Silicon Valley Tour de Cure

120K Course
June 14, 2009

Not sure why they labeled this course the “120K” when it is more than 77 miles long, but what I am sure about is it was not only the longest option for the Silicon Valley Tour de Cure, but by far the most challenging. As anyone who has ridden from the mid-peninsula over to the coast and back can tell you, the climbs up King’s Mountain and Tunitas Creek to Skyline are tough.  Each one includes about 2000 feet of elevation gain at a steep grade.  Fortunately, they are both gorgeous routes, so even if you are in complete misery during the ascent, you can get some relief by taking in the scenery.

The course started and finished at HP headquarters in Palo Alto and our route is displayed in yellow on the map below.  If you're familiar with the area, you can see that we hit King’s Mountain about an hour into the ride.  That was great timing because we were completely warmed up when we got there but our legs still felt fresh.  Also, because we started as a pack, there were still plenty of riders around to climb with, making the ascent iteslf pretty fun.  

Over the course of the next 45 miles, however, the pack thinned out and by the time we hit the climb up from Tunitas Creek, the interval between riders was pretty substantial.  I had been riding for about 4 hours when I reached the base of the Tunitas climb, and my legs were definitely getting tired.  While these epic rides are a great way to demonstrate how well the elliptiGO performs compared to a road bike, the eliptical bicycle is really intended to be a substitute for running, not cycling.  As a result, the typical elliptiGO workout should last between 30 and 60 minutes, just like a typical running workout.  So doing a 2000’ climb after four hours on the elliptiGO is basically like running up a mountain at the end of a marathon – you can do it, but it’s probably not going to feel good.  

The Tunitas climb didn’t feel good, but I got through it about the same way as most of the cyclists – slowly.  At the top, there was a gorgeous rest stop, which I took full advantage of.  There were probably 30 other riders there when I arrived.  As I pulled in, I noticed something – not a single cyclist was sitting down.  In fact, as I thought back to the other rest stops on the course, I realized that every single rider was standing up at all times during each rest stop, even though they seemed to stay there for quite a while and there were plenty of places to sit.  It didn’t hit me until I reached this last rest stop that the reason I was the only rider who was relaxing in a chair instead of pacing around was because all of the other riders had spent the morning on a bike seat.  Thinking back to the days when I trained on a road bike, I could easily understand why they preferred to stand while resting. 

Although the course was tough, the ride was great!  I continue to be surprised by how enthusiastic cyclists are about the eliptical bicycle.  I had assumed that hard-core riders like the ones doing the 120K course would be unimpressed by an outdoor elliptical bike like the elliptiGO.  But that hasn’t been the case at all.  Throughout the ride, cyclists engaged me about the elliptiGO, either riding with me for awhile to talk about the features and benefits, or just yelling “awesome” as I rode by them or as they passed me.  I received nothing but positive comments from supporters and riders at the rest stops.  Without a doubt, there are cyclists who don’t like the idea of a stand-up bike, but they are definitely outnumbered by the majority of riders who seem to be energized by the fact that someone has pushed the design of human-powered transportation to create a viable system the emulates running without the impact.  
I’m really happy that has been our experience so far and I hope the pattern continues.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of photographs from the event because I rode the course alone.  All we really have is my Garmin data which shows the course and that I finished the ride in 6 hours and 14 minutes of total time.  As you can see from the diagrams below, there was a lot of climbing on this route and most of it was steep (according to my Garmin GPS, there was 7680’ of elevation gain on the course).  Overall, it was a great experience, a fun way to spend the morning, and another successful epic ride on the elliptiGO elliptical bike.