Alpine - Viejas Grade - Descanso and road rashes

Apologies for having neglected the blog a bit! After a slow slump work suddenly picked up to a frenzy pace the past couple of months and the few exploration rides I did make have been going a bit stale in my photo folders. [Right click fotos and open in new tab for full size]

Looking east on I-8 from Willow Rd/Alpine Blvd overpass. Viejas Mountain in left background.

Unseasonably warm and dry winter weather is now old news as March is knocking on the door, but back in mid-December it was still something of a surprise. After a weekend of high wind in the East County my friend Tim and I took a Tuesday off and carpooled up to Alpine Creek Shopping Mall on Tavern Rd in Alpine for a morning road cycling trip to Cuyamaca Peak. To get to Descanso from Alpine by bicycle without taking the long detour to Japatul Valley we had two choices, of course; taking the direct route by riding on the shoulder of I-8 to Hwy 79 (bicycles are allowed on this stretch of the freeway) or the more adventurous unpaved climb across the saddle between Poser and Chiquito Mountains on scenic Viejas Grade Rd. We opted to go east on Viejas Grade and return via the freeway.

A chimney is all that's left of one of the houses along Viejas Indian Reservation.

Now... isn't this a deluxe busstop shelter?

Heading east on Alpine Blvd before most of the business opened up for the day gave quite a nice warm up ride (it is mostly a gradual climb) and all our warmers were taken off by the time we crossed the freeway on W Willow Rd. At the Y-intersection we veered left onto Viejas Grade Rd and headed for the foothills to the north of Viejas Casino. The two-laned road is nicely paved blacktop there, though shoulderless. Residues of the last wild fire that passed through the area are still visible from the pavement; blackened dead trees, mostly cleaned up remains of a couple of burnt houses. We made a few turns to stay on Viejas Grade Rd and took a 'look around' break to admire one of the two or three covered busstops along the road. I, wondering out loud why we can't have as nice busstops in the city. I mean... these are really nice shelters with benches and even came equipped with a bike rack!

Viejas Grade Rd, dirt portion... with my little slide evidence on far left.

After a couple of miles pavement ends just as the climb starts.The dirt road is wide and well-graded, however, quite firm enough for my 25 mm Gatorskin tires to handle. There are a few sections where the top is looser than others and fosters attentive bike handling. It is quite fun, though skidding along on that alternating with the bumpy washed out sections of the road where any loose top had been blown off by the weekend's vicious wind gusts were pretty hard on the tires. I wouldn't have liked to descend down this road on my road bike, but climbing it's 4.4 miles of 5% grade slope was a fun challenge. The most important things, of course, are to look ahead and plot out a good line to follow (spot the firmest bit of the road from afar and aim for them) and to lay off from braking. I was having quite a good time filming and photographing as we climbed, and got myself into a not-so-nice little wheel-sucking slide in the process. Old mountain-biking instinct came to my rescue, though, and I pedaled my way out of it without having to put a foot down.

Lucky for me, Tim is a wonderful bike touring partner in crime and enjoys stopping to take in the view as much as I do. The view southwest from Viejas Grade Rd is pretty smashing from various bends as we snaked our way up the WE flank of Poser Mountain. Beautiful Viejas Valley where the casino lies framed in by Viejas Mountain to the west, and all the prominent peaks in the coastal range looks rather different when seen from the east. It is still easy to pick out McGinty Mtn and Lyons Peak, however (if you squint you can still see the latter' fire lookout towers). I'm afraid we were a noisy pair and scared the local birds into hiding, though I did spot a couple of bluebirds and at least one meadow lark.

Collection of road signs at the top of Viejas Grade.

After a while we topped out and took another 'sight-seeing' break looking around the eclectic collection of road signs and railroad ties at the crest of the road... and couldn't help wondering how they were collected. Viejas Grade remains unpaved for a further mile or so beyond the crest, so we made a careful descent until we got to the black top. A few spunky local horses tried to race us down the hill, and a couple of black-headed Steller's jays escaped into tree canopies before I could fish out my camera.

We opted to descend down Oak Grove Dr instead of continuing on Viejas Grade Rd. Tim had gone on a bit ahead as I stopped to attempt to photograph a kestrel that was hunting near the fork of the road. I soon caught up, however, and opted for an inside line into a fast right curve in order to avoid a series of potholes in the middle of the lane when I saw white patch on the pavement around the corner. Sand! The thing had at least 3/4 of the lane covered, it was a fairly blind curve and I was doing around 30 mph on the inside line. Braking was not an option (the worst thing you could do that would guarantee a skid out) and changing the line at that speed while taking a 90 degree curve was not much of one either, so I weighed down my outside foot, aimed as far left (away from the main patch of sand) as my momentum allowed and mentally crossed all my digits... and nearly made it across when the front wheel suddenly gave way and deposited me on the bumpy and sandy pavement.

