I haven't been riding as much in recent times as I used to and, as my ride reports last year indicated, I had a string of DNFs going into this year. It was time to do something about that.

But things weren't looking good after my attempt earlier this year on the Death Valley Double. I had knee problems on that attempt in March, due to very low mileage going into it. In April and May I increased my miles and rediscovered the concept of pacing, which enabled me to get through TOTF. Then last week I felt real good on the Grand Tour so I figured I could at least finish the Terrible Two.

I drove up to Santa Rosa on Friday, having managed to secure the last hotel room in town after repeated calls to all hotels over a 48 hour period (some of you know how much I love to plan well in advance for all aspects of my life). It being the last room in town, it was not a non-smoking room, but nothing that proping the curtains away from the windows with a chair and keeping the sliding glass window open could not remedy a bit. Besides, I kind of like the sound of trucks going by at night.

I got about five hours sleep. That's way better than two hours after leaving a beer tasting in L.A. at 11PM and driving to Fresno for a 6 AM start, but... I am drifting, that's a different story... Sorry.

The start of the TT is a mass start out at a school on Willow Road. I think I had gotten my shoes on just about as the last rider in the pack zipped by on the road near to where I was in the parking lot. I hurried up and after a couple of miles had caught the pack and was happily part of the large peloton moving through the pre-sunrise scene of Santa Rosa.

There was no WAY this year that I was going to burn myself out and experience the acute stabbing pains in my legs on the Geyser climb like I had the previous year. At least not if had any choice in the matter. So I paced myself. I'm getting better at that these days.

It's about 20 miles or so to the base of the first big climb, by which time the pack has pretty much become several different pace groups of five to twenty riders each. Then the Trinity wall hits. A mile or so of it seems like 10% plus with some stretches even steeper for a few hundred feet. Very glad to have the 39x30 gear on the bike.

The drop off down into the Napa Valley is good road surface but there are still enough people clumped together that inexperienced descenders give some cause for worry. Max speeds of 50 mile per hour happen with no effort on a couple of the steep sections during the descent. Good road surface though.

Then its regroup time and by now one is with riders at ones own pace. I'm in what must be about the third or fourth group back. We are hammering. Eric Norris is there. A couple of guys named Eric and Dave from the South Bay who I had met and ridden with quite a bit the previous Saturday on the Grand Tour are there. About eight or ten of us. The pace is not intolerable but not slow as we slowly gain on the pace line ahead of us. We slow to join that group. After a couple of miles, a few people decide to hammer on. I stay with them for a while but a few miles shy of the Calistoga rest stop I let them go and just cruise at my pace in the morning sun. Nothing but the Napa valley, green grape vines, blue sky, and the sound of a bicycle on smooth pavement.

I had decided to minimize my rest stops and just keep moving so after three minutes at Calistoga, my two water bottles were filled with the Lemon flavored whatever it was they had. I had a third water bottle in my lower cage beneath the down tube, half filled with water and made some use of it, although I mostly made it on two water bottles as the weather never got above 90 F. and only then for about an hour or two after the lunch stop. But you have to be prepared and I didn't have a Camel back (I dislike carrying stuff on my back).

There is always more climbing on the TT than one remembers. That includes going out after the first rest stop at Calistoga. The thing though, on this ride, is that the scenery never gives up. It's either vineyards or babbling brooks, or granite boulders or precipitous climbs and descents amidst grey mountain sides silhouetted in the bright sun. It was babbling brook time after the Calistoga stop.

Also, for the first time in a while, I felt like I was in shape and when gain happened, I could put pressure on the pedals and keep a pace going. Training does work. In the six weeks preceding this ride, I had 1000 miles in my legs, including two doubles, so I was more prepared than I had been in a while. My rule is now: 150 miles per week of quality miles to be in shape for a double. 100 mile weeks don't get it done.

A quick tour through the Alexander Valley and then the climb up the Geyser begins. Frankly, I don't care what they say about the climbs after lunch on Skaggs. I find the first two or three miles of the Geyser climb to be the hardest climb on the Terrible Two. Well, OK, Fort Ross. But we'll get to that later. On paper, the Geyser is just like my workout climb up Rambla Pacifico up from Malibu to Saddle Peak, plus another few hundred feet. But when you are on a road you don't know very well, distances lengthen. So it is with Geyser. But the stabbing pains were not there yet and the climb did not seem quite so long as last year. Things were looking up.

