Harding is Hard ...
... on your butt. Man I swear I'm getting sick of this climb. It really takes a toll on my backside. After the first hour or so I have to constantly stand up on the bike and stretch and move around to keep my body from cramping really bad.
Anyways to the background for the ride ...
This Saturday I did Harding to Upper Holy Jim, which is kind of a short title for the ride. It really should be called "O'Neill to Cook's Corner to Harding to Santiago Peak to Upper Holy Jim to Holy Jim to Trabuco Creek to Car". That would make more sense.
Mark Whaley had scheduled the ride and I knew it had been on his "wish list" for quite some time. Matt and I had already done the ride a few months prior so I wasn't as excited as I could have been. The good news though is that having done the trail already, I had a lot of confidence that I could do it without falling apart.
I showed up to ride a little after 6:30AM and saw that I'd be riding with Matt, Mark, Troy, Andrew and John. I had been on one ride prior with John, but I didn't remember him all that well. Apparently John is in training for La Ruta and Vision Quest. All I can say is GOOD LUCK! Haha.
On to the ride ...
Right out of the gates I noticed my heart rate monitor was reporting my heart at 230+ bpm. That was pretty far off, but I thought it was interesting to note. Haha.
We rode through O'Neill and when we got to the singletrack section near the microwave tower I was shocked to see that it had been bulldozed and graded. What was once a beautiful singletrack was now an ugly fire road type thing. It was still steep and fairly loose.
We then cruised over to the start of Harding with ease. Right before getting to Harding I noticed my front wheel was moving all over the place. I would turn to the left and it would respond very quickly and the only word I can think of to describe it is "squirrely". If that's even a word. Anyways the idea was that the bike felt like I was riding on ice and I didn't like it and couldn't figure out what was going on.
Fast forward to the top of Harding. I arrived fourth in our group and I will admit I felt a little tired. I just didn't have a ton in the tank for the ride to begin with and Harding always takes something out of me. Maybe I need to fix my position on the bike. We ended up waiting at the top of Harding for Andrew for a little bit. Andrew wasn't feeling the best after being off the bike for a few weeks. Hope he feels better soon.
After Harding we zipped over to the singletrack hike-a-bike section right after Joplin. Matt and I decided to part ways with the rest of our group at this point. We had already experienced that section of trail and didn't want to go through it again. Plus by going to the peak, I could GPS the ride and get "control" of a route. I could go on and on about what this exactly means, but it would make an already long post too much to handle.
We met four downhill guys on the way to the peak and I talked to one of them for a bit. He said he mostly rides Aliso Woods and when I asked about Telonics and Stair Steps, he replied that both were "pretty easy". I was shocked. According to this guy speed is all you need to master downhill stuff. Whatever dude. It felt good to put him away a few minutes after that conversation. He might dominate me going down, but I dominate him going up. Ha.
Matt and I then rode down to meet our group before hitting Upper Holy Jim. By this time I had figured out why my bike was feeling like it was on ice. I had pumped up my tires too much. Normally I run low 30's for the PSI in both tires and for some strange reason I decided to inflate them to low to mid 40's before this ride. I won't make that mistake again. I took some air out and then we hit Upper Holy Jim.
Last time I did this section I remember walking maybe 50% of it. Possibly even more. This time I'm glad to say I rode 90% of it. I was more confident and went for a few sections that I had walked prior. Growing requires risks, so I figured I'd take a few small ones. Plus it helped to ride the right trail at the end. The last time Matt and I had gone straight at a section where we should have gone left.
Going down regular Holy Jim was pretty uneventful. I ended up making only 5 out of 17 switchbacks at the bottom. Shameful really. I'm learning on some parts of Holy Jim that speed is key. I don't want to slow down too much and then end up loosing control of the bike. I'd rather power through sections and get them over with. Riding with confidence is key. That and "look where you want to go".
Our group passed what seemed like 100 hikers on Holy Jim and thank God there were no accidents.
