The Epic of El Capitain

Since the early days of society man has created oral and written stories to pass down major historical events or capture moral traditions. Some of these stories, like the Homer's poem the Odyssey, survey the society that created them and become epics that will be with us forever.

Part of the reason I write this blog is to capture the stories of some of my rides. This is mostly a diary for me but it is also a way to share my experiences with my others and poke fun at some of the people I ride with. I know what I post here are just musing of a bike rider and will never be be literary epics but I do occasionally have some good stories to tell.

I think the El Capitain ride may be one of those ride we will be talking about for a while. I say this not because of any great feat on my part but because Laura, Jim, and Jane were writing a song about  the ride after the first five miles.

To be immortalized in a song is a great honor as I always picture myself as a self sacrificing hero type. However as I heard the verses of the song it turned out I was not the hero but the villain. I will let you read Laura's post for the complete lyrics of the song but basically the story goes like this: I'm portrayed as the sadistic bastard making other riders go up hill after hill. The riders struggle in a desperate attempt to reach the end of the ride before they die so they can be released from my servitude . It's an interesting take on the ride but far from the truth...

First let me give you the stats from the ride.
     Total Climb Elevation     5653 feet
     Total Distance                51.06 miles
     Average Speed              12 mph
     Average Hill Grade        4.2 %
     Max Hill Grade              24 %
     Number of times my name and FU where uttered in the same sentence (lost count at 50)       

This year I said I wanted to do some more of the tougher hills in NJ and every time I mentioned this to Chris he said if you want to do some real hills you have to do my El Camino ride. I hear this for years so to try and shut Chris up (yea, I know, not going to happen) I decided to do the ride and see how hilly it really is. My ride is a little different from El Camino. First it started from Jockey Hollow instead of Loantaka Park. I don't like the roads around Loantaka Park and Jockey Hollow is closer and easier to get to. This ended up making the ride a little hiller but that was good because I won't want Chris accusing me of making the ride easier.

I had talked up the ride for a few weeks and had a good turn out. Chris Laura, Ron. Jim and John and Jane. The weather ended up being perfect, clear, sunny and just warm enough to ride in short sleeves. At the beginning of the ride I reminded everyone that they were all a little insane to be wanting to do this ride but off we all went any way.

We started with a few miles ride through Jockey Hollow itself which was already hilly. I knew we were in trouble when we turned the corner and started up a little hill and then were being passed by a runner. Luckily the first hill was a short one and we continue on rolling hills for a few miles until we hit Schoolhouse Lane where we had a 400 ft climb that lasted a little over a mile. It definitely got my heart going and saw a few other people look a little tired as they hit the top.

We continued on from there with more or less continuous hills. There was always a downhill after each climb but it was short and every turn brought another climb. Even through I mapped out the ride and knew what to expect I hadn't actually done any of these climbs. The route felt strange to me because although I don't mind a few hills I usually don't string them together like this. I was glad I had the triple ring today and switched into it when it looked like the climb was going to last more than a few hundred feet. I wanted to save my energy because I knew there was much more to come.

Two things to note here. First Chris was the only one who had done these roads before and seemed to take joy in the fact that we were being subjected to so many hills in a row. Second this is when I believe the song writing began.

Our first stop was in Gladstone after 21 miles and on our way in we had one of the best downhills of the ride that opened up to a nice vista where I stopped to take a few pictures. In Gladstone I had planned to stop at a deli but it was closed. Luckily John and Jane knew of a bakery just down the road.

From Gladstone it was more climbing and more song verses. These climbs were not as bad as before and the scenery was really nice. We ended up going through Bernardsville which has a lot of old money and ridiculously large estates. There is also on of my favorite downhills here which is Hardscrabble. I was a little disappointed with it this time since the road was rough and I really couldn't let her rip. My original plan was to take Hardscrabble to the bottom but Chris really wanted to climb up Old Army so what's one more hill anyway. The climb actually had a cool switchback and the downhill after was another good one that made it worth doing the climb.

After this we had our second stop in Basking Ridge. I usually don't stop twice on a 50 mile ride but with this many hills we really needed to. From here we headed through the Great Swamp and the only relatively flat part of the ride. We had little traffic getting to the swamp and the road through the swamp were a little beat up but it felt weird to be on flat roads. To get a true appreciation of the Great Swamp you really have to hike the paths through this park to see the different plants and animal. From the road it's just tree's and marshes. There is one or two bridge that give you a quick view of some of it so we stopped for a few minutes to take some pictures.

We were getting to the end of the ride and I was getting tire. I actually cramped up a little as we left the swamp. I usually don't cramp on rides under 60 miles and through I had drank enough but I guess the hills were catching up to me.

From the Great Swamp we headed over a few more rollers as we headed back to the Jockey Hollow. On my original route I was going to head back to Jockey Hollow up Tempe Wick but Chris insisted on going up Baily Hollow. One of the reasons George Washington chose Jockey Hollow as a winter place for the troops was because the hills make it easy to defend. These were the same hills we had to get over to get to the finish.

Putting the worst hill of the ride a couple miles from the end is beyond rude and as every one turned the corner the FUs starting flying. Baily Hollow is one of the harder hills that I have climbed but we all eventually made it to the top. Of course we still had a few hills before getting back to the parking lot and by the time we got there we were all pretty shot.

We hung around in the parking lot recovering and comparing elevation gain and average speed. John and Jane ever broke out some beer to celebrate the end of the pain. My elevation gain of 5653 ft may seem a little high but that may be because my GPS takes a data point every 10 feet so it counts up all the little up and downs. Needless to say whether we did 4900 ft or 5600 ft of climbing is no matter we survived the hills.One interesting thing to note is that those of us with triples had a slightly higher average which confirms what I read about triples being more efficient at tough climbs.

The ride did end up being a little harder than I expected and I will admit to doing a little false advertising to get more people to come on the ride. Some, of the hills I said would be in the 7% to 8% ended up being around 10% and I never really advertised the fact that there would be a 20% plus WTF climb. So I'd admit to being a little evil. But it wasn't like I actually MADE anybody follow me or that I was whipping them to go faster up each hill. I was much more subtle I did make everybody go up a lot of hills but provided perfect weather, nice scenery, and some cool downhills to keep hope alive then at mile 49 when they thought they were done I basically said FU to all with a climb up the steepest hill of the ride which topped out at over 20% incline. Of course the joke was on me because I was cramping up and had to stop part of the way up to stretch out my legs.

The real truth is rides like El Capitain are the real reason I enjoy riding. Yes it was good to know I still have the ability to do tough hilly rides but the real fun is finding people willing to follow me on these crazy rides. They may bitch at me and write nasty songs but it is all in good fun. No matter where we ride we usually have a good time and come back with a good story to share together for years to come.