Muscles screaming, tendons aching, agony, pain. I’m describing the feeling in my arms as I tried to “clean” the steepest climb I’ve ever been on with a road bike. My arms ended up being the weakest link as I clutched the hoods more to stay upright, rather than leverage. The road is called Los Gatos (pronounced with a deep smokers voice and drums in the background). It is the equivalent to our Morgan Lake Rd., except less than half the distance, paved, and equal the pain.
I ended up on Los Gatos by accident last week. Every time I had visited the Murrieta, CA area I was astounded at the number of very steep paved climbs that avail themselves on just about every ride; yet, I kept hearing about a road that was VERY steep. Locals talked about it with a Shagri-la type of reverence. My brother said he thought he had discovered it one day when he started riding down a climb and dismounted on the descent because it was too steep. He turned around because he feared having to go back up. I was told this is the climb Floyd broke his hip on while descending.
My first attempt at The Cats began with a group ride with the Cal Pools & Spas Race Team ride from IE Bikes. They soon got in a double paceline rolling toward a road they called the drag strip. I have to give them props for rocking a pretty steady paceline out and back, including a few digs to get the heart rates up. We ended up back at the shop, and I took Pauli up on his offer to get in some more miles. On the way up the climb to his house, we started discussing Los Gatos. Then, he casually mentioned that I should do it since it was so close and it was the quickest way back to my bro’s house. Based on the context of steepness in relation to other climbs, I knew I was doomed with my 39/23. I went anyway.
I caught up with another rider and he indicated he was headed over to it. He was gracious enough to take me to the bottom. I started my timer at the correct marker. The climb begins with a short flat section, a rather benign beginning to the monstrosity that looms. The road turns up very gradually, but I was quickly in my last gear pushing hard. As I passed my tour guide, who was already walking, he said “This is the easy part” and followed it up with, “I’ll give you $20 if you ‘clean it.’” Then, I looked up (not “up” as in down the road, but “up” as in skyward) and there above me was a waterfall of asphalt spewing over the embankment. I began weaving about in a calculated pattern of survival. Through all the pain, I was holding out hope that somehow I would survive. Then, a truck in the oncoming lane threw me off my line, a line which was just about perpendicular to his line of travel. This caused me to zag before I was done zigging and I bailed out, almost decking it while unclipping.
Before my clip-out, it had been minutes since I passed my guide. I turned around and he was right behind me still walking his bike. We were within conversation distance. From there, I don’t recall ever having walked on my road cleats so much. I was able to remount for a short stretch but then was off again. There are two unbelievably steep sections on the climb. The problem with the first is that the road is canted so bad that a zig zag pattern has you going up an even steeper gradient than is already there. I was told the gradients are 27 percent in sections. I’d say this is a conservative estimate based on the data I have from my GPS.
I had to get my $20 back (at least in principle), so I convinced my brother to ride over to it on my final day of my visit. We exchanged bikes at the top, because he has a compact with 34-25 setup. I rode down it, leaning back like an MTB descent. Then, I went at it with all my effort. The gearing was barely enough to make it, but I “cleaned” it. Here are my stats and some pics. Los Gatos definitely wasn’t the only climbing I did, but Los Gatos was definitely the most memorable on this trip. This was a perfect climax for a great week of riding in sunny So Cal.
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