Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

New Melones, CA
May 15, 2010

I've been off the bike for nearly two years now. I've had all sorts of treatments and drugs for my knees, but none have been successful. I'm awaiting some sort of counseling prior to proceeding with implantation of a neurostimulator to hopefully reduce my knee pain. If that doesn't work I'm off to Stanford University. I've occasionally tried riding my backup bike around the neighborhood, but it has always resulted in pain since last summer. I've been doing a good bit of roadside wildflower photography along Hwy 49, in the western Sierra foothills the past few weeks. I recently drove past New Melones, where my mountain biking began 10 years ago. It is still green and it just looked too inviting.

Last night I took my good bike out of the closet to see if it was rideable. The shock needed a bit of air, the fork was flat, and the brakes were pretty low on fluid. But the Sram XO shifters still worked perfectly and so did my Joplin seatpost. Surprisingly, after pumping up the two flat tires, they held up overnight. I had intended to do an easy one hour ride, but it was just too much fun, and surprisingly easier than anticipated after two years of sitting on the couch. I ended up doing nearly three hours and if I had not run out of trail I would have done a good bit more. I figured the knees would be hurting later anyway, so why not add some more miles?

As usual for this time of year it was pretty warm. But I had sense enough to bring a camelback filled with ice water. The clipless pedals were scary for the first few minutes and it took me quite a while to learn how to shift again. I bought a Garmin Edge 705 GPS with heart rate (HR) monitor just before my knees went out, but I only got in two rides with it. I never took HR monitors very seriously before, but it was great for this ride. After such a long layoff with no aerobic activity I had no idea what my heart would do. I forgot I'm really old now and my maximum HR is supposed to be 160, not the 190 when I ran. But I felt fine until about 165, and I hit 180 a few times. The HR monitor was especially useful on the one mile pavement climb in quite warm temperatures toward the end of the ride.

From the lower trailhead I did Frontier, Angel's Creek in both directions, back via Frontier, up the one mile pavement climb to the upper trailhead, down the Tower Climb and back to the lower trailhead via Carson Creek. At a bit under 15 miles that might not sound difficult to many. But my first ride there 10 years ago was much shorter, it took almost twice as long, and I was dead at the end. My favorite trail, Buckbrush was closed. I rode fairly cautiously, I expected to fall a few times, and perhaps not make some of the climbs. But no falls, I made all climbs, I felt great at the end of the ride, and I wish the trails were longer. As I drove away I felt a bit of pride when I saw at least a dozen people more than half my age pushing their bikes up the climb I had just ridden up! I hate stopping but I snapped a few photos with my P&S camera. Below is the embeded map from Garmin Connect, here is a link to all the stats.

Click on an image to enlarge it

Angel's Creek	Closed Buckbrush	Me	Angel's Creek	My Bike	Frontier Trail
Carson Creek	Tower Climb	Tower Climb	Carson Creek	Bridge over Hwy 49	My Bike