{"id":310,"date":"2009-07-10T14:50:34","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T22:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/?p=310"},"modified":"2009-07-10T14:50:34","modified_gmt":"2009-07-10T22:50:34","slug":"summer-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"Summer Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Marie Becker<\/em><\/p>\n

Towards the end of 2008 Pat Becker and I were sitting around trying to decide what our goals for riding would be in 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Both of us were burned out from all the training for the Death Ride, so we decided not to do that this year, and picked the Summer Solstice up in Quincy in the Feather River Valley on June 27 instead.\u00c2\u00a0 Its scalable, so depending on how much riding\/training we could get in would determine the length we would ride.\u00c2\u00a0 The longest version of this rivals the DR in difficulty, but you have the option of doing a 100k as well.\u00c2\u00a0 This sounded good to me, and I have friends who live up in Quincy we could stay with, so that was our “big” ride for the year.\u00c2\u00a0 Cathy Switzer decided to join us, and she brought her husband Larry up there too.<\/p>\n

About a month before the ride I was talking to a friend here at the office, and turns out he has a cabin up in Quincy, right on the route of the ride.\u00c2\u00a0 What are the odds of that??\u00c2\u00a0 And in reviewing the route with Bruce, his comment that “you’re\u00c2\u00a0 not riding up the hill past the Nelson Creek bridge are you? do you have good brakes on those bikes for the ride down??” it made me think that maybe I hadn’t given enough consideration to the difficulty of this ride before I signed up.\u00c2\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00c2\u00a0 Too late by then, you go until you can’t go any more and enjoy the ride!<\/p>\n

So Pat, Cathy, Larry, and I all drove up to Quincy Friday and agreed to meet at the fairgrounds Saturday at 7:30.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve not been there, this is a beautiful place, small town in the mountains.\u00c2\u00a0 We rode over to the fairgrounds and had no trouble finding each other.\u00c2\u00a0 Small town and evidently not many riders participating.\u00c2\u00a0 There were literally no other riders there.\u00c2\u00a0 And I mean none!\u00c2\u00a0 My friends who live there told us after the ride there is a big music festival there that brings in thousands, but for the ride we think about 170 signed up.\u00c2\u00a0 Those doing the 200k likely started earlier, and we never saw them.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact we started counting both riders and cars as we rode because there just weren’t but a handful the whole day of either!\u00c2\u00a0 We see more riders on our weekend rides down here in the valley than we saw that whole day.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually was kinda nice, but a little weird.\u00c2\u00a0 And we did have a clue about this the day before when Pat and I drove the route to see how steep it was and only saw one porta potty on the entire route.\u00c2\u00a0 We were worried about that… until we rode.\u00c2\u00a0 It really was sufficient, there was never a line!
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The route is rollers through a beautiful meadow in the beginning, and then you climb a bit to the first rest stop and the one porta potty.\u00c2\u00a0 Never pass up an opportunity to pee or eat, so we chatted with the folks there, took a group picture while listening to Jimmy Buffet, and headed off to what is referred to as the Hogsback.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I don’t really know what a hogs back looks like but it must be ugly!\u00c2\u00a0 Are they all humpbacks?\u00c2\u00a0 This was a 4 mile stretch with a grade of 14% for too much of it.\u00c2\u00a0 When 11% feels like a relief you know you’re\u00c2\u00a0 climbing a mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 Both Pat and Cathy are stronger riders than me, so I didn’t see their butts for long and they were gone.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried my best to stay in my “happy pace” with a lower heart rate so I wouldn’t burn out before I got to La Porte (it is an out and back route).\u00c2\u00a0 But those double digit grades are tough!\u00c2\u00a0 I did feel good when I made it to the top, and was rewarded with beautiful scenery.\u00c2\u00a0 Snow on the tops of the mountains, fields of some big yellow flowers, maybe onions of some sort\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it is called Onion Valley after all.\u00c2\u00a0 And more rollers all the way to La Porte.\u00c2\u00a0 The climbing just never really stopped going or returning.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The final long descent into La Porte was fun and fast. The road was wide and well paved, and with the sweeping turns and non-existent traffic you could easily reach speeds of 40+ mph. While exhilarating, in the back of my mind I knew I’d have to climb right back up after lunch, so I’d better enjoy this while it lasted.<\/p>\n

