Ronery Road Ride

Ckucke didn’t have golf plans for Wednesday afternoon, so we put a Tantalus pau hana ride together. Jeff and Sara were taking a doctor paddle boarding, and Scat was out recovering from his surgery, so they were out. Root was supposed to be in, but backed out when we called him after waiting until a quarter hour past the start time. I popped a gel before we started for a bit of extra “go” for the climb, but it was really to no avail. At the first left hairpin at the State base yard road, the torment began. The weather was nice and clear, and a cool wind blew in along the shaded road up, but I immediately felt the drag pulling me back. A heavy hamburger steak plate lunch from The Alley Restaurant at Aiea Bowl and several weeks of missing afternoon secret training had made me weak.

I kept grinding on, hoping that I would get “on it” once I warmed up, but that was not to be. At each pitch and switchback, I kept getting more and more tapped. Ckucke was ahead of me for pretty much the whole climb. I momentarily passed him before eucalyptus when he stopped to have some Shot Bloks, but he caught up to me and passed me by the turn. With each passing switcback, he got farther and farther ahead. When I passed the bamboo grove and could smell the yellow ginger, I knew I was near the one lane bridge. I heard someone coming up behind me. Whoever he was, he dropped a couple of gears and gave his ego a little massage as he stand-climbed past me. He apparently did the same as he passed Ckucke. At first Ckucke thought it was me coming up on him, and he wondered where the heck I pulled the energy out of.

I reached the top moments behind Ckucke, at 45-minutes. It was a somewhat disappointing number considering there was a time I could break 20-minutes on the climb, but factoring in my current lack of conditioning and the day’s circumstances, it wasn’t that bad I guess. I’ll have to do it again some time soon for a point of comparison. From about halfway up, my lower back was burning, so the ride down was a good rest for my back. On my normal weekday training sessions, I ride laps, so the climbs – although reasonably steep – are not continuous like Tantalus, so my back gets a chance to rest between pitches. Tantalus makes the road climb up to the Wailuna trail seem easy by comparison. Having not ridden the mountain/cross for a while, I also had jelly-arms when I was stand-climbing. I’ll have to mix up my training routine a bit.

The pavement conditions were pretty bad on the way down. There were lots of holes and uneven patches to contend with, as well as loose gravel in the turns. This compounded with going in and out of sunlight made for a challenging descent. Even the new section below the lookout was like a slalom course to avoid the road hazards. The bad pavement forced us to keep the speed down even in the straights. This was just a fun ride – there was no reason to push the envelope and risk losing skin and getting bloody.

D = 16.8 km (10.4-miles); Vavr = 10.2 km/h (6.3 mph) on the climb, 16.5 km/h (10.3 mph) for the entire loop; Vmax = 22.7 km/h (14.1 mph) on climb, 55.8 km/h (34.7 mph) on descent; T = 45-minutes to the top, 1-hour, 1-minute for the total loop