Pine Flat Recon

There is a race called "Ross' Epic Hill climb" in a few weeks. Don't know if I can make it, but I have wanted to do the climb - Pine Flat Road - for a long time. Well, I still want to do it sometime...

Last year my wife and I were riding through Jimtown and decided to check it out, I told her I would ride up for 20 minutes and then come down to collect her. This past weekend we, along with my buddy TJ and his girlfriend Theresa, decided to go back up. Here is the recon...

At the bottom there is a sign that says "Windy road next 12 miles". I sort of hoped this included some gravel section that is not part of the climb proper. No such luck. You ride up a rolling gorgeous climb for a little over 8 miles, not very steep, several rolling/short downhill sections. You then hit a meadow - which I assume is the pine flat. This takes you for a mile or two, you do down a short steep downhill section and then it gets rough. Steep, then steeper. At this point I was riding with a woman from Santa Rosa I picked up on the climb, but decided to go back and find my cohorts. TJ was in the meadow and we headed back up. I saw my SR friend riding down and figured we were close to the top as we struggled up a very long steep section. She yelled "good luck!". Finally I came around a bend and it flattened out, but I could see in front of me an even worse steep section and could not discern where the finish was. I was shot from the prior 1/2 mile or so at 15% and didn't really feel like going after the 18% looking stuff in front of me. TJ and I decided to bag it and descended to Jimtown for snacks.

This would be a very rude awakening at the end of a race - I am sure everyone would ride the first 10 miles very hard, then BOOM.