The Terrible Two 2011

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Intro

Where to start… well, the Terrible Two is a double century: taking on a ride of 200 miles, or 320 km, means you’ll spend an inordinate amount of time on a road bike. The last time I’ve done this was sufficiently long ago that I had forgotten all the pains and aches such endeavour is capable to inflict, which is probably why I was able to talk myself and Patrick/Ratpick, or was it the other way around – into this. Actually, I think I’ll blame Dan Connelly, whose articulate blog posts describing last year’s edition instilled the promise of epic adventures and accomplishment into me.

A large group of half woken cyclists gathered at Analy High School in Sebastopol early in the morning; bib numbers and drop bags were organized neatly and cleverly and resulted in a hassle-free prep. There seems to be a somewhat specific ‘double’ crowd at these events, given the amount of previous years’ Terrible Two finishers jerseys, Alta Alpina jerseys or California Triple crown ones that could be spotted in the peloton.

From Trinity into Wine Country

The first 13 miles were ‘neutralised’ as we were following a pace car that would trip the traffic lights while traversing Santa Rosa. The lights didn’t always cooperate, and brief breaks in the group with subsequent sprints to catch up provided a good opportunity to warm up in these chilly early morning hours. The first bump on the way, Bennett Valley road, provided more warm-up options. This was followed by Trinity Grade, the first climb which registers as a peak in the Terrible Two elevation profile, and which I found to have a certain Old La Honda quality (similar distance and grade). Patrick and I adopted an easy pace, as it was too early to break a real sweat yet. The Trinity Grade descent featured one particularly fast and furious stretch, which inspired some amongst us to break the 50 mph barrier (prudent as always, I failed, though I did come close).

During the Trinity climb we had spotted a tandem coed team, who were hauling ass. Well, turns out they hauled significantly more ass during the descents and flats, and as we had quite a section of the aforementioned in store at this point, we both took the opportunity to jump on the fast-paced tandem-train that was developing. Along the Silverado trail in purrty Napa Valley it was swallowing up entire groups of riders and by the time we hit Calistoga a mini-peloton had formed. I did a few pulls but often times it was hard to just get in front of the tandem given the speeds developed. They zipped past the rest stop without even blinking, probably a bit tired of all the attention, but we’d see the Awesome Tandem duo back a few times later.

Geyser ordeal

We were doing pretty well on time, 60 miles in 3 hours 15 minutes or so, but these were of course the ‘easy’ miles. Next up was the first real test, the Geysers climb; a two-pronged assault on the climbing legs. Patrick was on fire and took off like a missile. I initially tried to match his pace but found myself quickly out of my comfort zone so I backed off and set my own pace. This didn’t help things much though and said comfort zone quickly evaporated in its entirety, and I ended up suffering my way up this 2500 ft ascent. I blamed everything from a painful foot to my seat height micro-adjustments the previous day, my lack of proper caffeination that morning and my inappropriate training regimen (or lack thereof) but I figured at some point the climb would end and things would clear up again.

They would, but first there was a tricky pothole-ridden descent to negotiate (Geysers rd to Cloverdale). Initially I was rather entertained by it but soon I was longing for a full suspension mountain bike, to alleviate the relentless impact of bumps, cracks and other asphalt abominations. Various creaking sounds originating from the nether parts of my bike didn’t help boost my confidence either. Once in Cloverdale, I regrouped with Patrick, who was kind enough to wait for me, and with some other riders we set up a paceline towards our lunch stop.

The ‘Terrible’ part

A massive intake of fresh calories would be my ticket to personal improvement, I figured, and besides gobbling down a turkey-cheese-avocado sandwich, half a bag of chips and a can of coke I filled one of my bottles with some powdery Hammer stuff. We’d ridden 110 miles now, but as was mentioned in the course description, the ‘terrible’ part of the Terrible Two had yet to be experienced by the fatigued riders. Exhibit one: Skaggs road; an unusual climb, a sequence of short plateaus and very steep uphill pitches, with a a thrilling descent mixed in here and there, but undeniably getting steeper as it went.

Today the weather gods had delivered us a moderate, relatively cool day, but the soaring sun and low-80’s temperatures we felt on the widely exposed Skaggs road gave us a hint of how bad it could be. However, the redeeming quality of these climbs is that they all end at some point and you can look back and proudly declare ‘that wasn’t too bad’, and so was the case for Skaggs. Patrick had been merciful and taken on a moderate pace which allowed me to stick with him and slowly get the hang of things again.

A fun downhill to the coast was up, but as I knew from Dan’s blog, we also had to tackle a formidable barrier to it, the ominous Rancheria Wall. It lived up to its reputation – relentlessly steep and providing the sensation of a genuine kick-in-the-genitals. I was happy with my compact gearing and we survived it with some style, with Patrick in particular thriving on the ludicrously steep slopes. I also felt reasonably good on these Henry Coe-style gradients as compared to my experience on the more moderately inclined but longer Geysers road.

Ocean of hope

Soon enough, around mile 145, we hit Stewart’s Point and the ocean revealed itself to us in all its glory – with only a few hints of fog decorating the vast vistas of cliffs, breaking waves, beaches and rocks deep below us. Rejuvenated by these sights and inspired by the promise of tailwinds and high speeds on the coastal rollercoasters, I wanted to hammer this 15 mile coastal passage home. Maybe not the best of ideas, as we had another beast of a climb coming up, Fort Ross road, but Patrick and I set up a good pace-line anyway, together with a rider on aero bars. The tailwinds were a no-show, and aero-bars was beat and unable to hang on for long or do much pulling, but I enjoyed this stretch particularly.

The last major obstacle of the day, the Fort Ross climb, now loomed ahead. After refueling at the rest stop at the base, we took off. Fort Ross is a really steep affair, hard to compare to one of my local climbs but Bohlman, while coming close, still looks fairly tame compared to it. Both of us were feeling strong though, and swept up a few living dead on our way up – some were still in good spirits, others didn’t say a word, most likely to preserve precious energy. On the bumpy downhill Patrick was able to showcase his mad descending skills again – in fact, he most impressed me while jumping – and clearing – the entire length of a cattle gate on one occasion. Mtb skills do come in handy on this ride. The climb was – again – two tiered, with a final +500ft section before dropping us all the way down into the town of Occidental.

The last bits

Only a good twenty miles, one particularly bumpy section, and a mellow final 600ft climb separated us from the finish line – somehow I didn’t feel fatigue or pain anymore and wanted to bring it home, so I dropped the hammer on these last few miles. It’s hard to explain, usually ‘beer gravity’ does wonders to me, but I knew no beer would be served at the finish in the school. I even got Patrick in some trouble on the last climb, so I could feel somewhat redeemed for my sub-par showing on most of the other hills.

We rolled in at a bit over 14 hours. Not great, but also not bad for a pair of semi-rookies in the world of double centuries. The post-ride food was tasty (nice polenta a.o.), the showers very welcome, and the organizers very… organized and pleasant to deal with. Great volunteers who took every occasion to pamper the exhausted riders were present all along the course. I am currently in the process of trying to forget the agony inflicted by those 16% grades and embellishing the good memories, while icing my sore achilles tendon, so I can start thinking of tackling the next challenge!

Patrick’s report Patrick’s photos