April 9 – The Dam Corners and Valleys Road Loop

[SadieKate]

Yellow (the HillMeister) drove down from Placerville and Nancy up from Benecia, then our friend Sue join us (trying to convert her to the TE forum). I think everyone had a good time. The temp was perfect, lots of flowers, not a huge amount of traffic, lots of turkeys and even a peacock. The Vespa Thugs made a late appearance.

After all these years of hearing everyone talk about climbing over the Dam and Cardiac Hill, I gotta say that either those folks either are intimidated by hills or they're not on V's and Yellow's hill training program. My book shows the Dam has about a half mile at an avg of 5.9%. Yes, you have to work but it's very short! Then Cardiac . . . well it's not easy but it's not horrible either. Just under 2 miles at an avg of 6.3%. Very doable if you just settle back and use headology. The challenge with it was just length. Since the day was getting warmer, you'd think "I really need to get rid of these armers, but the hill will be done in just a bit." Then, you'd have that thought again and again and again until the hill topped out here in the picture.

Left to right, Sue, Nancy, Sue (Yellow) and Bubba.

We then kept our armers on and headed for a lot of zippy rollers and fast downhill runs, a stop for smoothies and one last run north throught the aptly named "Pleasants Valley." I feel really good about how well I'm climbing the hills and can put another notch on my belt, even if it is a bit smaller than the Diablo notch. Sorry, some of you couldn't join us.

HillSlug, I kept an eye out for your group but saw nary a Team-In-Training Jersey.