It was about as mild a crash as the situation would allow. I'm afraid I didn't manage to tuck in and hold on to the bike, however, and I found myself skidding along with right arm stretched across the pavement acting simultaneously as head cushion and a rather expensive brake pad. It is a wonder how fast acting a painkiller adrenaline is when you hit something hard like that. Nothing really hurt, though the perpetually bored voice in my head did, in the few long and drawn out seconds that I spent skidding across the road, chimed in its sincere hope that an evacuation by ambulance wouldn't be required (when I crashed face first in Pt Loma last year the 8 miles long ambulance ride had cost me $2400... aside from doctors and radiology and emergency room fees) and how I will have ruined another good pair of arm warmers by the time I came to a stop... Then, of course, I realized that I had taken the arm warmers off before we started climbing, so I came to my stop half way across the opposite traffic lane with a mouthful of sand and gravel, wondering if my poor right arm still had any skin left on it. Before I could properly inspect the damages, though, Tim, who had screeched to a stop just beyond the cursed curve, yelled out, 'Car!' So I ditched the thought of damage inspection and the bike and hopped clear off to the high side of the road.

Not from this ride, but same sort of 'sand washed/blown onto road behind a curve on Torrey Pines Park Rd.

The car was carefully driven by a nice local lady, however, and she stopped for Tim to retrieve my bike from the road and even asked if she could help. Luckily for me I didn't hit my head (some dirt swallowing not withstanding), was sure that I didn't break any bone and none of the cut looked too ghastly for my first aid kit to deal with. Tim proved a good medic and we swiftly rinsed dirt and sand off my plethora of road rashes and had the worst of them bandaged up within a few minutes (if you ever crash and end up with open wounds, it's best to clean them while you're still numb, of course).

After straightening out the banged bent right hood and inspecting the frame and wheels for cracks I thanked prudence again for having opted for the sturdy aluminum bike rather than a lighter carbon one, and we remounted and headed on down the hill to the Perkins' Store in Descanso. A couple of nice Avon salesladies were set up in front of the store there and we had a good chat. Perkins' is to Descanso what Lyons Valley Trading Post is to Lyons & Deerhorn Valley, I think. The best place to catch up on local news and stuff. By now my wounds were stinging quite a bit, so I decided to abandon the day's ambitious objective (Cuyamaca Lookout Rd) and head back to town.

Smooth descent on westbound I-8.

Alpine Castle.

We had a nice smooth roll down I-8 westbound shoulder to E Willow Rd exit and through Alpine before making a short (tho hilly) side trip to photograph the elusive Alpine Castle from Eltinge Dr. It was a good thing we turned back! Tim dropped me off at Cal Coast Bicycles on my way home, where Todd the super-mechanic found both of my tires quite a bit beyond moderately flat and the rear derailleur a bit bent. No major repair needed, however. I'm telling you, my Giant Defy aluminum bike performs quite much more than I had expected from a $700 road bike!

As lucky as I was not to bang up my head or come off the mountain with a broken bone, the road rashes were quite awful. It always hurts a lot more on the day after, of course. The first three or four nights were quite terrible. I had managed to spread the road rashes around and there simply wasn't any way I could position myself so that none of them were touching something. I was grateful that we were in the midst of a Santa Ana weather pattern then, though, so long sleeves and blanket weren't required as it would have been much more miserable peeling wounds open every few hours to unstick clothes and bed sheets. My right arm took quite a beating and my right shoulder still hasn't regain its full range of motion, 2 1/2 months later, but it could have been worse. For much of the first week I really wondered if the whole arm wouldn't fall off or go septic on me. The upper arm had lost so much skin and was quite deadened and sore. It got much better once all the road rashes had dried out. Then, of course, the itching began a bit later as the scabs dried off and start attaching their corners to things.

After-ride photo

And here is a series of unappetizing (but hopefully educational) photos in case you're curious about what happens when you get a road rash.

The day after.

One week after.

One month after.

