[heythorp]

Doing this tomorrow.

Leaving between 7 and 8 if anyone wants in. Sorry only going one way and then spending the night there, but if you have a way back come along.

OK last minute probably no one is going to join in but I was looking for last minute advise.

I am going to go up over OLH down to Pescadero.

Here is where I am "concerned" about the options.

1. Do I go straight out to RT1 or take a left on Cloverdale? I really don't like riding on 1 so I was going to try and cut out as much as possible.

2. Also there is Swanton Rd. a bit further down the 1 that looks like it would take me off of the highway for a few miles. Any advise here?

3. Can you ride to SC and not climb Bonnie Doon. Its kind of out of the way but hey who knows when I will do this ride again. I guess I can make it a game time decision.


or

4. Should i scratch this route get up on skyline take it all the way to 236 and go through big basin?

Thanks for the help.

 

[PaleAleYum]

Take cloverdale south to avoid hwy 1. There is a fair of bicycle traffic along hwy 1 so you shouldn't feel all alone and in hte afternoon you will have a tailwind southbound. It should really kick up your speed. You do not need to climb bonny doon to get to downtown Santa Cruz. Just continue on along hwy 1 and you'll come right into town. Have fun, the weather will cooperate ( have some arm warmers along if you plan to drop to the other side of hwy35 on the early side.) and you'll want to do it again sometime soon.

Hwy 35 is an option southbound, but you'll see more up and down when heading south. it is fairly well traveled and some would say more dangerous due to the curves and rice rockets.

Both options are regularly traveled bicycle routes.

 

[ratpick]

You should have found lots of traffic on Hwy 1 (south of Swanton Rd), including me, riding the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge!

Definitely take OLH to Haskins Hill (Pescadero Creek Rd) to Cloverdale - really nice ride in pretty much any conditions.

Any of these options are great ways to get to Santa Cruz depending on what you like to ride. If you like to climb, take Swanton and then Bonny Doon up to Ice Cream Grade (or Smith Grade), then rip down Empire Grade to Santa Cruz. Today would have been a good day for the Swanton Rd option as there wasn't much of a tailwind on Hwy 1.

Just staying on Hwy 1 is a flatter option, but a bit boring unless there's a strong tailwind when you can keep a pretty good speed up. The tailwind seems to die after Davenport, I guess because the road turns to the east a bit.

Good food at the bakery in Davenport, btw (cash only)

Or do it down and back in one day

 

[sometimerider]

You should have found lots of traffic on Hwy 1 (south of Swanton Rd), including me, riding the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge!

You did Jamison in under 26 minutes? Very impressive. (On the pre-ride, last week, I was over 40 mins.)

You had to ride the school driveway 3 times to get to 10k feet? So our ride stats are off by a bit. BTW, that driveway (per my Garmin) is 18% (but that's not as bad as some of the bits on Riva Ridge, China Grade, and Jamison).

Good show.

 

[ratpick]

Thanks - yeah, 25:52 between the time-trial gates they had setup - add another 25 sec from the lower start of Jamison. We were moving pretty fast (my previous Jamison was 31 mins) - something about lots of slower riders up ahead makes me want to chase. It was good enough for 54th out of 470.. happy with that!

My Garmin had clocked 100 mi and 10K in the last 2 miles of the ride, but Dirk, my riding buddy for this, had lower readings on his (same model) Garmin, for some reason. So we did a couple of climbs up the driveway (each 25') to clock him over too. And it was fun to do a couple of sprints up there and see what we had left (which was a lot for the first, but not much for the 2nd and 3rd

 

[heythorp]

Cloverdale is a great road. I was a bit surprised when I got on it and I was like, man this feels pretty isolated.

I stayed off swanton yesterday, but if there is another ride to SC I will throw it in.

I like climbing and all but Bonnie Doon I can do without.

The group ride you were doing, I stopped at your sag at the "top" of Bonnie Doon and talked to the guy for a few minutes just to make sure I was on course.


I saw 2 CHP, that appeared to be chasing down two cyclists that went by me amazingly fast.

Anyway, OLH to Pescadero to cloverdale is a great route to get to SC.