Chapter 16: In Which We The Few (All Four of Us), The Courageous, The Hard Cases, The Stupid, Take on the Vallata Jackhammer Ride
Examine for a moment the map Tom has so graciously provided of the Vallata ride. Note particularily the length (around 19 miles or so) and that the section along the ridgeline from the airstrip over to Old Murphy Dome Road does not appear to be very long. Well, appearances can be deceiving, as I shall explain shortly.
This week’s ride almost didn’t happen (at least to me). The weather was grungy and rainy most of the day and it didn’t start to clear up until around five or so. I called my bud Dave James from Beaver Sports whilst on a search for some cheap rain pants. I needed some encouragement and/or motivation to decide if I wanted to ride or not. The ensuing conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hey Dave, how’s it going?"
Dave: "Great, you going on the ride?"
Me: "I suppose so, if you are. You want to drive or ride over there?"
Dave: I don’t know, I’m thinking of riding."
Me: "OK, let me get some rain pants at Beaver and I’ll see you in about
an hour."
An hour later, I showed up at his place, watching the sky with some trepidation because it would sort of clear up for a bit then cloud over and rain again. Neither of us were ready to wimp out on the other, so we were riding. After some hustling around to get stuff ready (including a fifteen minute diversion to secure my light to the bike because I lost the nut that holds it onto the clamp!) we left a little before 7. After about twenty minutes, and some sweating because it had begun to clear up, we got over there a little after 7. Tom was there already and the three of us waited to see who else would be crazy enough to ride in these conditions. Burnside was the only other show.
Because there were only the four of us, Doug cut short his usual spiel (he started off in on it and then said "The hell with it, let’s ride" and that was that) and we took off a little after 7:30. It took us maybe ten minutes to ride up to the airtstrip above the Vallata and then on up the hill. Once we got past the radio antenna and started on along the ski trail, things slowed down. We made excellent progress, but that trail is like sitting on an intermittent jackhammer for two hours. Two hours into the ride and we were coming out onto Old Murphy Dome Road (which is an excellent pace, considering that by that time with a usual complement of Doug riders, we’d probably still been back by the burn area) and turned on down toward the pipeline corridor.
We got there about ten minutes later and then it was a fairly fast descent down the Pack Trail to Waterford Road. From there, we made a quick descent along the subdivision road and came out on Goldstream from Clifden. Then it was road riding for three miles back to the cars. Tom cheated and literally pushed Burnside up that final hill before the cars (or actually, Doug’s car and Tom’s truck) thereby cheating me out of the chance to extract my revenge for his getting back to the cars before me last week.
Anyway, we got back to the cars a little over three hours after we left, call it three hours and ten minutes. The ridge trail was great with just the four of us, but we still had to stop numerous times to rest and wait for someone (usually me) to catch up with the rest of us. Having done this trail twice before, I must say it is much better with just a small group of riders all of whom are of the same level of experience and strength.
From the cars back over to Dave’s house was another twenty minutes (following behind him, watching his taillight LED’s as they went back and forth like some mutant Ceylon as I tried to match pace with him) and I managed to get to bed before midnight (more or less).
Total time: just over three hours. Total distance: a little under twenty miles. Percentage of that distance spent pushing the bikes: Around 15 for me, less for the others. Percentage of time having fun: Greater than 90. Worst hill: from the airstrip up to the antenna. Best descent: the Pack Trail coming off of the pipeline.
Liam Wescott
a/k/a The Doug Ryder
FCC Historian