This was a good day with a start filled with frustrations. I had set my alarm for 5:15 but slept right through it and woke up a little after 5:50. So I was in a rush, and I generally don't do well when that's the case. Got dressed and got my gear ready, but I had to go out to the car too many times to get stuff that I needed but had forgotten. I tried to push the rear disc brake pistons on my bike back so the pads wouldn't rub against the rotor, it worked for a short while and was probably good enough for most of this ride. I had the devil of a time getting the rear wheel back on, turns out one of the caps for the through axle wasn't pushed all the way in. So that was frustrating because I saw time ticking away and was worried I wouldn't have enough of it to get to Mt Baldy Village. Didn't eat anything before heading out. Up I St to Bonita Ave, turning right there and taking it over to Mountain Ave (the one in Claremont). I took this road up to the Thompson Creek Trail, where I turned and rode it (winding with lots of walkers, not a good choice) up to Mills Ave. From there, it was a short jog to get onto Mt Baldy Rd. The gradient started out fairly shallow, around 3% average, then it kicked up to 5-7 % before getting into double digits around the reservoir below the dam. It got a little shallower on the stretch up to the turnoff to head back down to Upland, then right past this turnoff it got steep again before returning to the 5-8% range. Another flattish section before I entered the tunnels, where it got steep and stayed that way for about a mile and a half. That was brutal, the hardest stretch of road I've ridden since I went up Double Peak. What kept me going was looking at the elevation profile on my Wahoo and seeing that the gradient got more shallow before the village. Even still, it seemed neverending to get to the point where the gradient dropped. From that point, it was manageable, but my legs were really toasted. I rode, in low gear into the village and stopped to take a picture by the post office before turning around and heading back down. The ride down was initially sketchy because the roads were so steep and the road quality not ideal. I rode my brakes all the way down to the tunnels, and after that the descent was not as steep and much more fun. All the way back to Mills Ave, which I stayed and continued coasting downhill to Base Line Rd. I turned left onto Indian Hill Blvd and rode down to our old neighborhood, stopping to take a picture of our old house on Wellesley Dr before continuing over to Foothill Blvd to get to Mountain Ave. It was at this point that I realized I didn't know Ed and Susan's address, I just knew it was off Bonita Ave. So I headed back that way, making one false turn when I thought I saw our car, then eventually following the Wahoo map back to its starting point, no problem. I was pretty slow on this stretch, legs were tired and my rear wheel disc brake was binding against the rotor. But I made it back in a little over 2 hours, which was much, much faster than I thought I would be.
Avg speed = 13.7 mph. Total mileage = 28.4 mi
Avg power = 156 W. Weighted avg power = 181 W
Total elevation gain = 3230'
Avg heartrate = 130 bpm (Coospo)
Turns out that was a good thing, since I got a late start and didn't understand when the church service was actually supposed to start. Even still, I was back in time for a quick breakfast and a shower before we had to leave. At church, we got a chance to see Kimball and Pam Coburn, which was excellent. Saw Sharon Lawson as well, she's married now and has three boys. John Mohl stopped in church to say a quick hello (Jenna was in town, so he didn't stay after church). After church, we had lunch at Walter's (Ann loves this place), and again the conversation with Ed and Susan was free-flowing and lots of fun. Drove back to their house and packed up, then hit the road to drive home. In the evening, Ann helped me put my dinner pouches for the backpacking trip together, and I did some more organization of stuff to be packed up tomorrow.
I read a short novel, more of a novella, by Marion Zimmer Bradley called The Colors of Space. It was cheesy, about a kid who travels onan alien spaceship and ends up helping humans get along better with them while at the same time acquiring their faster-than-light travel technology. Then I started Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It's about a bounty hunter cop who is tasked with tracking down and retiring androids on a post-nuclear war apocalyptic Earth.
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