Yeah, the famous ride Lance wrote about in his first book. But eight years later with developments and shopping malls lining the route, I would not recommend doing the ride without having a local with you. Luckily, Andrew Stackhouse, who I met at Mellow Johnny's, had the day off and graciously took us out on the loop.
We rode on 6-lane highways. Crazy. The weather was in the mid-60s and it quickly rose to the low 80s. I felt as if I was moto paced by the guys (and probably traffic) all the way to Mansfield Dam. When we took the Low Water Crossing Road right after the Dam bridge, my legs started to fail. We climbed a walking path off of Low Water Crossing Rd for Bradley. Road across the bridge again and then climbed. The next hill that killed me was Big View Dr. Our detour (River Pl Blvd, Big View Dr-down&up, Narrow Ridge Dr, Westminster Glen Ave then left onto City Park Rd) to avoid the death defining descent of route 2222 became a dead end at the bottom of Big View Dr. Flying down Big View was scary enough and it was in a posh neighborhood. 2222 is 4-lane highway with no shoulders so I was happy that we had the detour until we had to TURN AROUND and climb up Big View Dr.
Brad cruised along City Park Road and Andrew and I sucked wheel to the bottom of 2222. The highway rolled up and down and the heat started to take a toll on me. All I could say is that I soaked it all in and was surprisingly not freaked out about all the traffic. At one point I almost grabbed a car because my legs were not used to all the tempo riding and I wanted help to get my ass back to the shop. Thanks to Austin Andrew for giving us an awesome 55 mile ride West of the city.
