It’s Tuesday, the day of the weekly Metcalf Mauler bicycle ride up the hill of Metcalf Road in San Jose, CA, USA. If you awaken in Beijing, China, you’re in the wrong hemisphere. There’s no reasonable expectation of attending the ride at 5 PM today. You better pull-up your shorts and sprint across 123 degrees of planetary longitude to show up on time. With fortune, you’ll get a 600 mph draft from a jet and a 24-hour prime (sprit bonus) when you cross the International Dateline. Will you be retained by TSA or Customs? Will the taxi, plane, BART, CalTrain, and Light Rail connections align? Will jetlag make you a zombie mauler?
The “Metcalf Mauler” is a weekly meeting of road cyclists to ride a 26-mile loop in the foothills of the Diablo mountain range near San Jose, CA. This organized ride has appeared in the Ride Schedule of the Almaden Cycle Touring Club for at least 15 years. It has been hosted for many seasons by co-leaders Art Cruz and Don Axtell. Eight to twelve riders assemble at 5 PM each summer Tuesday to ride together up the hill of Metcalf Road. The hill is a short, hot, 2.2-mile climb of 1000 feet. The maulers are buddies who are comfortable riding fairly fast and close. The hill is usually ridden in time trial fashion by riders hustling to match testosterone levels and personal bests. Climb times of 13 to 20 minutes are typical.
After a regroup at the motorcycle park at the summit of Metcalf hill there’s a ripping 2-mile, eight percent descent into scenic rolling hills past a rocket design & test plant. A whistling paceline forms and is broken by short rollers. There’s a second regroup at the eucalyptus grove, about halfway thru the ride. From the grove, maulers plunge down 3 miles of the sinuous San Felipe Road along the arroyo of Dry Creek. It is customary for the largest riders to lead the line. It’s a fact of physics; the massive object accelerates-down the inclined plane with greater inertia (speed) than the lighter object.
Leaders begin to rotate as descent tapers into a flat half-mile before the stoplight at Farnsworth Road. This is the sprint section. The ride continues to the last regroup at the summit of Hassler hill. The last leg is thru Hellyer Technology Park and back to the suburban fringe. The Mauler’s a Hassler, and a Hellyer.
Most Tuesdays I can simply dress-out at 4:30 and cycle 3.4 miles from home thru 11 stoplights to the mauler rendezvous. But on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 I awake at 6:30 AM in Beijing, China. I haven’t even a dim idea that I’ll be ready to maul at 5 PM, today.
A taxi takes me from the Peninsula Hotel in downtown Beijing along Dongzhimen Airport Expressway to the airport. Bicycles have been banned from the new expressways. 2008 Olympics banners furl on lampposts. The length of the expressway is crowded with new high rise construction. The new gotham booms, end-to-end. By Beijing noon, I’m aboard United Air 888 to San Francisco.
From a window at 36,000 feet, you’d be awed at the expanse of the Korean peninsula. Blocks of tall buildings march shoulder-to-shoulder from Kwangju thru Taejon to the distant fringe of Seoul. The expanse of development seems infinite. Here’s another sprawling megalopolis.
Behold, the flight path is directly over Tokyo. Another immense development of buildings and factories. Visibility is perfect. There are more golf courses in southern Japan than there are on the Monterey peninsula. It takes most of a half-hour at 1000 kilometers per hour to span the expanse of the capitol and its built-out end of the island.
You doze briefly and lightly. Three films are shown. You re-read several chapters of Silk Road; Monks, Warriors, and Merchants, Luce Boulnois. The sky darkens and we cross the International Dateline. Gradually the sun rises on the same date, September 25. For us, it’s a day of 39 hours. You retard the calendar on the wristwatch. It dawns upon you that we’ll be landing at 8:45 AM. Surely you’ll be too lagged to maul . . .
We circle the southbay. It’s a brilliant and clear early autumn day. Those on the opposite side of the plane look down upon my neighborhood and the Diablo foothills, where the maulers will maul. After the browns of the Taklamakan desert of Xinjiang, the Santa Cruz Mountains seem fresh green. Perhaps we’ve had our first autumn rain.
Customs is a breeze. The checked suitcase is unsearched, going and coming from China. You lug the suitcase up one escalator to the convenient BART platform. By 9:30 you’re on the Bart to the Millbrae CalTrain station. By 10, I’m enjoying the cushy CalTrain seat and a copy of the Chronicle. Mid-day trains stop at the Tamien light rail station in San Jose. A short, light rail ride drops me at Cottle station, a 15-minute walk from my place.
I’m home by 1 PM and not feeling lagged at all. After a shower and a second lunch of the day, there’s time to do the laundry, lube-up the chain, pump-up the tires, dress-out, and roll-out the Ti bike onto Santa Teresa Boulevard. It’s the time to maul. It’s the place to maul, not China, at all.
