benweir.com

I did another "almost" century on Saturday. 98.6 miles with 8300' of climbing. My total time from leaving home to getting back was 8 hours 3 minutes and moving time was 6:53. This was my first solo "century". The previous longest solo ride I did was around 70 miles or so.

Ridden clockwise. I had originally planned to climb Umunhum but didn't feel like working that hard so early in the ride. I had already worked hard enough just climbing Hicks! Plus I don't like the descent of Umunhum so it wasn't looking very appealing to climb in that regard either.

The headwinds on McKean and Uvas roads at the beginning were brutal. I was using a lot of my 50x26 gear and probably doing a whopping 12mph on the flats there. Looking at the weather history for Saturday I see the wind was out of the southeast that day until the front passed at 4pm and it switched back to the usual northwest wind

I stopped for lunch in a tiny little market on Casserly Rd and got a surprisingly good pre-made pastrami sandwich for $3.29. Also got some Gatorade and a Snickers bar that I ended up never eating. Then Hazel Dell to Eureka Canyon to Highland. I had done the Eureka Canyon and Highland stretch about a month ago in 95 degree heat and it was much more pleasant this weekend! This time I took the right turn onto Mt. Bache road and climbed that and Loma Prieta Way until the pavement ended. It was my first time coming that way and I hadn't paid close attention to the specs beforehand. So the 1200' climb with several very steep sections took me a little by surprise, especially at mile 73

Then a quick stop at the Summit Store for more Gatorade and a delicious raspberry crumble bar before the final 15 miles home. Old Santa Cruz from Summit road to Lexington is by far my favorite descent down in this area