The Grizzly Peak Century



I love this route profile graph so much I bought the shirt!

Whelp, sorry for the delay on this blog entry! I have a pledge to myself - I have to document the events of the last ride before embarking on the next one. And guess what? Tomorrow morning, bright and early is my next ride, so I'm cutting this entry about as close as I reasonably can. :)

That said, let me tell you what I did on Sunday, May 6th! I participated with the Team in the Grizzly Peak Century (GPC). The GPC is an annual event, a Century ride conducted in the east bay hills.

It's the perfect length and has just about the right amount of climbing for us at this point in the season, so the Team likes to participate in it as a training ride. Of course, there were also plenty of scenic views from those exalted heights.

Grizzly Peak has lots of tree-shrouded roads.
Perfect for surprise attacks.

This event was to be momentous for another, more personal reason. You see, it's time for me to come clean about a dirty little secret. I've done "Century" rides before. A Century ride is defined as either a "Metric Century", meaning 100km in length or a regular "Century", which is 100 miles in length. My first Century was two years ago. Last year, I did Tahoe again and the Seattle-to-Portland (STP), which is a total of 207 miles, over two days.

The secret isn't that I've done Century rides before. Rather, it's that many times, those "Century" rides don't actually make it to the full 100 miles. Tahoe is only 98. Only one day of the STP exceeded 100. So in reality, I've cheated, or been cheated out of breaking the official mark by these supposedly official rides! So how many times have I actually broken 100? Only that once, on STP.

The view from the Oakland Hills. UC Berkeley is in the foreground,
San Francisco in the background.

So now comes Grizzly Peak, an honest Century at last! I was psyched and ready. I can tell I've been getting stronger. Even knowing the looming mileage, the involved climbing, I was raring to go at the start line. A bit worried about real Grizzly Bears, perhaps. Silly me. All too soon we'd all discover that something much worse was biding its time on those forested, tree-shrouded slopes.

The ride itself was a large loop, which led us first up and to the top of the Oakland Hills. I'd never been up there before. Back in the late 80's the whole place was devastated by fires. It has since been rebuilt, the trees regrown. There were amazing views of the bay, you could see Mt. Tam in Marin, San Francisco, the Golden Gate bridge, Oakland and further south. At last I understood why people would want to live perched on cliffside houses at the top of this ridge, even with the known fire risk. The views are amazing.

Todd was telling us to go back, "Save yourselves!".
Nothing doing, Todd. We stick together!

It was in coming down from Grizzly Peak that we saw our first butterfly.

Cute, charming, butterflies. One, two, a dozen...more. Swarms. There were a strange number of them out that day, wings sparkling in the sunlight. A rite of spring in those hills, I imagined. A deer leapt up and among them, into the trees, disappearing and taking the butterflies along in its wake. Beautiful, really. It was a restful pause, almost as if they were following it to some quiet rendevous in a shrouded sylvan glade.

Um, guys, you realize there's a
"Butterfly Field" on this map, right?

After Grizzly Peak and the soft touch of nature, we rode towards the Carquinez Bridge. In terms of traffic and urbanity this was the sketchiest part of the ride, as it took us through industrial zones of the northeast Bay. All in all, it was quite the juxtaposition - as we quickly moved from amazing nature views with humanity spread from horizon to horizon, followed by an up-close-and-personal with the heavy industry that humanity requires.

It was in this stretch of industrial piping, heavy with chemicals and blowing fumes that one of my fellow riders first voiced his concern. "I think I saw another butterfly," he said. "So?" I replied. He turned a paler shade, voice quavering just a bit, "Just keep riding, okay?" Strangely, I couldn't get anything else out of him. At the time it really struck me as an odd thing to say, especially when it was getting so hot on the roads.

You see, as we continued riding, I naturally continued to sweat. One of the challenges of the day that I underestimated came in the form of getting enough to drink. You're supposed to drink enough so that you have to pee at every rest stop. After the first couple, I was drinking my bottles between stops and still not peeing. That's not really sustainable over a long ride. I've begun pondering the merits of a camelback, just so I can carry more water with me!

Can you find the butterfly in this picture? Of course not.
That's because vampires don't show up on cameras.

Just as my water was running low, I saw another one of the soft orange-and-black insects, winging its way towards us. Never one to shirk from scientific investigation, I took a picture of it! Strangely, it didn't show up on the camera. I tried again, turning the camera off and then on. Snapped the shot. Still nothing. It was only then that the hairs on the back of my neck started to rise.

Halfway rest stop. I still feel bad for that
guy crying in the front, I think the bugs got his buddy.

The legends...I'm sure you've heard them so many times, no need to repeat them here. Let me tell you, they're true. No wonder the strange silences of my cohorts. The hills, the sounds of nature so strangely missing. The lack of Grizzly Bears!  These weren't just any butterflies. They were vampire butterflies!

I felt bad for the deer that had fled into the woods. For the riders I had seen diving down side roads, screaming in sudden terror. How much the fool I had been, to think they were merely dehydrated and cracking under the stress of the hills and Sun!

I summoned up every bedtime story, every encylopedia entry I'd ever read from the dim corners of my mind. I remembered it right, unlike their bat cousins, these little creatures come out during the day, luring their prey with their soft, prismatic wings. Never had I seen a picture of course. This didn't stop me from desperately trying to capture them on film, as we would pass whole fields of shimmering color. Unfortunately, they cannot be so captured. They have no souls. That much of the legends is certainly true. Also, they can go in the sunlight. And they sparkle. Damn you, Twilight, for getting that right.

You could blend your own smoothie at the rest stop!

Fear is a fine motivator, with or without water to sustain you. Any thought of taking it easy was put behind when one of the pretty little bugs smacked my skin on a downhill, raising a welt that I swear bore the tracks of fangs that had tried and failed to find purchase.

Together we pushed on, swooping down hills and pacing ourselves up them. After a harrowing journey through one sun-dappled field too many, we arrived at the relative safety of a large, midway rest stop. There a large number of riders had circled the wagons, were breaking bread together, plotting strategies for the rest of the ride. I was amused to see that somebody had hooked a blender to a stationary trainer. Smoothies were available for those with the energy to make them!

Official Grizzly Peak riders. Bright yellow, like flowers.
I loved seeing these jerseys, I used them as bait.

We took the time to regroup. And strategize like the others. It didn't take me long to notice that there were an awful lot of official "Grizzly Peak" riders on the route, in their bright yellow jerseys. Very attractive jerseys, especially to insects. And as I sat there, slurping down my smoothie and stretching my legs I realized I might not have to sprint the last 40 miles back to the car! No, all we had to do was let them lead away the butterflies, like the Pied Piper or the deer into the woods!

You might call it cowardice, but it was strategy of the highest order. We could spend our energy wisely, climbing hills and sprinting only when needed to throw pursuit off the track. Together, our riders rallied with renewed hope!

I saw wings! Flee for your lives!

Of course, if you've read this far, you have probably surmised that I survived. And not just me. I'm glad to report that despite some close calls from the undead insect world, all of our team made it back at the end of a long day. I can't vouch for all the yellow jerseys, but our Team, every last straggler, made it to the finish. We took a moment of well-earned rest, eating the official bbq, nursing our leg cramps and bandaging our bites.

And the icing on the cake? My second "official" Century was complete!

Now for the next challenge - every weekend from here until the Death Ride will contain at least one ride of 100 miles in length or more. That's just the part of the season we've arrived at! A Century a week! I can hardly wait!

Also, I'm bringing bug spray.