By Debbie Bulloch
Today I rode the 8th Stage of the Amgen Tour of California. Well, let me clarify that a bit: today I rode the course for the 8th Stage of the Tour.
Technically, this is not the first time that I have ridden my bike on the same course that the riders from the Tour of California will ride on Sunday. The 8th Stage will go through parts of Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Valley in Ventura County. I have ridden my bike many times through the same roads that the Tour riders will ride on.
This morning was another beautiful Southern California morning; the sun was shining clear and bright and the temperature was nice and cool. I figured that this was a perfect opportunity to put to test my last few weeks of training. By the end of the ride, I found out two things: First, the men who compete on any bike tour have to be in awesome shape. Second, I still have a lot of riding to do to get in better riding shape. More about that later.
I put my road bike on the back of my car and drove to the Farmers’ Insurance Group building, on Agoura Road in the town of Agoura Hills. (For all location references, check the map below.) After taking my bike down and putting on my bike riding shoes, I headed out the parking lot and headed east/south on Agoura Road. This part of the ride is flat so I was pushing the pedals hard and making good time – a little over 20 miles per hour. Of course, that was soon to change.
I rode a short distance on Agoura Road and then turned right on Cornell Road. From that point on, the road took me up a series of climbs that put my riding abilities to the test. At this time, I must confess that I am not a very good climber; in fact, I hate climbing hills. I have no problems riding for hours, I can ride even ride mile after mile against a strong headwind. But give me a hill to climb and I start grumbling to myself.
There are a few reasons why I hate climbing hills. First, my bike is designed to go fast on flat portions of the road, but it is not so good for climbing hills. I ride an “antique” Italian road bike, a steel-framed Bottecchia with very tall gearing. Modern bikes have 24 or 27 gears, my bike only has 14 gears (by comparison, my mountain bike has 24 gears). Having fewer gears is OK for fast riding on relatively flat roads but when the road starts to go up, the lack of extra gears makes climbing harder.
Second, but most important, I have a phobia of climbing hills. Two of my worst bikes riding experiences have come while climbing hills. One time, a few years ago, I was climbing a steep hill and riding hard. I have asthma and the strenuous exercise led to an asthma attack. Unfortunately, for me, that day I did not have my inhaler with me. Without the inhaler, the attack became progressively worse. I was riding in a fairly isolated area and cell phone reception was bad to non-existent. I struggled during the rest of the ride, fighting hard for every single breath of air. By the time, I finally made it home I could barely breathe – it felt as if someone was holding my head underwater keeping me from breathing. Even after using my inhaler, I still could not breathe right, so I went to the Emergency Room for treatment. I eventually recovered but the experience left me shaken.
The other bad climbing experience happened on the same course that I was riding this morning and, actually, it happened while riding down and not climbing. It was a December morning and the night before the temperatures had dropped pretty low (for Southern California). It had been a very good ride and I was headed home, riding downhill at a pretty fast pace. All of the sudden, during one of the turns, I hit a thin patch of black ice (a thin layer of ice that forms on the road following overnight low temperatures). As soon as I hit the patch, I lost control of the bike and hit the ground, sliding on my right side until I hit a guardrail on the other side of the road. Road bikes have very narrow tires, the contact patch between each wheel and the road is about the size of a thumbnail – compared that to the huge contact patch between a car tire and the road.
Fortunately, for me I did not suffer any broken bones, but I had a nasty case of road rash on my right leg, from my ankle all the way to my thigh. As soon as I stopped hurting, I jumped on my bike and tried to ride home. Unfortunately, my bike’s rear derailleur was ruined so I could use only one gear; fortunately, however, it was all downhill at that point, so I did not need to change gears. It took a long time, but I eventually hobbled all the way home on just that one gear. While washing my leg and cleaning the wound I realized that I had just gone through a very close call; I could have been hit by a car as I fell down or, worse still, I could have easily fallen off the side of the road and sustained worse injuries.
So now, you know why I hate hills…but I digress.
On this morning’s ride, I decided to put all my hill-climbing fears aside and I attacked the hills ahead of me with gusto. Fortunately (for me) at this point in the ride, the short, steep climbs were followed by long descents. After climbing for about 5 miles, the topography began to change; the climbs became longer and the descents shorter.
All of the sudden, the gentle hills began to get steeper and steeper. Every pedal stroke became a struggle; my lungs were begging for more oxygen and my legs felt like they were on fire. (At this point, there is a 7% grade and it feels as if the road is going straight up.) Soon my speed dropped down to less than 5 miles per hour and my cadence (the number of pedal strokes per minute) began to drop, from 90, to 70, to 60, to barely 40 pedal strokes per minutes. At this point, I began to seriously consider turning around and riding back downhill, to the comfort of my car.
I was almost ready to turn around when a group of riders rode past me. A couple of riders noticed my obvious discomfort and asked me if I was OK. I put on a brave face and told them that I was OK, just a little tired. Fortunately, the riders invited me to join their group for the rest of the climb. Riding with other riders, I was able to use the group to help “pull me up” the rest of the climb. Soon the top of the hill was in sight and I was breathing easier.
At the top of the climb, my new friends and I took a brief food break and then started riding back down. When we reached the junction of Mullholland Highway and Route 23 my new friends turned left and headed towards the ocean, but not before I thanked them all for helping me climb to the summit. I turned right and headed down Route 23 to return home.
On the ride down, I came upon the same spot where I had fallen down a few years earlier. This was the first time that I had ridden my bike past the site of my crash. For a moment, images of my painful, and potentially disastrous, fall flashed past my eyes. This is a very fast descent, so there was no time to dwell on the past; I shook the images out of my head and continued to descend. I must admit, however, that this time I was riding a lot slower than the time when I fell down. I kept my hands on the brake levers and anytime that the bike’s speed went over 25 miles per hour, I applied the brakes and slowed down.
Soon, I was back on flat land. Route 23 eventually becomes Westlake Boulevard. This portion of the ride is mostly flat, so I began to push hard. I rode past the nearby Sherwood Country Club. The club is named after the lake and wooded area where scenes from the 1938 "Robin Hood" (starring Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone) were filmed.
My legs were sore from all the hard climbing, but I kept pushing on, riding faster. The parking lot where my car waited for me was not far now. Knowing that I would soon be sitting in the comfort of my car made me push even harder.
Finally, I entered the parking lot and I headed straight for my car.
The ride itself was not very long - around 20 miles long, but it took more than two hours to complete it. By the end, my legs and shoulders were very sore (when climbing hard riders use their shoulders to rock the bike back and forth) but I was one very happy camper.
I am not going to stop riding down by the beach – I love the ocean too much to give it up. But now that I have lost a little of my fear of hills – I may soon be back to climbing!
Tomorrow (Sunday) the riders of the Tour of California will be riding on the same roads that I road today. I will be there to cheer them on and to take their pictures as they “struggle” up the hills.
Stay tuned!
View Amgen Tour of CA stage 8 in a larger map