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\nLunch was at the fire house in La Porte, population of 26 .\u00c2\u00a0 [cid:image001.jpg@01CA00B3.01CEDA80] Even smaller than Quincy.\u00c2\u00a0 And they must be worried about those folks down in Quincy as evidenced by the Neighborhood Watch sign.\u00c2\u00a0 If there are only 26 of you in town I’d guess you pretty much always know what everyone else is doing… but those folks down in Quincy, well who knows about them.\u00c2\u00a0 I caught up with Pat and Cathy for a minute at lunch.\u00c2\u00a0 They were getting ready to head out as they planned on doing the full 100 miles (an extra 30 flat miles at the end of the 100k route) so we chatted for a minute and off they went.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a roast beef sandwich which I shared with a beautiful black lab who lived there, chatted with two young guys who rolled in (one from Stockton, one from SF), and off I went too.<\/p>\n

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As you all know riding after lunch is a challenge sometimes, as your legs can think you’re done.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you hit some of those stinkin hills you sailed down, and you now have to climb back up.\u00c2\u00a0 That one long sweeping hill, in the full sun and 10% grade, it was just ugly.\u00c2\u00a0 One of those times where you just stare at the asphalt as your front tire rolls over it and your brain says over and over, just keep pedaling!\u00c2\u00a0 I rolled up on Stockton who was walking his bike up.\u00c2\u00a0 At lunch I learned this was his first century ride, that some dingleberry told him to do this ride.\u00c2\u00a0 Poor guy, there are no hills to train on in Stockton.\u00c2\u00a0 But he intended to finish!\u00c2\u00a0 So I continued to just pedal, pedal, pedal and I got to the top of the thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I stopped there for a minute to contemplate life, and why I think doing things like this is a good idea.<\/p>\n

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I pulled out my camera and took a few pictures, then tried to take one of myself.\u00c2\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of people seem to do this and they don’t look like dorks, I need to practice this!\u00c2\u00a0 Stockton showed up about then and volunteered to take one for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I must have looked more like a dork than I thought!\u00c2\u00a0 Then we rolled off together, and came up on San Francisco.\u00c2\u00a0 We hit the top of the Hogsback and the boys went sailing down.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of switchbacks and very steep, but you get down a whole lot faster than you go up!\u00c2\u00a0 Back to the one rest stop, made use of the one porta potty again (really one of the cleanest ones ever) then down into Quincy.\u00c2\u00a0 As I rolled through the meadow at the bottom who do I find but both Pat and Cathy hanging out under a tree.\u00c2\u00a0 Since all the hard climbing was in the metric they decided that doing the flat 30 just for the sake of saying you did a 100 miles seemed silly and they waited for me.\u00c2\u00a0 As Cathy said, we start together and we finish together, which we did!\u00c2\u00a0 Even Stockton finished, rubber legs and all.<\/p>\n

After a quick shower we went back for our BBQ dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, no line and no steam table.\u00c2\u00a0 A BBQ wagon, you told them what you wanted and they made your plate.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the best BBQ chicken ever, then we headed over to Cathy and Larry’s and we finished off all the wine they brought.\u00c2\u00a0 A hard ride, but a great day with good friends in a beautiful place!!<\/p>\n

BTW\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Cathy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ride notes consist of hanging out under the tree with Pat and having some wine at the end.\u00c2\u00a0 So whether it was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hard ride\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was dependent on the rider :-)!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Marie Becker Towards the end of 2008 Pat Becker and I were sitting around trying to decide what our goals for riding would be in 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Both of us were burned out from all the training for the Death Ride, so we decided not to do that this year, and picked the Summer Solstice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ride-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}