Everything heals in the end and you eventually do regain range of motion and stuff. Just have to put up with the uncomfortable process for a bit. My arm has benefited from arm warmers and coolers to shield the fresh scar from the sun, of course, though my right knee has fared a bit worse. The deep gash is right at the apex of the join and so I have had to let it burn in the sun when out riding since knee warmers keep pulling scab off it and tearing it back up... so that wound still looks pretty hideous in mid-February. It's all cosmetic now, though. The least of my concern. Hopefully I will have enough time to start training again next week for another go at Cuyamaca Lookout Rd before warm weather arrives!

In the meanwhile, here's a little video from the day's ride.

Musing: You can wait. A few extra minutes waiting to accomodate others won't ruin your life...

... And if it does, well, what does that really say about the life you are living?

When I got to college back in the late 1990's the internet was still just a few years from its birth and yours truly still spent most of my study time researching stuff using library index cards and checking out thick textbooks. It took hours to gather enough information to write a decent A-worthy paper.

Do you remember what a real book looks like? Me, too!

I still remember the first time I used the library computer to look up something from the NCBI database. There was no WiFi then, and the connection was slow. You'd click on a link and count off (sometimes more than) a few seconds before the new page would load. But it was still so much faster than sifting through the pile of library index cards to find the right books and then going to fetch the books and combing through them to the pages with the info you wanted. I didn't mind that the pages were taking a while to load. I was just happy that it took me minutes instead of hours to get the info I wanted.

I also used to drive... a lot. I bought my first car in the winter of 1993, and, because of my then job, I drove that thing 30,000 or so miles a year until I went back to college and became half-way normal, so to speak. It was great being able to get somewhere more than 15 miles away and back in hardly any time at all and without breaking a sweat. Before I bought a car I spent two years at a school in Southern California and lived on campus. I was too young to have a car then, so I got everywhere by bicycle.

Yes, it's narrow and steep, but Presidio Dr is still the mildest of all the other roads that lead from Mission Valley to the uptown Mesa. On some of the other roads, many of these guys won't be able to pedal up at all.

Two years of bike-commuting often in 95+ degree heat or in sub-40F cold and sometimes in thick wet fog or nasty stingy rain while hauling grocery and other types of load over rolling hills of varying degrees of steepness is an experience that stays with you a bit. It was relatively easy for me to chill and not get annoyed when I found myself 'stuck' behind a slow tractor (there were a few of them around out in the country) or a cyclist on narrow uphill bits of the many rural highways I drove on. A few extra minutes (if it takes that long... a lot of time you'll be presented with a break in traffic that would allow you to pass in matter of seconds) is a small inconvenience compared to what the tractor driver or the cyclist is going through. I remembered what it was like for a 12 miles commute to take a whole sweaty hour. It's easy to dismiss strangers' validity to justify being annoyed at them, but others' motive for doing something or being somewhere often is a lot less evil than you'd like to think it. Why are those slow cyclists riding up this narrow road and slowing me down? They should be banned from the street if they are too slow to keep up with cars! How selfish for the cyclist to be riding on this road! Even when they are doing the 25 mph speed limit, I could still be going faster if only they aren't in the way!

He's wearing lycra and riding a racing road bike, but he is also only commuting to and from work.

But what if bicycling is their only way of getting to places? And what if they are there because this narrow road is the least terribly steep way of getting up this particular hill, the top of which could be where the cyclist lives or where his workplace is? What if the cyclist can't afford to just up and move from his current house or apartment just to make his commute less hilly? Not everyone has the same choices that you are presented with. Not all cyclists are out on the road just for an exercise or for fun. And not every cyclist that ride in lycra are 'recreational' cyclist either (if you have ever ridden a bike 30+ miles in unpadded jeans, then you would understand why many would weigh down their backpack or paniers with additional clothes just so they can ride in lycra!). If you are willing to risk someone else's life and limbs just so you could get to where you want to go a minute or two faster (or not... if you then run into traffic lights), then who exactly is being selfish?

That someone else is somebody's kid or parent or brother or sister or friend, too. What if one of your daughter is out there riding her bike to get to work right now, what would you like the drivers that encounter her on the street to do? Real life isn't like the movies. If you hit someone, they get really hurt or die. And then what happens to the people that depend on them? All that just to get to drive a little faster? Is that really the kind of person you want to be? Just think about it a bit.

Mt Soledad by the steepest route: Country Club Dr

When someone tells you that he has cycled up Mt Soledad without specifying which route he took, he hasn't told you much. La Jolla's little-mound-by-the-sea can be ridden up by many different roads at varying degrees of physical brutality; from the gentle and roomy Soledad Mountain Rd on the southeast side to the relentlessly steep (and trafficky) Via Capri on the north side, but the most monstrous of them all is also one of the least well known; Country Club Drive.

