A Hot, Long Ride on Toad Day

Yesterday was the Warrior Society's Toad Festival, which I did not attend. The Toad Festival is named for the toad that the Sierra Club uses as an excuse to close Maple Springs road for six months out the year during toady mating season. Actually, it may have been conjuered up to keep over-zealous developers from cutting a major highway through the canyon and over or under the Santa Anas at that point. Anyway, the ironic thing is that the toad festival route does not include Maple Springs. The route is up Holy Jim to Main Divide over to Trabuco Trail and down. It's not a race, but more of a fun event for intermediate and better riders with lots of prizes.

Anyway, like I said I didn't do that ride but I wanted to do something that day. So I saw a post from a young kid named Kipp who is a serious rider. He is training for a 24 hour race (solo!) and was considering a 35-mile, 7200 vertical foot ride on the northern section of the Santa Anas (north of the Toad Festival). Notably, it did include Maple Springs road, home of the dreaded toad. Another rider named Mark also signed up with a 7:30 start planned.

As I was driving up to the start at the end of Mojeska Cyn Rd, I noticed the clouds starting to break up. It has been cool all winter and spring so far, and all week had been cloudy at least near the coast. But skies were blue in the Santa Anas on Saturday. Nice for views, but it promised to add to the heat factor. I loaded up about a gallon of Gatorade and water and we started up Harding Truck Trail. The ride up Harding was pretty uneventful, although there was less shade than I recall from past rides, maybe due to the time of year. It took about 1:45 to get to the top of the 9 mile trail/road.

After a break at the four corners intersection (where we would return after our climb up Maple Springs), we head down (and up) the Main Divide to the Silverado Motorway. This section of the Main Divide is very fast in spots and has one big climb with some loose spots. I was able to clean it, and although it was only about 80 degrees it felt hot due to some of the steep pitches.

Going down the Motorway is always an adventure. It is four mile singletrack trail, fast in spots, very loose and shaley in others. At the bottom we hit Maple Springs Rd. We took a short break, and started the grind up. We had already climbed about 4500 feet, and we had another 2700 to go. The worst part of Maple Springs is on the lower paved part, about 3 miles up, just before it changes to dirt. I started cranking, wanting to get it over with. Probably a mistake, especially since Mark started complaining a lot at that point. From there up to the top of Maple Springs Mark struggled, although his pace was OK. I had a few leg cramps, my first ever while pedaling (I've had others due to spinning a lot, then standing on the pedals on a downhill). But I was basically OK.

At the top of Maple Springs we were back at Harding with 9 miles of almost pure downhill to go. I felt good, but Mark was hurting pretty bad. So I stopped about half way down to make sure he was OK. At the bottom, Kipp had some ice cold water and apples waiting. Man did those apples taste great. Due to the heat, that was definitely the toughest 7000 foot vert ride I've ever done. I guess summer is here.