TBThursday: A LUNA Chix ride full of lessons for newbie rider

TBThursday: Riding to Lyons Valley Trading Post from Donny's Cafe in Bonita with the San Diego LUNA Chix in 2012.

Heading east on Otay Lakes Rd at lower Otay Lake with the SD LUNA Chix in late spring 2012.

 I had only been cycling for 3 months then, and boy, did I have much to learn! It was the most challenging ride on the LUNA Chix's schedule that season (the LUNA Chix have since warped into the Wheel Women of San Diego, of course, though they still welcome non-competitive guys on their rides); a 50 or so miler with a lot of climbing. I made several mistakes that resulted in my only unfinished ride that isn't due to crashing.

#1. I washed the bike the night before and didn't put the rear wheel back on right... because I had never tried taking out the rear wheel and putting it back on myself before. 😶 It is rarely a good idea to try doing new things to the bike just before a tough ride!

#2. I only checked tire pressure before rolling off, but never gave the wheels the spin check (to make sure they are spinning true and not rubbing the brakes, because, you know, I was green and didn't know better.

#3. I didn't ask the more seasoned LUNA Chix ride leaders to check the bike for me before we started riding (since I had taken off the rear wheel and put it back on myself for the first time. It's always a good idea to have someone else check your work for you!).

So, of course, it all went quite wrong. I rode in to the ride's start at Donny's from North Park and the bike already felt quite heavy. It didn't improve after we had taken off up the warm up climbs of Otay Lakes Rd and the rolling hills east to Pio Pico rest stop either. I brushed it off as being a bit over-trained (I was riding a lot because I wanted to ride the Giro di San Diego ride from Solana Beach to the top of Palomar Mtn and back a couple of months from then)... and thought that the heaviness of the bike was a symptom of my having a 'bad legs day'... After all, I checked the tire pressure often, and they were definitely not going flat. 

#4. I sensed that something wasn't right, but didn't tell any more-experienced rider or ride leader about it.

By the time we turned uphill on the long climb of Honey Springs Rd I was dropping off the back end of the group and struggling mightily to keep moving. I occasionally smelled burnt rubber, but it was a hot day (it must have been close to 100F on that slope by then), so it didn't feel that out of place for me. I only made it half way up the climb and turned around to make sure that I could make it back to Donny's. The rest of the group went on and tagged the Trading Post, then caught and passed me on the rolling hills back into Eastlake. One of the ride leaders even gave me a push up a hump on Otay Lakes... It was pretty darn demoralizing to implode so spectacularly on a sub-50 miler less than two months before the slated 111 mile torture ride with 10000 ft of expected elevation gain.

I only found out the culprit when I stopped by at an old pal's place before rolling home and finally thought to give the wheels a spin before mounting the bike. The rear one couldn't even complete a single revolution. I had put it on a bit off and it was rubbing the rear brake so much that the normally shiny brake assembly was completely blackened by rubber debris. I was lucky that the rear tire didn't blow out when I bombed down Honey Springs Rd 18 miles earlier.

 

LUNA Chix Ellen, leading B group up Cabrillo Tidepools Hill a year later in 2013.

I had one thing going for me on that ride, though. I was riding with Team LUNA Chix San Diego and they took care of me. The ride's sweeper, Ellen, absolutely refused to leave me behind until I got to a safe place (my friend's pad). She practically saved my butts!

You live and learn, but some days are more full of lessons than others!

This week on the Boulder Heights board

I've been visiting Boulder Heights free little neighborhood library en route to the Wednesday evening bike ride at Performance Bicycle - La Mesa every week. It's a cute and well-stocked book box in front of a little neighborhood vineyard, and the blackboard underneath is often updated. It's a nice and punchy little climb to get there, and I'm a curious cat and always want to know what the nice local folks there are up to. So there!

2014 In The Rear-View Mirror

Another eventful year on the bike, 2014 has been, though you probably wouldn't know it just reading the blog. I'm afraid when it comes to blogging I've trans-speciated into a sloth rather than a smorg!

The Smorgmobile; before & now

First off, the hardy all aluminum Smorgmobile experienced both Death and Transfiguration this year. The long-suffering steed was loudly neighing its way up steep slopes for months before the culprit crack was found on the inside the stem. Giant provides a life-time warranty for the fork & frame on its new bikes, of course, so a new fork was sent for... but because the 2012 Giant Defy 5 model had gone obsolete they couldn't find a fork that would fit the old frame. And so, this is why you should buy your bike from a bike shop rather than from a Walmart or a Target, Giant sent a new frame as well! All was swell until the parts arrived and we found that the new frame wouldn't fit the old cranks... Bwahaha. It took nearly 3 weeks, but by the time the dust settled my steed had gone from all aluxx to a nicer hybrid of lighter aluxx frame with carbon composite fork... with new cables to boot (since those were what we changed first when trying to diagnosis the creaking). It's almost a whole new bike!

A few of my escapees...

A few good cycling friends that had put up with my steepie-aholic tendency on our rides had left town for various reasons, unfortunately. We miss ya', Tim & Sue, Colin & Cynthia, Melissa, Lauren, and Jose! Hope the riding is flatter where you are...

I've also made many new friends on bike who have proven themselves more patient than Mother Teresa (you kinda need that to ride with me regularly without going insane). I'm afraid I won't name names or this will turn into something resembling an Oscar acceptance speech, and we really can't have that on this blog! It suffices to say that they are so addicting to ride with that I think I've done fewer solo adventure rides this year than I did group rides. How un-smaughly is that???



