first ride of the year!!

[luv2climb]

I had the most fun I've ever had on a New Year's Day! A local cycling club had a hill repeat challenge up Beatty Drive in El Dorado Hills. Beatty is a 3/4 mile long hill with lots of 10%-12% grades and a max grade of 16%.

The goal for the riders is to climb Beatty as many times as possible in two hours. I am not a member of this club and I wasn't technically a part of the ride, but I wanted to live up to my username as usual and have some fun on that hill, motivated by the presence of 75 other climbers.

I mounted front and rear cameras on my Bike Friday folding bike. These did a great job of capturing passes and the occasional rider I was able to pass. Having more than one camera also gives people a second chance to hear the commentary from spectators and passing cyclists.

The rear camera also did a great job of capturing suffer-faces on riders passing me and being passed by me.

Between climbs I stood on the side of the road and took video of the riders passing by. I could only do that for a few minutes at a time before I got the overwhelming urge to do more of my own climbing!

Garmin data

Details of the ride from the bike club's website

Before the event I met a very nice woman from another forum. I was talking to a friend and she heard me talking about my San Francisco climbs on the Bike Friday. She also recognized my voice from my videos. She had a very nice recumbent trike, and after the event we took a ride down Green Valley Road before turning around due to limited daylight.

Here's the video from my climbs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WjAVfsj6q8

Here's the video from the side of the road. The sound of the descending bikes was pure badazz!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YJPDO5NOIo

[Blueberry]

Cool video! I watched part of it. That's some impressive climbing Also some amazing suffering on the part of the other riders (particularly those on the side of the road!).

What's going on with the rear camera and the tire? There's some sort of odd timing issue (I think) where the camera is recording at the rate the tire is rolling (I can tell you're moving - in no way questioning that - the tire just doesn't look like it - heck sometimes it looks like it's rolling backwards!).

[luv2climb]

Thanks! The rear camera is a cheapy Midland XTC-100 that I bought from REI for $64. It only has standard-definition resolution at 640x480 30 frames per second, whereas the other two cameras are still SD resolution but record at 848x480 and 60fps. It could be the lower frame rate causing the weird effect, but I'm not positive.

I've seen the same effect on other people's videos where the wheel is visible.

[MojoGrrl]

Went out for only 23 miles today, but it included a challenging climb. The descent (which is always a little sketchy, very steep and twisty on an essentially one-lane road) was complicated by a car coming up and me having to ride my brakes to slow down and make it around said car, resulting in my rear end sliding and me nearly going off the road in order to steer out of the slide. But then I hammered it all the way back and made pretty awesome time.

One of these days, we need to go out on a ride, luv2climb...I have a friend who lives in the Grass Valley area who would love to take us on a climbing sufferfest!

[Aggie_Ama]

Great news Mimi!! I hope he enjoyed the ride immensely.

This weekend the weather has been amazing in Texas. Saturday I did 70 miles alone, my longest ride ever alone. I usually stick to 30-40. It felt empowering. Yesterday I did 14 miles mountain biking with a big group of friends, it was a fun way to start the New Year. At one point there was 14 of us riding down the trail which is a HUGE group.

Today DH and a teammate of ours did 64 road miles. We really wanted to push it with a big race looming next weekend. Plus it was bright and sunny, even though it was chilly never getting out of the low 50's. Us Texans consider that a bit cooler than most of you, we're cold weather wimps. It was a great long weekend!

[luv2climb]

Went out for only 23 miles today, but it included a challenging climb. The descent (which is always a little sketchy, very steep and twisty on an essentially one-lane road) was complicated by a car coming up and me having to ride my brakes to slow down and make it around said car, resulting in my rear end sliding and me nearly going off the road in order to steer out of the slide. But then I hammered it all the way back and made pretty awesome time.

One of these days, we need to go out on a ride, luv2climb...I have a friend who lives in the Grass Valley area who would love to take us on a climbing sufferfest!