I ended up riding about 2 miles more than last time (because we went to the peak instead of hiking around it) and added a few hundred feet to the climb. With all that I still managed to finish almost 10 minutes faster than the previous ride. Awesome!
Anyways to the background for the ride ...
This Saturday I did Harding to Upper Holy Jim, which is kind of a short title for the ride. It really should be called "O'Neill to Cook's Corner to Harding to Santiago Peak to Upper Holy Jim to Holy Jim to Trabuco Creek to Car". That would make more sense.
Mark Whaley had scheduled the ride and I knew it had been on his "wish list" for quite some time. Matt and I had already done the ride a few months prior so I wasn't as excited as I could have been. The good news though is that having done the trail already, I had a lot of confidence that I could do it without falling apart.
I showed up to ride a little after 6:30AM and saw that I'd be riding with Matt, Mark, Troy, Andrew and John. I had been on one ride prior with John, but I didn't remember him all that well. Apparently John is in training for La Ruta and Vision Quest. All I can say is GOOD LUCK! Haha.
On to the ride ...
Right out of the gates I noticed my heart rate monitor was reporting my heart at 230+ bpm. That was pretty far off, but I thought it was interesting to note. Haha.
We rode through O'Neill and when we got to the singletrack section near the microwave tower I was shocked to see that it had been bulldozed and graded. What was once a beautiful singletrack was now an ugly fire road type thing. It was still steep and fairly loose.
We then cruised over to the start of Harding with ease. Right before getting to Harding I noticed my front wheel was moving all over the place. I would turn to the left and it would respond very quickly and the only word I can think of to describe it is "squirrely". If that's even a word. Anyways the idea was that the bike felt like I was riding on ice and I didn't like it and couldn't figure out what was going on.
Fast forward to the top of Harding. I arrived fourth in our group and I will admit I felt a little tired. I just didn't have a ton in the tank for the ride to begin with and Harding always takes something out of me. Maybe I need to fix my position on the bike. We ended up waiting at the top of Harding for Andrew for a little bit. Andrew wasn't feeling the best after being off the bike for a few weeks. Hope he feels better soon.
After Harding we zipped over to the singletrack hike-a-bike section right after Joplin. Matt and I decided to part ways with the rest of our group at this point. We had already experienced that section of trail and didn't want to go through it again. Plus by going to the peak, I could GPS the ride and get "control" of a route. I could go on and on about what this exactly means, but it would make an already long post too much to handle.
We met four downhill guys on the way to the peak and I talked to one of them for a bit. He said he mostly rides Aliso Woods and when I asked about Telonics and Stair Steps, he replied that both were "pretty easy". I was shocked. According to this guy speed is all you need to master downhill stuff. Whatever dude. It felt good to put him away a few minutes after that conversation. He might dominate me going down, but I dominate him going up. Ha.
Matt and I then rode down to meet our group before hitting Upper Holy Jim. By this time I had figured out why my bike was feeling like it was on ice. I had pumped up my tires too much. Normally I run low 30's for the PSI in both tires and for some strange reason I decided to inflate them to low to mid 40's before this ride. I won't make that mistake again. I took some air out and then we hit Upper Holy Jim.
Last time I did this section I remember walking maybe 50% of it. Possibly even more. This time I'm glad to say I rode 90% of it. I was more confident and went for a few sections that I had walked prior. Growing requires risks, so I figured I'd take a few small ones. Plus it helped to ride the right trail at the end. The last time Matt and I had gone straight at a section where we should have gone left.
Going down regular Holy Jim was pretty uneventful. I ended up making only 5 out of 17 switchbacks at the bottom. Shameful really. I'm learning on some parts of Holy Jim that speed is key. I don't want to slow down too much and then end up loosing control of the bike. I'd rather power through sections and get them over with. Riding with confidence is key. That and "look where you want to go".
Our group passed what seemed like 100 hikers on Holy Jim and thank God there were no accidents.
I ended up riding about 2 miles more than last time (because we went to the peak instead of hiking around it) and added a few hundred feet to the climb. With all that I still managed to finish almost 10 minutes faster than the previous ride. Awesome!
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