Bariani Road Race

Please forgive me for using the NorCal site as a portal for my vacation log. In keeping with my tendency to multi-task, I decided to sneak some racing in on Day 1 and Day 7 of my Spring Break. Jesse, very aware of the level to which I am addicted to bike racing, was happy to go along with this idea, and take pictures to document the week.

I should mention that the original plan was to leave Saturday morning and hit Land Park on Day 1 of an 8-day adventure, but late Friday night we ended up in the ER because Jesse was having severe abdominal pains. After a CAT scan, the doctor set our minds at ease (no gallstones, no soon-to-rupture appendix, no tumor...) as he described what he DID see in the CAT scan and prescribed some Milk of Magnesia. So our plans to hit Land Park were swapped with plans to leave Sunday morning and hit Bariani instead.

So, Bariani Road Race. I was thrilled to see Rita, since I was not expecting to have a teammate. Yeah, Rita!!! :)

Wind, wind, and more wind! Awesome!!! I was totally excited to get a chance to practice riding in the sort of conditions you only read about or watch on DVD's of the Tour of Flanders. I wanted to practice a full-fledged eschelon. This unfortunately was totally impossible, as it became obvious to me that organizing the group into a simple rotating paceline was challenging enough. I could go on, but I'll leave it at that.

Two women got off the front but the Tibco girl flatted. The lone leader took her advantage out to 3 minutes or more and stayed away, as we floundered in the field attempting to get organized. The "chase" group was dwindled down to a pack of about 15. In the end, I had a good position heading into the last corner and the wind literally pushed me and my 53x11 across the line for 4th place, $40, and some Bariani Olive Oil.

After Bariani, we took Highway 50 to Highway 395 and stayed in Lee Vining on our way down to Death Valley. The scenery was spectacular! On Day 2, we stopped in Bishop at this awesome bakery called Schotts and snacked on cheesy bread sticks as we drove past impressive views of Mt. Whitney. We finally made it into Death Valley National Park, and the gas & diesel prices you see here blew us away. Oh well, I think gas should be $50 a gallon until people wise up and decide to use alternatives.

We also saw about a dozen or so bike tourists in the area throughout the week. I can imaging that March would be a wonderful time to tour Death Valley by bike, but I do think the camping there is pretty grim. Most folks seemed to have a "rig" (trailer, camper, etc) and I'm sure this has to do with the fact that there is NO SHADE. After scouting our choices of campgrounds, we opted for the yuppie alternative and booked ourselves into the Furnace Creek Inn. Yup, we threw down our wallets and sat by the pool.

The view from our room was worth the sell-out. The colors during sunset and sunrise were impossible to capture with my lack of equipment and skills, but hopefully this photo does the view some justice. The hotel had some information about the local history and I became especially intrigued by the "Fancher Party" expedition. Apparently these pioneers barely made it through Death Valley as they attempted a "shortcut" to California. The story of their travels is very Donner-esque except that they only resorted to burning their wagons to make jerkey out of their oxen. This provided the food they needed to escape Death Valley by foot. Good grief. We decided to trace the route of their travels on our way out (Highway 190 through Trona and Ridgcrest...see below).

Anyway, I woke up on Day 3, put my kit on, and headed out into the cool morning to climb from 100 feet below sea level up to 5500 feet. my destination was Dante's View. The first 10 miles of steady climbing at about 4-6% provided close-up views of Death Valley's famous wildflower blooms. Later in the ascent, between miles 18 and 23, the road pitched up to 13%. I came out of a small canyon within the last mile and was subjected to a 20 degree drop in temperature and some brutal wind. From the top, you can see the entire length of Death Valley and see both its lowest (-282 ft) and highest (11,049 ft) points in one glance. The Panamint and Amargosa mountains seem impenetrable. My thoughts keep returning to those crazy pioneers. Boy, life must have been pretty grim if people were willing to pack up their shit and haul themselves across such a place. The speck in the picture to the left is me descending from Dante's View. Like I said "The Jesse" was there to document everything. His patience with me paid off later (see below) as the inevitable bird-watching began.

