Cinderella training continues

Two of the groups that have training rides for Cinderella were riding today in the North, too far away for us to want to drive up there. One group was doing a 50 mile route, the other a 40 mile route. We opted for a 40 mile route as well, and pilfered a route sheet off the web for the Calaveras Loop. It was supposed to start at the shop where I got my bike, but I had T come over and we started from my place.

We were pedaling along by about 8:15 this morning. The first part of the ride was through Niles Canyon, which altho pretty, is a little scary. There isn't much of a bike lane in some spots, it's only a 2 lane road, and the cars tend to cruise along pretty quickly. A few times a big pickup went by and I felt like it was too close for comfort. Soon enough we were on our way out toward the Calaveras reservoir and 'the climb.' Yep, the route sheet actually warned us that the Geary Road landmark would be the start of 'the climb.' Three miles later we made it to the "False Summit." No really, I'm not making this up. It says that on the paper! It also said that almost 7 miles later we would hit "The Wall." That sounded ominous to us, so we took advantage of the false summit to take a little rest break. A few other riders pulled up as well and we quizzed them about The Wall. "Oh, that's the downhill.", one guy says, "You'll hit a few more rollers, but not too bad." Oh, well, we can certainly handle going down something called The Wall. At least we won't have to CLIMB the wall. Yeah, well, that guy lied. Not about the downhill, but about there being a 'few' gentle rollers. Or maybe I'm just such a wuss rider that the rollers seem worse to me. I dunno.

Anyway, the downhill was awesome, we topped out at over 30 mph. So that was fun, but quick. And we still had to make it all the way home after having ridden all those 'rollers.' I was already exhausted. Little did I know that we still had some hills to get over before we could get back to my house. Ugh.

I don't think I've ever been so glad to see my house as I was today. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it 65 miles when today was just a hair under 40 miles and my legs were wiped out. But I got my Cinderella registration card in the mail today, so I guess I'll get thru it somehow. Here are the stats for today: