The Santa Cruz County Cycling Club runs a century ride each summer, the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge, the latest episode of which happened on Saturday. The SCMC highlights the special features of the county’s roads and cycling culture with a route that takes in both epic climbing (more than 10,000 feet of ascent, a tough profile for a century ride) as well as the Pacific coast off Highway 1 and West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz.
The full SCMC century (there is also a “metric” option which runs 100 kilometers instead of 100 miles) is a fantastic route. Starting from Scotts Valley High School, it takes in the following Santa Cruz classics:
- Mountain Charlie Road: I’d never ridden this, although it comes out just a few miles from our house. The day started with a lake of fog covering the coast and lapping up against the foothills, and riding up Mountain Charlie from Scotts Valley brought us out of the fog and into the morning sun with some incredible light effects. Mountain Charlie is narrow and lovely, never very steep, and it brought us up to Skyline above Redwood Estates.
- Bear Creek Road: This is a road I associate with the ride home from Big Basin, and it’s a tough climb at the end of a long day. But for the SCMC we rode it as a descent from Skyline to Boulder Creek, and it was fast and cold, with the trees blurring by at 35 mph as we dropped slowly into the fog layer.
- China Grade: China Grade is a famous climb in the region, and it’s a fun and punchy one. It averages about 10% for two miles, and — best of all — it drops you off on Highway 236 above Big Basin State Park, ready to bomb through the curvy descent to park headquarters. This was only my second trip up China Grade, but I’ve loved it both times; it’s short, steep, narrow, winding, and set in deep trees.
- Jamison Creek: I heard from long-time local riders that Jamison was the toughest climb in the area, tougher even than Alba Road. The SCMC organizers run this climb as an “embedded time trial”, so, while the SCMC isn’t a race, you do get a time issued for this section, and the organizers publish your name and time on the web after the race. I was thinking as I road up to this section that running a time trial at mile 40 of a mountain century on a 1500 foot climb, most of which is >10%, might not bring out people’s better angels — this was not the time to blow yourself up, with 60 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing still ahead. But in practice it was fine, and the road was steep enough that it didn’t really invite heroic effort…just keeping the bike moving up the hill seemed all people were interested in. My time was 28’52″, for the record. I passed a few people, and I got passed by a few others, including one who did the Yahoo! yodel as he rode by (I wore my purple Yahoo! bike jersey).
- Bonny Doon Descent and Highway 1: Eventually, we worked our way over to part of the Tour of California route, dropping down Bonny Doon road to Highway 1. The route took us north on Highway 1, into the prevailing headwind, which encouraged the creation of supportive pelotons. I hooked up with two very kind gentlemen who had plenty of leg, and we worked together all the way up into the Swanton Road loop to its concluding climb, at which point they dropped me and I went back to my rich interior life. The ride back down Highway 1 with the tailwind was fast and confidence inspiring, making me think I was pretty tough for being able to bomb down the road at high speed so far into the ride. The views are absurdly beautiful, with the cliffs and the deep, blue Pacific on one side and the coastal range up to the left.
- Bonny Doon and Smith Grade: At mile 70-something, the route takes you back up Bonny Doon, and although this is not a tough climb — the grade is gentle — the speed was no longer inspiring confidence. I could feel at this point that all the rigorous sitting around I do most days was not ideal preparation for the seventh hour of a century ride. I dropped into granny gear, sunk deeper into my rich interior life, and hoped that no one would recognize me as I limped up to Smith Grade. This part of the route was new to me, and it was a bit of a surprise how much climbing remained when we turned to Smith Grade from Bonny Doon. Three fellow riders asked me, at different points on that section, how much more uphill remained.
- Santa Cruz: Of course, the SCMC route has to take you down West Cliff Drive and the postcard views of the beeches, surf, and boardwalk that you get on that famous stretch of road. There is never a bad time to ride in Santa Cruz, and even 90 miles into the century it was easy to get lost in the activity of the town and the beautiful setting. At this point, my Garmin watch was done for the day, but the last 12 miles back up to Scotts Valley were the least spectacular section, in any case.
The cycling club does a wonderful job with the event, and there was plenty of fruit, gatorade, and Cytomax at the snacking stations (as well as other good snacks for the non-Celiac, non-vegetarian riders). All of the SCCC volunteers were kind and supportive, including the three women who rang cowbells at the finish line every time a rider made it to the end.
In the high school cafeteria at the end of the ride, the organizers set up a slide show and played a loop of snapshots set to Carmina Burana. Celiac made for a good excuse to skip the end-of-ride burrito and go straight for the blueberry ice cream (which was delicious).