We departed Death Valley after my ride, as soon as we confirmed that we did not want to do any camping there. I guess we are campground snobs, because Death Valley (without a "rig") just didn't do it for us. Our exit via highway 190 along the route of the Fancher Party reminded us that we were in the middle of nowhere. If you want to see the most run-down town of boarded up houses and belching borax factories, take a trip to Trona. On second thought, skip it. We finally made our way through Walker Pass, the pass the Fancher Party had been searching for since their departure from Salt Lake City. Crazy pioneers. We descended from Walker pass down into the Lake Isabella area east of Bakersfield. The scenery was nice, but some of the towns we passed gave me the creeps, thanks to having recently finished Jon Krakauer's book  "Under the Banner of Heaven" and spending hours on the rollers watching "Big Love".

On Day 4 we finally found the campground we'd been searching for! Potwisha campground is along the General's Highway in Sequoia National Park. Its elevation is around 2000 ft, which is perfect for camping in March. We were treated to redbud blooming like crazy, buckeye, and lots of poppies and lupines. We found a great campsite and enjoyed lounging around in the sun during the day and a beautiful full moon on Thursday night. There were birds and critters everywhere! On Day 5, I suited up in the early AM and began riding up the General's Highway. This was an awesome ride! The grade is about 6-8% for at least 15 miles. I rode about 12 miles up the climb to about 6000 feet, where snow and giant sequoias surrounded me. Fog and chilly temperatures forced me to turn around and descend back down the mountain. What a beautiful ride, though. Did I mention the redbud? It was everywhere. Gorgeous.

Early on Day 6 we left Potwisha and continued up through Sequioa National Park toward Kings Canyon. We arrived at the General Sherman Tree (largest tree by volume in the WORLD) just in time to share the experience with some crazy german tourists. They were hilarious! Singing and dancing in German around the giant tree! Their tour vans heralded "Paris is Empty!". Yup, cuz all the crazy German tourists are in Sequoia National Park! Fun.

I'm not even close to being done with this race report........

We stopped for some killer views of the Kings Range (2nd largest road-less area in the United States) and did some recon at a few resorts in the area. A few of these would be ideal for hosting a spring training camp....perhaps in 2009?

We descended out of the park into the Orosi area. Now I know there is a Velo Promo race in this area, and after I finish writing this I plan to find out the roads it covers. The reason is that if the roads you race on are anything like those we drove this day, I definitely want to do this race. Seriously, the roads are great. I was tempted to have Jesse stop the car and let me get my bike down off the rack. Instead, though, Jesse got his just rewards....he spotted a Merlin (!!!) and a Red Tail nest all within 50 feet of road. Check it! (left). For all you non-birders out there, a Merlin is a rare-sighting. Jesse was quite pleased. The red-tail nest was an added bonus.

Okay, I'm running out of steam......

Here are some other nice pics from the Orosi area:

We finally made it to Sonora. The interesting thing about Sonora is that we found a nice West-County-Esque pasta restaurant ("Pasta Fool", where I polished off a huge platter of spagetti and meatballs) and every other location on the main drag is either an antique shop or what I would describe as a biker bar. Jesse noticed, though, that the biker bars were filled with yuppies. Sonora definitely has a happening night life. Either that, or the place drives you to drink.

Early on day 7, we get our 5:45 wake-up call and off we go to Copperopolis Road Race (see Copperopolis report).

And that's my Bariani Race Report. Thanks for reading, seriously!!!

-Claire-bell

Arriving in Zamora that morning, I stepped out of my warm car and into some gale-force winds. Seriously! My immediate thought was… did I make a mistake in coming? I’d already had a disappointing race the day before at Land Park — which I won’t get into here — perhaps my hope was to redeem myself at Bariani and maybe salvage something from the weekend’s racing. It didn’t turn out as I would have liked, but on a positive note, it was great to see Claire. And to see her do so WELL!!

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