Tuesday climbing ride

Finally! An evening when the temp wasn't 95+ degrees! Kevin, Joel, Bruce, Gary, and I were joined by first-time Tuesday Climbers Patrick and Krysta (my partner) for the full counter clockwise route. The weather gods smiled upon us with temperatures in the mid 80s and a mild south-southwest wind that propelled us on Sophia & EDH Blvd, but hammered us on the return on E Natoma.

We rolled out on the bike trail and were briefly joined by Phil on his TT bike (Phil is going to make the podium this Thursday in his TT race series; Go Phil!). We headed up Iron Point riding at a moderate pace around 17-20 mph to loosen-up the legs. We were gruppo compacto at the base of Carpenter Hill (Cote de Costco), but as typical, everyone rode at their own pace up the first pass. I guess newcomer Patrick was feeling a little spry and jumped off the front on the upper slope of Cote de Costco when the light turned green. I wasn't interested in chasing since this was the first of 5 climbs. We were all relatively close together over the top. Krysta opted for the medium counter clockwise route which skipped the second pass of Cote de Costco and headed off towards Beatty. I thought I'd toughen up the ride a little and attacked before the stop sign at Broadstone & Empire Ranch, hitting the left turn onto Broadstone fast and carrying my speed up over the next little uncategorized climb. I slipped away... at least till I hit the red light at Serpa & Iron Point.

We all started the second pass of Carpenter Hill together. I thought Patrick had caught back on as we turned onto Empire Ranch, but it turns out he missed the turn and hit the dead end at the east end of Iron Point. Latter he let me know he finished up his ride heading out Sophia, to Green Valley, and back to Karen's. Kevin, Joel, Bruce, Gary, and I were more than happy with the tailwind on Sophia to set us up for Beatty. We knocked-out the grind up Beatty (tops out at 13% grade) and skirted the ridge up on Powers, only to drop down Montridge to have to climb back out over Wilson.

We swept Krysta up on El Dorado Hills Blvd and gave her a tow over to Brittany, but the heat was on to hammer down the short descent to set-up the little climb on Brittany. We made a quick water stop at the park and then turned south on Sophia into an uphill headwind; I think we were all happy to let Gary do the work on the front. Gary split at Blue Ravine to head home and Kevin, Joel, Bruce, & I pointed our noses toward the barn and hammered down E Natoma into a headwind at 26 mph to finish up the ride.

My computer registered 31.2 miles in 1:54 hours for an average speed of 16.4 mph and about 2,300 ft total elevation gain.