The elevation outline pictured above does not do justice to the double summit of Geyser. The dip is bigger than is shown and the second climb much longer seeming. Again it is steep at first then more normal. A quick water fill up and then one of the most technical descents on the California Double Century circuit ensues.

Basically, you are trying to see the road surface which is camouflaged by a tree canopy which throws shadows everywhere making it hard to tell if the rough road surface you are travelling over does or does not have a pot hole where there looks like there just might be a pot hole. I have no idea how Ken Eichstadt takes these roads when he sets the course record on this thing, but I would not even want to try to follow his wheel down the back of Geyser (not that he would not have dropped my sorry ass long before on the ascent).

About a third of the way down, just after getting kind of used to the technical difficulties and in a zone, about fifty feet in front of me a bobcat leaps from left to right across the road directly in full view, touching down with his or her paws just briefly in a swift darting motion before plummeting into the trees and brush to the right lower side of the road. Darker fur than I would normally imagine a bobcat to have, very dark grey with even darker splotches. Maybe two and half to three feet in length. Very cute cat.

About ten MILES, several short sections of gravel and dirt, and a few minor rolling up hills later, the course makes its way through Cloverdale, then across the 101, another several miles of warming country highway and into the lunch stop. Prior to lunch I have only about 7 minutes off the bike and make it to the century mark in 6 hours. Not bad for a century with 6500 feet of gain. About five miles out from lunch I am cruising over rollers alone when a pace line comes zipping by at a surprisingly good clip. Eric Norris is there. And others who are spending longer at the rest stops than I am. I get motivated and up my pace to keep up with them. Then I decide to go in front and pace them. But I guess I am perceived as putting the hammer down as the line does not stay with me. When they do come by, one of the riders says how 'impressed' he is by my 'break away' and that its enough to make him 'want my autograph'. The guy also speculated about my ability to pull away like that on the upcoming steep grade on Skaggs Road. It takes naive me a while to realize that he is being sarcastic. Hell, I really wasn't trying to drop anyone. I was just trying to emulate their inspiring pace! Anyway, I'm not that young anymore so I very quickly categorize the guy's remarks as forgettable and go back to enjoying the scenery.

Prior to lunch I have only about 7 minutes off the bike and have done 110 miles in six and half hours. Can I do the next 90 miles in the next six and half hours and get in under 13 hours, the overly competitive center of my brain is wondering? My current estimate, which turns out to be correct, is no.

I linger for about twenty minutes at lunch, walking around with me shoes off in the grass. Ah that does feel good. Then the hard part of the ride begins. It is 12:20 as I leave lunch. Bill Oetinger, the organizer of this fantastic ride, is near the exit as I depart. I point up the road and ask 'The ride goes that a way, don't it?'. Bill responds in the affirmative with a knowing glance and queries me if I have finished this ride ever before. Actually, yes, twice. Just not last year.

Last year at this point I bailed. There was no way in hell I was going to go out and do another 9,000 feet of climbing. This year, I felt pretty good. Skaggs just ain't all it's cracked up to be. It's kind of like TOTF just more of it and steeper. A climb at about the 110 mile mark. Hot. I like hot, actually. But not absurdly hot, as this ride is famous for getting in some years. I have yet to experience that. So I just put it in low and pretend I'm going up Tuna Canyon. No big deal.

The thing about steep climbs is that you get to the higher elevation faster than on less steep climbs. That's worth something. This year I got into the zig zag thing. I keep a faster pace by zig zagging. Even though the distance travelled is, of course, further, the quicker pace is nice on the legs and I am actually enjoying this climb! It is steep (real steep) then it goes normal (just plain steep) then back to real steep, etc. For quite a while. I gain on one rider. He's the guy who made the remarks going into lunch. I blow by him like he is nailed to the asphalt. 'Keep it steady' I politely mention.

I pass another couple of people and finally the top arrives after about three false pinnacles (as opposed to false summits). I assumed the false pinnacles were false and labelled them peak 1a, peak 1b, and peak 1c as I made my way up and over them, knowing that the real peak 1 must be yet further ahead. All of this mental preparation since, if you look at the elevation gain chart at the top of this page, peak 2 (Las Lomas) is still to come and I am making no assumptions that any of the minor summits are it. They weren't. But the second climb ain't bad either and even has some shade on it, maximized by my zig zagging at judicious moments.

The descent into the Gualala rest stop really is worth it. Not quite as technical as the back of Geyser but still hard enough to judge road surface that one tends to keep it below racing speed. By now we are in sea air rising from the coast to meet us as we descend. The sky has been fully blue all afternoon. I have started to abandon a sub-13 hour goal and an enjoying a bit longer rest stops in proportion. The Gualala stop has the mood of something in the middle of the Black Forest. All of the rest stops on TT are very well prepared, have plenty of good food, and enjoyable crew. The master of this stop bids each rider a hearty 'And thank you for stopping by!' as one departs for the next climb.

The next to last climb before the coast is the steepest climb on the TT. How do they say... short but steep. Another not totally short bump and Eric House comes by. What is he doing back here with me? I guess even Eric has bad years on this ride. He and two other riders come by me and motivate me so I crank it up and am happy to see the old legs respond. Whereas House is down in his triple small ring I 'only' have my 39x30 -- but it is enough and I go into that climbing burn feeling one gets when one is not pacing oneself and one is passing people and making them wonder what the hell is going on. I don't do that for very long, I admit, but it feels good. I even start to feel the force is with me. I crest the last couple of roller bumps while up shifting and down we go,... to the coast.

Eric explains to me, as we turn left and are overjoyed by the powerful tail wind that, for a change, is there as predicted, that he had blown up earlier in the day and was trying to recover. Ah, that explains it.

The ride on the coast is... great. Deep Pacific blue ocean to ones right, tail wind while on the flats and it even helps on the too-numerous rollers, mist of the sea spray, and Scotland-like bluffs pass by, as one heads South to the Fort Ross turn.

It's 4:30 PM as I enter Fort Ross and I know that I am incapable of averaging 19 miles per hour to make it, first, up the two mile 11 per cent Fort Ross climb, then back over rollers to Santa Rosa in two hours. So I fully give up on my sub-13 hour goal and ask for a cup of hot soup. Mmmmm Hmmmm. Good stuff.

The Fort Ross climb. Yes, on paper this is the hardest climb of the ride. The steepest over sustained distance, and coming at mile 161. But I do Tuna canyon for a living. And this is the last hard climb. It's childs play. Child's play at 4 miles per hour, granted.

Actually, it's the rollers and sporadic bouts of minor head wind and pock-marked road surface in the thirty miles following the Fort Ross climb which do irritate me a bit. The only time of the day I feel irritation. Kind of like the elements playing with my mind. Yes, there will be one more hill and after that one, yes, that was not the last one, there will always be one more hill on this ride. My mental state was only 98% of what I needed to polish off the final miles feeling good. So, there will be next year. I will be expecting those last miles to be full of rolling hills as tall as large mountains. On the Terrible Two, the saying is, there is always more climbing ahead.

I pull in the the finish area to scattered applause and become a successful TT finisher (13h 32m), joining in to give applause to others as they arrive. A strong mixed tandem team arrives a minute after I do, looking fresh, with their matched jerseys. I get my bike back into my car and forage for the showers -- a fine touch that the ride organizers provide access to the school showers. I see that Eric Ostendorff and his friend Dave have arrived and already found the Chile. Eric comes back with a beer in hand and eyes light up. Seems that the ride crew has put some of their extra beers into the coolers. Pretty soon everyone at the table I'm sitting at has a Budweiser in front of them. Eric Norris arrives looking about like he did last year at this stage of the event but happy as usual. Pretty soon we are parrying Campagnolo Only jibes with the Shimano fans in the crowd

Thanks to all the TT staff and Santa Rosa Cycling club for another year of the tradition.

Terrible Two Web site: http://www.srcc.com/tt.html