22 b-day

[v10isez]

So for my 21st b-day i was back packing behind mt Whitney for a week in the new army pass and then got to the summit on my actual b-day. best b-day so far! so to top that i am thinking to do 222miles in one day on my 22nd. or 100. but i think 222miles would be doable if it was not to hilly and i paced myself. what do you think?

i do train a lot. i been riding about as much as school allows me and that is about 4 days a week. 2 days are an intense climb from NAU campus in flagstaff up to the ski slopes of snow bowl 7,000 to about 10,000ft 30miles round trip. and then the other two days i ride out to Mormon lake and that is about 70 miles round trip.

i seem to have really good endurance and just feel like the only thing ever limiting my ride is either the people i am with or the hours in the day.

i think 222miles is completely doable. what do you think? any route recommendations? maybe do something along the coast.

forgot to mention this is all on my road bike not my mountain bike. in case you didn't catch that.

[MTBMaven]

I thinks its a great idea. That area you were hiking is beautiful BTW. I was hiking there last summer. I love the Old Army Pass area. We went in at Cottonwood Meadows and out the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek.

You could ride to SD and back. Depending on where you started you might have to do a little extra when you got back to get the full 222. There isn't much elevation change on that ride.

Oh perfect you live in La Canada. I can easily get the full 222. Take Foothill and get yourself to the San Gabriel Riverbed Trail. Take the river bed all the way to Seal Beach. Take the 1 from SB all the way practically to SD. Then turn around and come back. That will be way more than 222 actually over 300 from you. I live in Pasadena and the ride down along that route is 145 miles. So just come back to where ever 222 is and catch a train to Union Station and then the Gold Line home. Heck you might want to start at Memorial Park station so don't have to ride home from the Gold Line.

[Abui]

Why not go metric?

[El Salt]

I remember 22. Wait, what where we talking about? Oh, that's a cute kitty. Ice cream?

[v10isez]

i have never been on the san gabriel bike way but i have heard good things. anyone down to ride it over summer before june 26th so i know where it is? anyone down to try to ride this 222 thing as well?

[kanga]

MTBMaven's choice is a good one. Since you're following a train line for much of it, you'll have fairly easy bailout options should you run out of daylight or energy. Much of it is bike way or bike lane, and it's a common route for bicycles so drivers are generally accustomed to bikes along the coast route.

I did many, many double centuries in my early cycling days, and one quad century. Just build up. 200+ is a big jump from 70 both physically and mentally. I'd get a couple of metric doubles under your belt to prepare.

I'll be in Flagstaff on Sunday or Monday, btw. Heading to Prescott to do the Whiskey off-road.

When is your b'day? JUne 26th? The bikeway isn't hard to find, and I'm sure several people on the boards could help you.

[mtnbikerfred]

I's at least do it on a CX bike so you had the option of tasting some dirt somewhere along the way....

[v10isez]

so how do you think i should build up to it? just biking a lot during the week at this higher altitude i figure is really good training. i will be back home in cali on may 7th and then i plan on biking the San Gabriel bike way a good amount before i do the b-day ride.

[JohnnyDalton]

Check out www.lotojaclassic.com. You could get the rest of your miles pedaling around a parking lot. Sign up soon.

[MTBMaven]

I have been finding that doing a lot of hill climbing helps. But you will also want to do a century or two before then. Strange things can start happening after 5 or 6 hours in the saddle. If your bike isn't fit properly you can get biomechanical issues popping up, or if you haven't stayed on top of your water/electrolyte/calorie intake you will start to cramp or run out of energy. Key is to start out slowly for the first 10-15 miles and never push yourself beyond 70% max (try to stay below 60%) regardless of how good you may feel. Go easy on any climb.

[v10isez]

ya i think hill climbing helps too. but ya i sorta imagined just taking it really easy on this long b-day ride staying at about 60-70% so i would be prepared for anything extra.

i was imagining to bike for like all day. have a small light lunch around lunch time. and just keep biking. how long do you think this would take at a nice moderate pace?

[MTBMaven]

You will need to keep eating and consuming calories all day. I personally like whole wheat fig bars I get from Whole Foods. I fill a large Bento Box with them and try to eat one every 20-30 minutes. I also full a large water bottle with Hammer Perpetuem with 3-4 scoops and carry a zip lock bag with 3-4 more scoops to refill. There are plenty of places to get food along the way with is nice. I use elite water in my water bottles to keep on top of the electrolytes.

Last time I did the ride to SD from Pasadena I stopped at the Starbucks by the Ritz in Laguna Nigel and got a small sandwich and a king Snickers at the AmPm in Oceanside just outside Pendleton. Those two things, especially the Snickers, went a long way for me.

As for time I would estimate between 14-16 hours. I did my first double last month and we finished in 13.5 hours. And the was really only 191 miles. You're looking at 222. Those last few miles are going to be pretty slow.

[v10isez]

yes i agree the last few miles will be pretty slow but that's a given. i just think this will def top my mt whitney summit for my 21st b-day.

would you guys say go one way and take the same route back?

[MTBMaven]

I'm not sure of the mileage but off the top my head I would say from La Canada to SD and back some distance to get to 222 would get you to somewhere around Solano Beach or Oceanside. If that holds true there is only really one way to come back, so yeah I would come back the same way.

For me my Whitney summit day hike was far more difficult than my double. Whitney kicked my a$$ big time. I hit the wall in between Outpost Camp and High Camp. From there on it was one foot in front of the other with stops every few feet. Total vision quest and the hardest physical day in my life. Harder than my one day hike from Yosemite Valley to Tuolume Meadows in one day with full gear.

[v10isez]

ya i really like hiking though. i did the day hike through the portal but i liked taking the new army pass a lot better. just something about being in the back country and not seeing anyone but your crew was really cool. such an awesome feeling of having everything you need right on your back.

[kanga]

I did a jam up Whitney last September. It was a great day and a five-hour hike up from the portal, 7 hours down. We stopped a lot more on the way down to take pics. Hiking is a nice change of pace, especially in a place as spectacular as that. But I couldn't help thinking how cool it would have been to ride down that trail!

Last time I rode southward was 117 miles to a friend's place in Encinitas, but that was going through downtown L.A. and the L.A. River bikeway, so add 8 miles or so from La Canada to where I am and you'll be pretty close, though you'll lose a few by going straight to the San Gabriel river trail.

You could just ride 111 miles and turn around, retrace your steps too.

[v10isez]

so how long is the san gabriel bike way? 80 round trip? doesnt that end at the beach by a restaurant?

[MTBMaven]

Check out link for a route to SD from Pas. Route

I created this by
1) Exporting my route from my Garmin GPS,
2) Converting the file to KML on the GPSVisualizer website, and
3) Uploading the KML file to my Virtual Earth Collection.

[Endo Verendo]

You could hook up with Pain Freak. I don't think he does any ride that's less than 200 miles.

[v10isez]

are you being serious or just joking?