118 miles

 

Chula Vista to the top of Mt Laguna

OK, let's face the facts: Don Smith is insane! Don's my best friend, and to be perfectly honest, in most respects he's the sanest person I know. Hey, it's because of Don that I ride my bike. Say no more. But Don cherishes hopes of sometime very soon riding from his home in downtown Chula Vista, virtually at sea level, all the way to the top of Mt Laguna at six thousand feet.

That's close to sixty miles. And sixty miles almost all uphill! The component rides that I've done with him, Honey Springs Road and Pine Valley to Laguna, are brutal in themselves, not to mention the one in between, hitherto untried by me but universally regarded as the Mother of All Wicked Hills, Japatul Valley Road, from the end of Honey Springs (which finds me exhausted already) up to Alpine and to the beginning of the mountain itself (promising nothing but further punishment). And need I remind you that one then has to turn around and ride sixty miles home? Downhill, sure, but we're looking at a century and a quarter all told: In scope and intensity, this differs very little from a Tour de France stage. Case closed: insanity!

The moral of the story

...All of which is to say that I can't wait to be in sufficient shape to do this ride with Don. Which will be, yes, very soon!

Update: Don accomplished this astounding feat on 18 April 2009, riding home the next day after spending the night in a Laguna cabin.

No question: Don's insane. and thanks to him, so am I. Soon?