After months of structured Ironman training, and weeks of recovery, I wanted to do something different.  Today, I went back to my roots of mountain climbing on my road bike.  Fortunately, all that Ironman training has my legs in great shape so I can just jump into it.

One of my long-term goals is to complete the ten hardest cycling climbs in California.  To date, I have done Whitney Portal which is considered the fifth hardest climb in California and did about 75% of Horseshoe Meadows before massive winds literally blew me off my bike.  The wind was so strong it was unwise to continue.  Today, I had some business up near Mt Baldy and decided to combine work with suffering.

What I didn’t expect was that my van would break down along the way.  About ten miles before I reached where I was going to park to start the ascent, it started to chug and spit.  I drove it to the nearest Pep Boys where they said it would take about four hours to fix it.  Just about the amount of time it would take me to climb the mountain and come back.  I unloaded the bike, suited up, and told the guys to call me if they had any questions.  Off I went with about an additional five miles added to my ride.  A nice warm-up actually rather than starting out with cranking against some vertical which was my original plan.

After navigating through five miles of traffic I was able to start the ascent through a neighborhood and then turn onto Mt Baldy Rd.  The great thing about this ride is that it is all on one road.  It’s hard to get lost.

This ride is all up at a steady grade with an average of 7% grade.  This day, was overcast for the first half of the ride so there really was no advance view of what was ahead of me.  It was also in the middle of the week so traffic was almost non-existent.  A welcome feature as there are two tunnels that you must navigate within the first six miles of the 13 mile climb.

Finally, at mile 10 on the official ascent, the switchbacks began and the sun came out in full force to warm me up.  The views at this point were spectacular as the overcast day had burned off.  As I approached the top I went for the additional quarter mile 13% grade climb up to the chairlift.  I had come that far, a little more pain was worth it to complete the 5,202 foot climb and reach the 6,444 foot summit.

The ride back was certainly easy as it was all downhill, but cold.  13 miles of downhill gives no break for a little warm up.  The sun helped a little and that five mile ride back to my van got me back to square one as well.

As expected, my van was done and ready to roll.  Except for a $640 repair bill, it was an otherwise perfect day.  And, yes I got my biz done post ride and post van retrieval.