What a great way to end 2012 - one of my biking buddies, Mike, and I did what we call the "Easy Beach Ride" - it's just a simple ride of 26 miles that heads down to Capitola via Glen Canyon (from our start point in Scotts Valley). We headed out from Scotts Valley by going over Green Hills Road, which adds about 200 feet of climbing to the ride (instead of just coasting down Scotts Valley Drive to get over to Glen Canyon).
It was great biking weather (well, great from my perspective!) - cool and sunny - it was around 50 degrees out, with just a slight wind blowing. Mike and I just tooled along, heading down the familiar path through Santa Cruz to get over to Capitola Beach via East Cliff Drive - a wonderful scenic ride for cyclists!
When we were riding along East Cliff Drive, I happened to notice that our riding time was looking pretty good - in fact, I was a bit surprised, since we had just ridden a similar ride the day before - but that ride was what we call the "Classic Beach Ride" - it starts out the same way as the "Easy Beach Ride", but after leaving Capitola Beach, instead of taking the "easy" way back up to Scotts Valley (which means up Glen Canyon, the same road we take down into Santa Cruz from Scotts Valley at the beginning of the ride), we head back the "hard" way, which means going up Old San Jose Road and then doing the Laurel Glen climb, down Mountain View Road, down Branciforte, then climbing back up into Scotts Valley via Granite Creek. The "Classic Beach Ride" is close to 30 miles and does about 2000 feet of climbing. The "Easy Beach Ride" is more like 26 miles and only 1600 feet of climbing (and those climbing miles are easier because they aren't as steep).
In any case, on yesterday's "Classic Beach Ride", we got down to Capitola Beach in just under one hour, which was a new post heart surgery record for me. What surprised me about today's ride was that it looked like we were going to get to Capitola Beach even faster than yesterday's record ride! In fact, that is exactly what we did - we got to Capitola Beach in just 55 minutes - woohoo! That was an average speed of 15.6 mph for that leg of the ride - very cool!
Then we headed back home and bumped into another cycling friend of ours, Brett - he was returning to Scotts Valley and joined us for the return ride. I felt pretty good - and ended up shaving 2 minutes off my time up Glen Canyon (from 23 minutes down to 21 minutes) - it's still a far cry from my record time of 14 minutes for that climb - but hey! - I have a good solid year to chip at that time and get it back down close to my record 14 minutes.
As we finished the climb up Glen Canyon and entered the outskirts of Scotts Valley, I looked at our riding time and saw that we had a chance to get back from the ride in under 2 hours, which would have been 12 minutes faster than my previous ride (from 3 weeks ago), when we did that ride in 2:12. And, we easily broke 2 hours - we got back in just 1:58 - 14 minutes faster than 3 weeks ago - woohoo!!!
In any case, it was nice to end 2012 with such a positive ride! I just know that 2013 is going to be a good year for me - I plan on riding consistently - and s-l-o-w-l-y grind my way back into decent cycling shape - that's the plan!
Hope everyone had a great 2012 - and let's keep riding as we slide into 2013, the New Year!
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