05-23-07-Alpine-Portola-Old La Honda-Woodside Ramble.gpx-t0

A very interesting ride – I decided to join the Noon Goons for their Wednesday ride, which typically goes up Old La Honda – I started from Alpine & Portola, which avoided the Arastradero and Alpine grinds – the ride to Old La Honda was very easy, with my heartrate only averaging about 130 bpm – I started my timer late, though – I missed the first 1.5 miles of Portola before I realized I needed to start my timer! At least I had it going for the climb up Old La Honda – speaking of which, when we hit Old La Honda, there was the predictable surge near the bottom of the climb and it was everyone for themselves – I quickly got my heartrate up above my LT threshhold (159 bpm) and saw it hovering around 165 bpm – not a good sign! I was also in my 42×25 gear for the first part of the climb (ratio of 1.68) – but I dropped it into my 30×21 (ratio of 1.43) after the first 0.75 miles – I actually kept my cadence fairly high – averaging about 86 rpm. But at the 1.00 mile mark, I decided I better stop and roll back down to finish my own ride – I have the Canada Rd time trial coming up in a few days and I didn’t really plan on doing a hard hillclimb just 3 days before the time trial! I was going to originally ride with Dani, but she has a cold and had to bail, which is why I decided to join the Noon Goons for part of their ride – I just wanted to see what it was like to charge up Old La Honda quickly – and I got my wish – I did that first 1.00 mile in just 6:05 – an average speed of 9.8 mph!!! If I had been able to keep up that pace (which I would not have been able to do, at least not quite yet), then I would have had a good shot at breaking 20 minutes for the climb – wooooooohoooooo!!!! Now I know what it feels like to go at almost a 10 mph pace up Old La Honda – and let me tell you – it is really hard!! But at least I was able to hang in there for that first 1.00 mile. I think I’ll join them every Wednesday now, and see if I can go all the way next time, but at a slightly easier pace – like try to keep my heartrate right at my LT threshhold the whole way up and see what kind of time I can get – maybe I’ll break into the 22:xx range next week – wouldn’t that be just so cool?? The rest of the ride was just me tooling around Woodside – I thought I might be able to hook up with the Noon Goons again, but never ended up seeing them – oh, well!