20260810-11 [Shape] of [Feeling]: Circle of Doom +

[Taco]

I couldn’t think of a witty name for this variation on the Circle of Doom, thus I left input fields or whatever them smart computer guys would call that. Is it a shape? Sort of. Do I have feelings? Unfortunately, yes, I still have feelings. Do I try to process said feelings by doing endurance activities? Also yes.

Funny thing is I felt great during this ride. I have been going through a rough patch, which sounds mega dumb but I don’t know how else to word it. I feel better after doin this sorta stuff and I do be enjoying the longer rides as of late. No matter, I felt great the whole time so I didn’t work on much inside, other than digestion.

I just finished building new wheels for my road bike, so this would be their first test. Carbon rims with a lightweight dyno hub. Normally prohibitively expensive, but I got a VERY good deal on the rims, saved money on the rear hub, and obviously saved money building them myself with help from my mentor, Markus. The end result is the bike rides smoother, gets up to speed more quickly, holds speed better (saves energy), saves weight so it’s nicer when you have to climb or carry the bike, and the rear wheel doesn’t have cracks propagating from the spoke holes like the ones these replaced.

Anyway, I’m writing this a week late and my phone keyboard is difficult to deal with, plus the damn software changes the words constantly, so I’ll keep it a lil more brief.

I took the pleasant Metrolink train to Redlands where I began riding around 0900 on the 10th. Made my way to the 38 which I climbed to Angelus Oaks. Got a bunch of cold refreshing sugary SPORT BEVERAGES, and despite being in a racy mindset trying to be time efficient, I sat down and chilled for probably 30 minutes. Unspeakable horror! The ride up to AO was real hot and sweaty, turning much more pleasant from AO upward. The 38 was pretty chill, with shade from the trees and cloud cover and all that. I passed under some tiny thunderstorms which gave me a handful of rain drops and some distant thunder. Slowly ambled my way up to Onyx Summit where I ate a sandwich in the shade before descending to Big Bear City for more beverages. From here all the way to Cajon Pass is mostly downhill with a few short climbs, so that goes by pretty quickly. The 18 had traffic and often no shoulder, so there were some stressful bits but overall better Han I expected. See? Who the hell is ham? Oh, now it’s ham. I wanted to say better than expected, but the phone has a mind of its own and I really don’t want to keep editing it.

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Ate a couple McFish sangwiches in Twin Peaks before climbing the 25% grade up Old Mill Road. It is very steep, BUT, it avoids the busiest section of the 138 dropping down to Silverwood. That descent is quite fun and has some tricky corners that I only know a few of. I recommend a conservative approach to corner entry on this descent! It was in the early evening so I had bright headlights pointed right at me for a few corner entries, adding some ‘fun’. Once the descent is over, it’s a bit of a slog to Cajon Pass, just gotta eat it and dream of the cold beverages and McFish sangwiches you’ll get once you arrive.

Cajon Pass is roughly the halfway point, having completed 100mi and 10k gain to get there. I enjoyed my meal in the dark on the sidewalk knowing my next stage was the slow straight steep climb up wonderful Lone Pine Canyon Road. Fun to descend, not so fun to ascend. My buddy John loves this road so much! If only he was here to give me some colorful narration of this fine experience. Got it done and headed to my buddy’s place in Wrightwood where he left me some beverages and treats as a resupply. Unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough to get there when he was awake. Left WW a little after midnight and started riding the 2 to La Cañada. Some friends of mine had ridden the bad part of the 2 recently and said it’s in much better shape than last time. A fence has been erected (you said erect) past VG. It’s a bit too hard on the downhill-right side, but the left hangs off over the edge, so I held onto the fence and carried my bike around it. The washouts have partially been filled in with dirt so work trucks can pass through. It’s easy on a bike now.

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Took a short brake up at Dawson Saddle, and enjoyed the descent to Islip. Man, I keep having to delete and rewrite this thing! Cant type withou it freaking out. There it goes again. The rest of the 2 went by just swimmingly, and the sun began to rise before Red Box Wilson junction, where I refilled my bottles and stretched. I was worried about the Palmdale commuter traffic on the final drop in to the city, but it turned out OK with some breaks in the traffic allowing me to enjoy the descent without an Altima on bald all-seasons bearing down on me. Then, the usual 30mi ride home from the bottom.

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This might be the longest/hardest variation on the Circle of Doom theme I’ve been doing monthly this year without really bending it into a much different thing. After my 428mi ‘day’ ride home from Santa Cruz, I wanted to do a 500mi day to prep for the pacific coast race in September. I was slightly disappointed this was only 200mi, but obviously the significant elevation gain from a long ride through two mountain ranges helped. Pretty much the same gain as the coast ride but in half the distance.

Total for the trip was 206mi and 18,500ft of gain in 25hrs, 21hrs of moving time so that’s 4hrs of eating, resting, stretching, and maybe some sitting around to anger my nonexistent boss telling me to get back to work. For race type stuff, I am trying to close the gap between the two numbers so I am ‘wasting’ less time. This is not so much an issue for a fun ride, which this halfway is, but it is all training in the end.

Ok byeeeee