By coincidence, this was almost the same route that I rode last year on the last day of the year, coming up from Hemet and riding into Palm Springs. And, just like last year, I’m guessing that I won’t make it see midnight and New Year’s Eve this year as well. Nothing like six hours on a bike to make for an early evening.
What a wonderful way to end a year of great cycling! After starting 2009 by cycling here in Rancho Mirage in early January, I rode in Thailand, South Africa and up in the Hudson River area, Upstate New York (Finger Lakes and Lake Champlain), rode the gaps in Vermont, did the rainy ride to Montauk with Clarence and finally two and a half weeks riding in Copenhagen before coming here for the end of the year. This may have been one of the best rides, but certainly the last of the year.
Here is the ride, up through the San Bernardino Mountains from Banning, across the high pine forests through Idyllwild and then down into the Palm Springs area:
Pam drove me up to Banning, through the fields of huge wind turbines. Here is a shot of Pam at the wheel and the mountains that you can see in the Google Earth snap just to the south (above) the Interstate 10 sign:
Kai helped me set up my bike in the parking lot of a liquor store just outside of Banning. My plan was to start riding at 9:00 am and I was off on time.
It was perfect riding weather, particularly considering it was the last day of December. The temperature started at 10 degrees and as I climbed, so did the temperature at the higher elevations.. so it pretty much stayed at 10 degrees all day.
Here is a shot looking back down towards Banning and you can see the winding road, climbing out of the high desert.
Here is the Garmin Connect data on the ride (and you can see the entire ride data on the website at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21385348.) The climb lasted for about three hours and twenty-minutes. Not fast but slow and steady.
As the road got closer to 2000 meters in elevation, there was a lot of snow by the road and some ice on the pavement. In fact, it was the black ice and gravel on the road that probably caused an accident that happened just behind me. As I was riding on the wide shoulder on the inside of a curve in the shadows, where there was a lot of black ice, I heard the tires of a car crossing into the median and crunching on the gravel between the two lanes and then suddenly a huge crash. My first instinct was to crank hard and steer over towards the edge of the shoulder in order to avoid becoming collateral damage. When the crush of metal and spinning of tires stopped, I turned to see a vehicle still spinning out of control behind me. Obviously the car coming up behind me had swerved wide on the curve and somehow crossed over into the oncoming lane, hitting a car coming down the hill taking the curve too tightly.
This picture was taken less than a minute after the crash and already a green coated park ranger was there to deal with the situation. Since the entire thing had happened behind me and I had not seen anything, I took off to continue my ride. But, you can see how slick the road is and how there is loose gravel between the two lanes, which probably contributed to the accident.
The top of the climb was at 6200 feet, about 3000 meters. Here was the sign before the col.
Yes, that is a snow bank.
On the descent, after dropping about 200 meters in altitude, I was pedaling through Idyllwild, a lovely little town in the mountains, when the airborne advertising hit me. A little restaurant was cooking hamburgers and they smelled so good that I had to pull off and stop to inhale one.
The route flattened out and climbed slightly for about 10 km as it passed through this lovely pine forest valley. I seem to remember that the old TV series, Bonanza, filmed some of its shots of the Ponderosa Ranch up here. Nonetheless, this was a particularly lovely part of the ride.
After riding for about five hours, the big descent began, heading down the Palms to Pines Highway (although I was riding from the pines to the palms.)
There is an expression that cyclists use when the day is so perfect that it doesn’t even feel like work, and today was “chainless.” I give total responsibility to a huge Mexican food dinner that I had last night. When Clarence and I rode the Montauk Century in September, we also did our huge carbo-loading at a Mexican food joint out on Long Island. It was such an easy ride, despite the climbs and hours in the saddle. I can honestly say that I was not tired at all during the 5:38 of riding, even on the steepest of climbs. To steal a line from Murakami Haruki, while there might have been pain, suffering was optional.
Here’s to a Happy New Year and many more “chainless” rides in 2010.