Getting ready for Foxy's....

To help keep the two-wheeled mojo rolling through the last century of the season, I rode the Kern Wheelmen's Spooktacular metric on Saturday.  Each of the rides at this event has some significant climbing, and, while the 90-mile route and the two centuries that were available were waaay beyond my capacity, the metric has some (for me) significant climbing.

6:30 am at Lake Ming

The ride started out a bit cold, with patches of fog, but it quickly warmed up and turned into a good day for a ride.  The first twenty miles or so was pretty unremarkable.  It seems as if the road from Lake Ming to Arvin is a route to the local dump, for the roadside was strewn with trash and urban effluvia.  I don't ever recall seeing so many broken plastic lawn chairs as I did on Saturday morning.  But, things cleared up after a while, and the longest climb of the day presented itself.  The climb up White Wolf grade was five miles of 5-6% grade, for a total of approximately 1500 feet of gain.  The climb is not so much hard as a long and consistent uphill.

The road from Arvin, with White Wolf grade looming in the distance.

After reaching the top of the grade and working through some rolling terrain, the route dropped into the lunch stop at Caliente.  This is a fun bit to ride, with intermittent climbing and descent.  Caliente itself is nothing to hoot about, but I'm guessing that it's a destination of sorts for train buffs, for I saw a couple guys taking photos/video of the trains that passed through the valley.

At the lunch stop at Caliente.  Sheldon Cooper would be in heaven.

The final miles of the ride followed the railroad through some fairly unremarkable rural terrain, and then returned to Lake Ming.  The Spooktacular is not a particularly noteworthy ride. I've ridden it the past few years because the climbing is challenging, but the scenery isn't particularly inspiring (although I do like the ten mile out and back to Caliente), and the rest stops aren't particularly good ("lunch" was a crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich). The folks manning the stops are friendly and supportive, though, which makes up for things a bit.  If the ride is the same weekend next year, I'll ride the Templeton Wine and Roses Bike Ride instead--challenging and much more scenic.

Total time:  5:45
Ride time:  5:01
Average speed: 12.6 mph
Total mileage:   63.41 miles
Climbing:  3627'

Funny, this cycling stuff.  I would have thought that I would have a better ride time this year than last; I felt good and thought I was making good time and with minimal problems with a headwind.  But my time ended up being ten minutes longer than last year.  I'm riding longer than I have before, but also slower.  Go figure.

Up next:  Foxy's Fall Century.  This will be the final century of the year for me, and it will be a challenge.  Last year, I struggled badly at the Foxy's; the wind killed my knees early, and I was defeated mentally before I was fifty miles into the ride.  I'm hoping that familiarity with the route and ibuprofen should make the ride less of a challenge....