Mt Charlie (or how I lost 7lbs in 2.5 hours)

How do you beat a 25 mile ride? You make up a 30 mile ride of course... :)

Rewind about a month or so. I wanted to see if I could make it up Mt Charlie Road - it's a 5.2 mile one-lane beast climbing up the Santa Cruz Mountains from Scotts Valley to Summit Road. It's about a 1,000 ft elevation change from Scotts Valley to the Summit. I never made it up this particular day. I hit a really nasty thorn and was stupid enough not to realize what it was, so I brushed it off my tire. Actually, I pulled it off. Yeah, stupid is right. I quickly decided to turn around. I really didn't want to fix a flat tire on this narrow road. Luckily the asphalt was so hot that it sealed my tire as I rolled down and home...

That was a month ago. Today I decided that Mt Charlie needed to be beat. I made it up to Summit Rd overlooking Hwy 17 in 50 minutes. Then down Summit Rd to Soquel-San Jose Rd to Laurel-Glen to Mountain View Rd to Branciforte to Granite Creek and back home. A total of 30.3 miles. I was blown away that I lost 7lbs of sweat during this 2.5 hour ride! Most of that is already back in the form of liquid and food of course, but the scale did say 185lbs after a shower... :)

The most fun on this ride when a pack of motorcycles passed me. There were at least 75 of them. All Harleys. Damn those things are loud when you're on a bicycle. This was down hill on Summit Rd. I set a new land speed record - 46.3 mph drafting off the pack of motorcycles! I actually had to hit my breaks not to tun into the middle of the pack, otherwise it would've been more than 46.3mph!

0.3 miles from home, when my odometer said 30 miles a car crossed into the middle of the bike lane right in front of me! Her right side panel almost clipped my left side pedal. I slipped off the pedal and banged up my left leg as the pedal cut into the flesh... The words I yelled through her open passenger window are too strong for this blog. I caught up to her at the next light and yelled some more. If I hadn't been so tired I would've taken her license plate down and sued her for enough money to get a road bike... ;)