by Andrew Juiliano
Oct. 14, 2013—I stared at the packing list, convinced this must be someone else’s. But the handwriting didn’t lie—I was prepping for a dirtbag weekend of cycling in Santa Cruz. Since moving to San Francisco three years ago, I take any excuse to escape the concrete claustrophobia of the city, finding solace on the winding single track of the coastal mountains.With the Santa Cruz Super Enduro slated for Saturday and the opening Surf City Cyclocross race happening Sunday, I needed little convincing to go south.
Before I chamois’d-up and let gravity pull me from the Demo Forest ridgetops, I had a CPR class to teach in Mountain View. The radio blared “Ciento-Tres-Punto-Cinco” as I ground south through 7am traffic on the Peninsula. Though tempted to make a CPR manikin my copilot and navigate the carpool lane, The Fear convinced me the limbless blue torso would do little to amuse the khaki stares of the CHP.
The day dragged by as discussion of traumatic injuries and sudden cardiac arrest only intensified my longing for those loamy trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
By 3pm I was out the door, but traffic conspired against me as I crawled along Highway 85, the Coast Range in full view, taunting me in the distance. I arrived on the Westside with two hours of daylight remaining. Racing nightfall, I ascended the roads and trails that wind their way to the upper reaches of the UC campus above town. As I dove into the gullies above campus, the forest canopy sucked the light from the trails, and as I dropped towards the bottom of Wilder Ranch the light waned. As it did, so too did anxiety as my wheels skipped and bounced from the roots and rocks.
Read Santa Cruz Super Enduro
Read In The Demo Flow
Read The Santa Cruz Pump Track Boom
Emerging from the darkening redwood forest, I found the final rays of the twilight turning to golden sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
Out of daylight and adrenaline raging, I headed to 99 Bottles, where the hoppy libations on tap calmed my nerves. The pitchers littered the table before I wandered home in a state of hazy bliss, grinning all the way back to the five-star couch awaiting me on the Westside.
Cold Dirt Reality
By 6:45am, I clutched a breakfast sandwich in one hand and a cup of Hawaiian Hazelnut in the other, leaving my knees to pilot the CRV up Highway 17. At the crest of the mountains, I followed Summit Road east along the ridge as the lanes narrowed and hugged the abrupt mountainside.
On the approach to Camp Loma, the pullouts filled with cars, bikes and racers gearing up for the Enduro Race. From Camp Loma, racers rode to the top of Soquel Demonstration Forest by way of Buzzard Lagoon Road. I shivered changing into bike gear as the sunless gully held its frosty autumn air. The 1,200-foot climb to the Santa Rosalia ridgeline brought morning sun to the 190 shivering racers at the event. Faces thawed and smiles emerged as the warming rays poured in from the Eastern reaches of the Monterey Bay.
Four hours of racing and 4,600 feet of climbing later, riders emerged from the third and final stage of the day to the gathering crowd at the end of the last run. Ginger giant and Santa Cruz Bicycles employee Eric Highlander reached into his backpack and handed me PBR-en-Cozie as I slid across the final stretch of fire road—not even noon and the cans were popping. Welcome to Enduro racing. Sipping beer, the crowed cheered as Jeff Kendall-Weed and Margaret Gregory won the Pro Men and Pro Women categories.
Riders faced more beer hand-ups during the final four-mile cruise back to Camp Loma. Locally based racer and Santa Cruz Bicycles warehouse manager Scott Chapin, in a heroic display of “safety first,” wore his bike helmet from 8 in the morning till 8 at night—a good call considering the kegs of Ninkasi IPA flowed by noon.
Don't Cyclocross Me Off
The next morning, neither exhausted legs nor the lingering headache could deter me from another day of racing. Though cyclocross racing entails an hour of nausea-inducing intensity, I’d brought two bikes and needed to ride both. Motivated or not, I slogged over to Aptos High School at noon for the first Surf City Cyclocross race of the year.
Cyclocross is a bike racing discipline that mixes elements of both road and mountain bike racing. Courses are generally between one to two miles and feature a mix of trails, pavement and mandatory dismounts that require running and carrying a bicycle. Riders ride as many laps as they can in one hour. Adult beverage consumption is highly encouraged.
The Surf City Cyclocross Series is a gem of Northern California cycling heritage. The first race took place in 1973, and vies with the New England Cyclocross Series as the oldest in the U.S. The course wound through the hills behind Aptos High School, punishing riders on the steep climbs before careening down sandy chutes of eucalyptus groves. The race took what little energy remained in my body and I slumped into a folding chair at the finish line, unable to even lift a Sierra Nevada to my exhausted lips.
Utterly thrashed, I sat in the passenger seat of my car, hoping one of my manikins could crawl from its duffel and whisk me back to San Francisco. My eyelids shut as we sailed up the Peninsula’s car pool lanes.
The rays of Monday’s sunrise woke me in the front seat of the CRV, still in Santa Cruz, far from my urban abode. I found motivation by the bottom of a cup of coffee, then groaned as I pulled on the last clean pair of bike shorts and pedaled toward the cycling bliss of the redwood-covered hills.