Country Club Dr just past Mar Ave.

The proper climb begins as you head south on Exchange Place south from Torrey Pines Rd in La Jolla and ends with the left turn onto Upper Hillside Dr. The tally is 0.8 mile at 11% average grade (max grade 16% for a couple of patches). 

As Exchange Pl curves left to become Soledad Ave, veer straight (or slightly right, if you will) onto Country Club Dr and be prepared to shift to lower gear. Sufferingville begins at Mar Ave intersection until the first left curve with maximum grade of around 16%. This stretch of the road is also very narrow, which makes its usual lack of traffic quite a blessing. There are some really nice houses along the road if you can manage to take in their view, though. After the left curve the golf course appears on your right side and the road mellows out for a short stretch. Take your time! This is the only real break in hard climbing you are going to get before the top.

Country Club Dr at the golf course. The only 'rest' stretch on the climb.

Romero Dr switchback.

At Fairway Ln the steep climbing recommences. Stay left on Country Club Dr and then make the next left turn onto Romero Dr. More gorgeous houses, gardens and driveways abound as the road carves itself up the slope in a stylish S. If you are already suffering, take a wide line at the switchback curve before turning left onto the brutally steep and straight ramp that is Brodicaea Dr to allow your legs a mini-break before the 16% grade ramp (don't stop, though. It gets more reasonable toward the top).

If you aren't here to set a new Strava PR or to snag to much coveted KoM, though, take a break at Encelia Dr curve and go check out the gorgeous overlook on the left side. The road dead ends but a paved trail continues a bit down the hill and around a left curve to a water tank. On a clear day the view of La Jolla Village and the shoreline is drop dead gorgeous! I wouldn't ride a road bike down that trail since it's full of broken glasses and other debris, but a little hike into such scenic solitude never hurts anyone!

Encelia Dr trail to water tank.

Encelia Dr up toward Upper Hillside Dr.

If you are trying to snag the much coveted Strava KoM on this leg chewing climb, however, turn right with the road and go straight up Encelia Dr to the left turn up Upper Hillside Dr, the official 'top' of the steepest route up Soledad Mountain... Via Capri Dr included. It is a charming climb lined by houses I could never dream of affording (if you manage to register anything but the pavement in front of you on your way up). Traffic-wise, you'd have to be the most unlucky rider on the planet to have to share the road with more than a handful of cars along the way. That's something that can't be said about Via Capri Dr

Yes, yes, I've gone up Via Capri a few times. It is relentlessly gnarly, but what turns me off about it is having cars speed by on left while dodging parallel-parked cars on the right while trying make snailish progress up the steep slope. Country Club route is a much more serene and personal climb where the handful of cars that might drive by go at 15 mph, with the drivers noticing everything on the road (because, on such a narrow and curvy road, they have to!) and are much more keen on a friendly wave or even a verbal cheer to urge you up the hill.

Turning left from Encelia Dr onto Upper Hillside Dr.

Upper Hillside Dr to Via Casa Alta.

Once you've got to Upper Hillside Dr and the end of the official climb, however, you might just notice that you aren't yet on top of the mountain. The way is barred by a heavy duty fence and gate... If you are nice, quiet and discreet, a nice local may tell you how to get thru the gated complex to the other side where you'll remount the bike, go straight on the few yards remaining of Upper Hillside Dr and make the right turn up the 12-14% long ramp that is Via Casa Alta.

Spectacular view is earned by spectacular pain... or something like that.

The true top of Soledad Mtn. The TV antennae on Via Casa Alta (with a good view of Mission Bay & Pt Loma to boot).

Be sure to look to your left as you head up the cracky cement pavement! For all the pain and suffering you are paying to get up this hill, you might as well reap some scenic rewards along the way. Once you've crested the true top of Soledad Mtn, the view also opens up on the right side just before the television antennae. A good place for a photo op, perhaps?


Via Casa Alta dumps you onto La Jolla Scenic Dr between Via Capri Dr and Soledad Mountain Rd (turn left to go to the cross). There are many ways of descending the mountain, but if you need to go back to Exchange Pl at Torrey Pines Rd (or to La Jolla Village proper) by the least trafficky way without descending down steep, curvy and very cracky roads, I'd suggest hanging a right onto LJ Scenic Dr, then;
-R - Nautilus St
-R - W Muirlands Dr
-R - Fay Ave
-R - Pearls St
-L - High Ave
-R - Virginia Wy
-L - Exchange Pl

If you feel like climbing some more, though, more Mt Soledad back-road routes coming up in a bit!