Journeys (Who cares about the destination?): Week 29 7/26/2010

Mt Shasta Summit Century - 60 miles

Work Commute - 20 miles

Saturday am ride - 25 miles

105 miles - 15th goal hit

Mt Shasta Summit Century rocks!

I had a great weekend up in Shasta City. It started out Saturday morning with a quick ride up the bike trail, 25 miles. Went in for a haircut on my way out of town and came out almost bald. Frank got a little excited, giddy even, when I told him "yea, you can cut it shorter, I'm going to let it grow out this winter anyway." It is so short I won't need a hair cut for 6 months. People tell me it looks good, I am going to believe they are not *just* being nice and it does look okay.

Had an uneventful drive up the central valley to Mt Shasta City. I was not sure about my hotel in Dunsmiur when I arrived, it looked like the Bates Motel, more in atmosphere than architecture, but still evoked a feeling, ya know? I almost drove on to try and find another room, but I figured the chance of that was pretty slim, so I checked in. The room was clean, didn't smell, had too many entrances to the room for my liking (3 doors, and two huge windows) but it seemed secure enough. I decided to avoid the shower scene flashback by just not taking a shower, an idea that made me very popular when I shared it later that evening.

The view from my hotel parking lot

Headed up the freeway 6 miles to Mt Shasta City, found the Goat Brewery and waited for everyone else to arrive. After about 10 minutes, I called Nicole, and discovered that I had the wrong restaurant. I really need to actually read my messages, not skim. Headed on down the road and met up with everyone at the correct place, the Trinity Cafe. Dinner was good, not too much. Dessert at Dan's room, the homemade s'more cookies courtesy of Jan were great. Just the right touch to round off the evening. New guy joined us, Jared, friend of Dan and Nicole's, nice guy, a lot of fun and Rob, friend of Jared's, also a good guy. Rob was going to ride the Super Century after a pretty hard crash a few days before, his tire actually came off the rim while he was on it. Of all the things I think that can go wrong while riding, that one had never crossed my mind. It does now.

Dessert at Dan's

Up at 6 am to get ready and load up the car and then to meet up with Tanya Vandrick at the registration. I was more than a little apprehensive that this ride was going to be more than I could do, even though I was only doing the metric (60 miles), the terrain from the freeway looks like it is all up and down, no flat. We hit the road by 7:15 am. The rest of the day was just awesome, this is one of the best rides I have ever been on. Tanya is great company, a solid rider, good challenge for me to push a little harder to keep up. And, the scenery, wow, more than I can describe. It seems like just about every turn had a new view of Mt Shasta, or some vista off over blue-green mountains, babbling brooks, flowing rivers. The weather was perfect, just cool in the morning, warm enough mid-day that the shade felt cool as you rode through it, but not so hot I was dripping a sweat trail behind me.

Tanya

The route was challenging, but all the climbs were doable. The ascent up W.A. Barr road was difficult for me about half way up, my lower back started knotting up. I really need to get back on my core work, I have been way too lax about keeping up with it. But I finally came up on that yellow turnaround arrow (and was *very* happy that I did not have to follow the orange arrow straight on further up the road!) and the rest stop. And, one of the best views of Shasta of the day.

W.A. Barr road

The turnaround!

Tanya and I headed back down the canyon, big smiles on our faces. Hit the finish at around 1:15, had a really good dinner (chicken/black bean burritos, oriental salad, veggies) and parted ways to head on back home. I ran into Will, Jared, and Rob at the second rest stop, and I saw Nicole come barreling down W.A. Barr as I was going up (that woman is absolutely fearless), but I didn't get a chance to ride with them this year. Maybe next, Tanya and I were talking about doing the century next year, maybe...