The fact that I've been riding with friends a lot rather than just soloing all the time doesn't mean that my local cycling ogres hit list went untouched, however. The meanest ogre on the list (a back way up to Muth Valley from Lakeside) came off on a solo ride, along with things like Montana Serena, Alpine Trails, Arouba Rd, Gomez Creek and Alta Loma Dr... But I was in good company when I went to battle with chain-stretchers like Cuyamaca Lookout Rd, Rios Canyon Rd and the hideousness that is just about all the roads up the south side of Dictionary Hill.

I've also made many bike commuting friends, a few of whom were instrumental in organizing commuter bike trains in Uptown area, and some successfully advocated for two car-free CicloSDias events this year. And then there are Sam Ollinger and the crew at BikeSD who tirelessly lobbied for many new bike infrastructures in town. Thanks a bunch, guys and gals, for making such fabulous differences!



A special mention to a few superb fighters who endlessly inspired me in their battle with health and the bike; Hugo, who went toothless for four months while his dentist messed with his denture (Hugo had fallen off the 5th floor of a building he was constructing in the 80's, see, and he left most of his teeth along with all the tail of his vertebrae at the crash site) and then decided to spend his birthday cycling the Great Western Loop with me... from City Heights! Then there is the Vzrd, twice the survivor of stage 4 malignant melanoma that claimed a lot of her lungs. She was bent on completing the totally sadistic Savage Man Triathlon this year, so we spent many months together beating up on the steepest walls on Dictionary Hill and Mt Helix to prepare for it. Heather B, Carlsbad's resident beast on the bike, had to give up riding (and hard core hiking) for months as her endometriosis took its time getting diagnosed and treated.

There are a few more friends who have been battling injuries on and off, and one who is proving herself tougher than any granite mountain as she helps her husband fight valiantly with adult onset ALS. I have been lucky in that my lupus hasn't been acting up much these last few years, so I've gotten more prone to whining than before. But every time I start to get going about how my right arm is still messed up a year after that last downhill crash, etc, I think of these guys and gals and how much worse they were/are having it, and that instantly puts the whiny inner-smorg back in its place.

I'm so glad I don't have Rocky Ln on my hit list anymore. Whew!

Anyhow, a new year is just around the corner and there is much to look forward to on the cycling front! Here is what remains of my local 'hit list' I hope to lure a few bike buddies to go ride up with:

- Cuyamaca Lookout Rd
- North Peak Rd
- Sherilton Valley Rd
- Morena - Stokes Valley Rd
- Snuz Mountain Rd
- Muth Valley Rd
- Rocky Ln
  Rice Rd (Rattlesnake Mtn)
- Montana Serena
- The Crow's Nest
- Barrett Smith Rd (off Hwy 94 east of Barrett Junction)
- Isla Vista (Jamul)
- Maria St steep block (Dictionary Hill)
- Rainbow Hgts - Rainbow Crest Rd - Mt Olympus Valley Rds (in Rainbow)
- Stewart Crest Rd (north side of Monserate Mtn)
- Red Mountain Hgts Dr (Fallbrook)
- Alta Loma Rd (Jamul)
- Shogo Mtn Rd (De Luz Heights)
- Lyons Peak Rd... is very iffy. Even park rangers can't access that road nowadays.

Happy Holidays everyone! 

Souvenir from a ride: Otay Lakes Rd with the LUNA Chix

I think this was from August 2012, my first time heading east on Otay Lakes Rd toward Honey Springs Rd climb. I was with the LUNA Chix group ride and took this shot from the back of the group... and I wasn't progressing toward the front. It would take me another 20 miles before I thought to check if my tires could free spin and found that the rear brake was rubbing... Having ridden in to the ride from North Park area, I only made it half way up Honey Springs Rd and had a hardest time on the little rollers on Otay Lakes Rd and Olympic Pkwy on my way back to town, seriously questioning my fitness just a month shy of my first epic century ride.

It was a very humiliating experience and a very educational one. Aside from squeezing the tires to check air pressure I always spin the wheels to check for rubbing brake and/or wobble before every ride now (and even during the ride, whenever I stop I'd check the tires and wheels again before remounting and continuing). I'm also eternally grateful to the LUNA Chix ride leadership. The day's sweep rider, Ellen, refused to leave me as I fell further and further behind the rest of the group on Honey Springs Rd and all the way back on Otay Lakes Rd. Ellen carried extra water and energy bars with her and was full of encouragement. Then ride leader Barb came upon us struggling up a little hump just before Wueste Rd turn off and actually gave me a push.

Seriously, if it weren't for Ellen and Barb I might have just rolled off the uncomfortably hot tarmac somewhere east of Skydive San Diego and became coyote food before my friends could send out a search and rescue party. Instead, I went on to finish the inaugural Giro di San Diego gran fondo ride, have climbed Honey Springs at least 20 times now and other bigger mountains along the way. The LUNA Chix have been taking the winter months off from cycling, but I'm quite looking forward to more rides with them when their season starts again in a few months!

Update (11Mar2014): The LUNA Chix have re-organized! They are now called the Wheel Women of San Diego. More info on their new Facebook page (first ride of 2014 season coming up on Sunday April 13th from Moment Cycle Sports in Liberty Station).