The White Whale

 

The White Whale

Do you ever go out and find something you were looking for, but you didn’t actually know you were looking for it? That happened to me today when I was out driving my Kona around.  

After I work out and Kona has gone on walk 1 of her Saturday morning.  Kona is a very special girl and she get three walks each Saturday and Sunday.  One by me and two by Mr. Ross.  She has a lot of energy. After our walk and weight lifting I’ll put the girl in the car and we will got to McDonald’s and I’ll get coffee one of the day.  A decaf two creams and 4 equals.  I’ll get Kona a sausage patty, although she won’t touch it till we get home.  

Often on these morning excursions I’ll take a drive to some place that I want to cycle.  To sort of give it a dry run and see if I think I can do it or not.  To see if it has hills, are they steep, are they long, even worse are they steep and long?  

For the better part of the last year I’d drive anyone who would ride with me down Greenville Road to Tesla road and up and over the hill there and tell them how I would ride it some day.  I’ve climbed that  400 foot hill three times now.   Never got off and walked either.  Now it takes my breath away.  It gets hard, but I do it.  Both talking sweet to it and talking trash to it.  I have a love hate relationship with hills.  This hill will be the start of every ride I do from home this summer.  Each ride I’ll go and attack it, until it became just a bump in the road.  Now this get off this little tangent and return to the point  which is, I drive these routes, then I take them on my bike.  

Just like the stretch under 580 on North Livermore out to either Hartford or May School Road.  Just last week I went out three times and three times I crossed under 580 on North Livermore and road out in the Livermore boonies.  Simultaneously cussing the small climb and enjoying the view.  The truth is I never feel more alive when I’m riding up a hill, and looking around and enjoying the view.  

Today was a simple we have an hour to kill let’s go out and scout this new road we passed and see if it is something we want to ride on.  As we are adding five miles a week to our long ride, I need to find more places to ride. So, when I was crossing Mines Road and Tesla the last few days I was like, I gotta check this out.  It might be good to add a little out and back here.  I had no idea when I took the left today in my Chevy Volt with puppy in tow that I would find exactly what I’d been looking for, my White Whale.   

I don’t know how long Mines road is.  I wasn’t measuring.  However, it appeared to me to be a cyclist paradise.  That isn’t just because I saw no less than 20 cycles out there.  Who I waved and gave the thumbs up too. What I do know if you do the full Mines Road route out and back it becomes a 60 mile ride.  I know that because I looked it up.  That is also if you go all the way from Downtown Livermore to the San Antonio Valley, but that is a different ride for a different time and we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Mines starts off pretty flat with a really nice bike lane.  I wasn’t lying when I said I saw bike riders galore.  I saw fast riders.  Slow bike riders.  Cute bike riders.  Really old bike riders.  It seems to be very popular for riding.  It was long and flat for the first mile.  Traffic seemed ok.  A few other cars but mostly I saw people enjoying themselves.  Weaving in and out of old farm houses, complete with barns, cows and goats.  It was like a gate way back home to Indiana.  

My excite really took hold about a mile or so in.  The road I noticed started to rise.  It got hilly quickly.  The next thing I knew Kona and I were on a three mile climb.  The further you we went the more we could see.  You could look down into the valley and see house, and farmer.  It was really quite lovely.  

I knew then and there, I must have this hill.  I must climb this climb.  I saw the sign that said up for the next three miles and I knew I wanted.  I didn’t know why I wanted but want it I certainly did.  I want to climb up, up, up.  

My history on the bike is a long history of getting off and walking up hills.  I remember some very early memories of my Mom and family poking fun at me because coming up the little hill on Sycamore Knolls I used to get up and walk it.  

Flash forward ten years later or so and I’m in Bloomington and trying to ride with some really bad ass riders.  I think we were our by lake Monroe.  I remember the hood riders riding up and down these hills several times.  I also remember me falling on them.  Having to push my bike and walk up.  I hated it.  

To many times when I was riding with David, you know the Beaver, I had to get off and walk it because I was just to heavy to ride up.  How many climbs did I ditch out on during tri training?    Well is it ditching out if you know you can’t ride up them but you walked up them to prove a point?  I was always going to ride Calaveras, Mt Hamilton, Bailey Road, but my weight got a hold of me and I couldn’t.  Now I can.  Now I will.

This three mile climb up Mines road looks like the right challenge for me.  It looks like a good place to try and give it bell.  It is my White Whale.  As I train over this summer for the Fuzz.  I’m going to start circling in on Mines.  I’ll try it, and fail.  I’ll try it again, and again until I end up at the park gates signaling the end of my three mile climb. 

I’m so excited about this.  Nervous too.  A little scared.  However, I really want to do this.  I know I’ll never be the king of the mountain.  That’s ok, I don’t need to be.  I just need to keep going up, up, up and have fun doing so.  I’m excited.  I’m coming for your Mines.  I’m coming for you!

After we take down this whale... then perhaps  I will do the full 60 mile Mines Road ride, but that is a story for another day...