The mauling this time is intense. Franz is warmed-up because he’s ridden from his home in Gilroy. Briskly, he leads us 3 miles downwind. He pulls-off the head of the group as we reach the turn at the light @ Bailey. He knows I’m there and he won’t let me nip him at the light this time. The crosswind on the Bailey mile is annoying. Franz blazes-on. Our buddies groan and drop-off. Franz is slender, but in the crosswind there’s a little draft if you hunker in the drops and cling like a fly in the lea of his wheel.
We go over the hump of the 101 overpass. Big Mike McGeough bridges to us as we come to the short climb onto Malech Road. I’m feeling good, but I’m never good enough to hang with Franz on a 10 % grade. He blows-us-off. Mike and Joseph Morales chase into the 2 miles of headwind toward the foot of Metcalf. I find Chuck, Todd, and Scott ready to share a reasonable pace into the wind.
We do the hill as usual. It’s about 82 degrees cool. After 19 minutes I reach the regrouping at the summit of Metcalf. That’s about 3.5 minutes off my best time. Either I’m tired or lazy. Perhaps I’m flat after cycling just 100 miles in China during the previous 2 weeks.
We amble-down the 2-mile hill toward the rocket factory. We form-up with Lisa and Karl for the plunge into the Animas arroyo. Franz leads into the rollers. We surprise two turkeys in the lane. A turkey launches directly in front of Franz. Franz has animal magnetism. A coyote chased him last week. Now flock of animals blocks him and a heaving herd chases. Our hope is that Franz doesn’t waiver and strikes the bird squarely. It’s a miss.
I feel better than usual over the first four rolling hillocks and I lead Jim and friends into the big fifth one. But the grade is greater and I’m at my Tmax, (time of maximum effort or lactate threshold) and as usual, I fade at this point. Now Karl shows up, standing on the cranks, charging the hill without reducing cadence, exploding the field of gasping buddies.
It’s fun to see Karl bite one off. Riders like Franz, Joe, Mike, and Karl are models of power. You visualize their moves and attempt to emulate. Repeating the mauler enables us to practice and refine our effort. Confidence and self-knowledge improve when you compare your feelings and efforts from week-to-week and match pace with strong riders.
We regroup at the eucalyptus grove and form-up for the tight roll down the sinuous pavement along the arroyo of Dry Creek. It’s 4 miles of nicely banked, smooth asphalt ribbon. It’s inclined eight percent. Big Chuck takes the long pull. Karl, Lisa, and Todd take their turns as the road begins to flatten and straighten. It’s my turn as we approach the sprint section. I feel too good. I creep-up toward a sprint pace, watching Scott on my wheel. Scott’s shocked me on many occasions. Some of the stronger sprinting maulers are not here today; Daniel T., Dan Farinha and the senior Farinha: Jumpin Joe, Kryia Adams, and several other mentionable mauler VIP’s.
Chuck, Lisa, Joseph, and Karl have been pulling and are off the back. Scott’s straining behind you. Where’s big Mike? No one’s coming for you yet. Just go for yourself. Can’t believe you feel so good. Keep right to minimize the radius and block a short-cutter. Stand here in the last curve. Never felt this strong before. Close to Tmax. Can’t take it to a real breakaway notch. It’s like slow motion. Scott’s still there. Whoosh, there goes Karl like a wind-up toy.
That’s about as close as I’ve come to getting to the Farnsworth light first. I’m glad I gave Karl a good lead-out. Sometimes it’s fun to get totally crushed by a worthy athlete. I feel like I’ve had a personal best mauler sprint. “Nice charge, once again, Karl.”
On we roll to the regroup at the summit of Hassler hill. While regrouping, you can roll over to the roundabout by the Ranch Golf clubhouse. You’re on the crest of the hill. You float round the roundabout. There’s a panorama of the southbay and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Yes, sheeting rain has rinsed 5 months of dust from the stubble of the Diablos, the streets of the city, and the redwoods of the Coast Range. Things aren’t yet chlorophyll green. But they appear less bleached and dusty. This air is cooler, more humid, and way less sooty than Beijing air. Good cycling habitat.
We tuck down the frontside of Hassler and roll into the hillocks of Hellyer Tech Park. Chuck puts-on a hammer exhibition over the 101 overpass of Bernal Ave. He streaks thru the last light at Via del Oro and crows with a little fake voice, “I won”. He has. He’s a mauler VIP.
I ask Don to give me a lift home. It’s not to save energy. It’s to discuss our plan to do the Grizzly Century ride next weekend. It’s the final connection of the long day.
What is it about a silk road trip that leads you to a personal best mauler? The diet of snow frog, pomegranate juice, and lamb? The two-weeks of rest, Gobi air, travel across the International Dateline, the cup of Starbucks’ coffee on the airliner, perhaps the double sunrise? Maybe it’s the long day’s journey by taxi, plane, BART, CalTrain, and lightrail that prepares you for a short, brisk mauling. We may maul many more miles. Rarely will we go so far to do so.