which seemed to mock me as I pedalled by spinning the cranks as fast as I could, yet only managing a snail's pace:
By the time I made it to the summit 3 hours had already passed and my legs were numb from the pain, and not even a strategically packed Power Bar could bring them back to life. Luckily, the ride down was a breeze. Literally! I coasted for several minutes at a time, getting up to speeds of 40mph. Fast enough to give a "wazzup" to the motorcyclist who came alongside me. I don't want to think what would have happened to me if I hit a rock in the road at that speed!
Around 4pm I limped into Kristal's apartment and proceeded to scarf down everything in site:
Of course now that I've checked that off of my "things to do before I die" list, I was in no hurry to do it again, so I packed my bike into Kristal's car and got a lift back to my place, with a newfound appreciation for powered transportation!
So I set out from my place around noon and rode across San Jose to Los Gatos and up to the Lexington dam. I was already tired by the time I got to the top, and my journey was just begining. I still had to pedal over the Santa Cruz mountains! Here's a view looking out over the resevoir:
From here I rode around the west side of the resevoir on a single track to Old Santa Cruz highway which parallels Highway 17 for a while. This is where things got really tough. I won't lie, I had to stop quite a few times, but I was pedalling up to a 2000 foot elevation.
Not much up there except trees and lots of curves in the roads, but I did pass an inflatable turkey which seemed to mock me as I pedalled by spinning the cranks as fast as I could, yet only managing a snail's pace:
By the time I made it to the summit 3 hours had already passed and my legs were numb from the pain, and not even a strategically packed Power Bar could bring them back to life. Luckily, the ride down was a breeze. Literally! I coasted for several minutes at a time, getting up to speeds of 40mph. Fast enough to give a "wazzup" to the motorcyclist who came alongside me. I don't want to think what would have happened to me if I hit a rock in the road at that speed!
Around 4pm I limped into Kristal's apartment and proceeded to scarf down everything in site:
Of course now that I've checked that off of my "things to do before I die" list, I was in no hurry to do it again, so I packed my bike into Kristal's car and got a lift back to my place, with a newfound appreciation for powered transportation!
Reanna wrote: