This past Sunday I rode from Castro Valley, out through Redwood Rd and into the Oakland Hills. Redwood Rd is a ride I've done a ton of times. (I would guess at least 50 probably even more) It's one of the first real climbs I did after getting my road bike several years ago and has been sort of a benchmark for me ever since.
It's a two and a half mile climb from the golf course to the entrance to the campground. It's not brutally steep but it is a very good measuring stick by which to gauge my fitness level. In the beginning, this was a 2 stop ride to the top meaning I couldn't do it without stopping twice to recover. I've never had to stop on the way up since the first couple of times, but there have been varying levels of enjoyment/suffering throughout the years.
I've never been fast, but there have been times when I could do this in under 15 minutes and feel pretty good. There have been other times when it's taken me more than 20 minutes and I've arrived at the top spent and wishing I had rested part way up.
This past Sunday was one of the less enjoyable days...thankfully my GPS was home charging so I don't know how long it actually took me, but I do know when I got to the top, I was hurting and it was almost tomorrow....
The rest of the ride was pretty much more of the same. Uphills that killed me and downhills that weren't quite long enough to recover. I spent the day getting passed by everyone and the only person I actually passed was walking his dog up the street.
The bad news is that the ride was painful and I ended up actually cramping up towards the end. The good news is that like a decrepit crack fiend, I have no-where to go from here but up....
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