Yikes! Glad you came out of that one okay! Descents like that are why I'm not in a big hurry to climb Mix Canyon. I want to climb it, but I have read that the descent sucks! Of course, once this weight is gone I'm probably going to climb it anyway.

I would love to go on a ride with you and your friend! I'm always looking for new climbs, and I found a couple good ones in Nevada City while riding around during last year's Nevada City Classic bike race. Your friend probably knows of many more good climbs I haven't discovered yet.

I've been riding solo for so long I almost forgot how fun riding with others can be. I have a friend who likes to go on climbing rides with me, but her schedule doesn't allow that very often. She did get to go on yesterday's ride with me, and she loved it!

[MojoGrrl]

Yikes! Glad you came out of that one okay! Descents like that are why I'm not in a big hurry to climb Mix Canyon.

I happened to be on the other side of the valley from Mix Canyon, in fact...Cantelow. I have not yet done Mix Canyon but it's on the to-do list...

[Anelia]

I had the most fun I've ever had on a New Year's Day!

Yes, you really did! It's so nice riding with so many people around.

[Anelia]

Today I had a long road ride with a mountain bike: 49 miles for 4 hours. I got wet from the water on the road and sometimes it was cold on the descents and too hot on the ascents but I felt great.

[hebe]

My first ride of the year today. Only a tiny one (3 miles round trip if that), but the Mr and I towed dd to her new nursery building. It's a fairly straightforward route, with a busy-ish roundabout to cross, then goes through an industrial estate before heading out into the countryside again. I am determined to do more short journeys by bike rather than car whenever weather and commitments allow. Her previous nursery building was a bit of a faff to bike to - with dismounts to cross at busy junctions and awkward transitions from multi-use paths to road riding so I ended up not cycling it as often as I'd hoped.

[spokewench]

Way to Go Mimi! You better get on that bike or RD will pass you up!

[OakLeaf]

The roadies wimped out from the cold this morning and I didn't feel like riding alone, so I rode the commuter to yoga and on a couple of errands, just maybe 9 miles RT. At least one guy is riding at noon, but I had to be home. I'll get a road ride in on Friday anyway.

[luv2climb]

Well, I got to thinking about Sunday's ride, and I had a bad feeling that I may have screwed up by riding along without saying anything first. I PMed a member of another forum who is also a member of the cycling club that hosted the hill climbing challenge, and he confirmed my fears. Another lesson learned the hard way.

To anyone I may have offended by doing this, I am sorry.

[luv2climb]

On the lighter side, I discovered this blog entry from a local Clydesdale who also likes to climb. Halfway down the page, right above the picture of him climbing, is this.

"Another low point was being passed by someone on a Bike Friday – one of those folding travel bikes. All I could think of was “are you kidding me?” As it turns out, that person was there to watch the repeats, not do them (at least not all 12). So, pace was not a concern to them — that took a bit of the sting out of it. Still, that’s the sure sign of trouble. Any time someone on a folding travel bike passes you, you’ve got issues. It felt like I was driving in a Nascar event, and getting passed by a Prius. It’s not right. I probably could have knocked them over, and beaten them to death with their ridiculous bike, and the police would understand (it was simply overtly disrespectful – I had to do it). Of course, I’d have to catch them first."

I left a nice comment on his page with the links to the videos, and he was good-natured and even pointed out where I could see him in the videos.

To some, his writing style might seem crass, but to me it was funny as hell! You see, I have a warped sense of humor. I'm not uptight like many cyclists. Life is too short to live like that. I will continue to follow the blogs of cyclists with a sense of humor.

His comment does reflect the stereotypes many cyclists have about small-wheeled bikes though. Many people believe folding bikes can't perform as well as full-size road bikes. After riding the steepest hills around on my Bike Friday, I beg to differ.

[goldfinch]

Too bad that you had the awkwardness of not following an unwritten rule. I looked at the videos--nice. Sometime I have to ask you about video cameras. One would be nice to share rides with long distant family.