The Nifty Ten Fifty

The night before the Nifty Ten Fifty I had butterflies in my stomach. I had never committed to such a grueling ride before in my life. I worried about failure. I thought of all the clever excuses I could make to not go. To sleep in and feel sorry for myself. But good thing I told almost every one I knew about this ride, which made me feel obligated to at least try. So 6 30 last Sunday I pulled myself out of bed and prepped up for one of the most challenging rides I've ever had.

I had first heard of the Nifty Ten Fifty from a cyclist who matched pace with me going up Old Tunnel Road one day. He mentioned how it took all the steepest roads of the Oakland and Berkeley hills and combined them into one brutal course. 10,050 feet in just over 50 miles. Ungodly.

The starting group.

When I arrived at El Cerrito Plaza Park almost everyone was on light carbon and aluminum bikes with full kit and clipless pedals. There were a few steel frames, but not many, there was even one brave soul on a hybrid bike! The one thing I did notice is that I felt like the youngest one there, so I started to psyche myself into it, if all these guys were going on it, how hard could it really be? Oh how foolish I was.

Atop one of the early climbs, everyone's looking good.

The first two climbs of the day had me feeling alright, sticking with the group in my tiny 24-32 ratio. The weather was a little foggy and chilly up in the hills, but the foul weather wasn't making me feel down, what had me worried was the next climb, Marin Ave.

Look at the roof, that's flat, the road, that is not. Woof.

Marin must have been an engineering mistake, as opposed to most roads that arch around the hills or cut back and forth, someone decided to build a road straight up the hills. Marin rocks up to a monster 23 percent near the top. Besides Moser, this was the only climb I had never touched on this ride, and knowing it's reputation for putting on the hurt, I was nervous that it would throw me off the group. But there was no choice, but to tackle it. We circled around the fountain at the base as a group then all went after it.

Going up?

Some of the guys in the B group hit it pretty hard. But for the most part everyone seemed to take their time with it. At some of the cross streets people spun off to the side to stretch their legs and take a breather before tackling the steepest section at the top. I sat in my tiny ratio until that top where even with that advantage I had to pull out of my seat and press my pedals as hard as I could to top out; I had never faced anything so steep ever. With a few grunts and an extra push, I made it. At the top I turned around and looked at the remainder of the group still fighting gravity. The road is an absolute wall. With that past, it was all about endurance from then on out. The team regrouped and headed down the East side of the hills for El Toyonal.

Looking back

On the other side of the hills we got some sun which made the decent enjoyable, then we got some shade on the El Toyonal climb, where the group seemed to decide their own way of getting to Lomas Contadas, but we all did make it up and regrouped once more at the steam trains in Tilden Park, right next to the final climb of the day. By this point I felt confident, but also curious if I'd make it to the top of Volmer's Peak right next to the parking lot by the end of the afternoon.

El Toyonal in the fog.

From El Toyonal was Centennial, one of my least favorite climbs. The group spread apart at this long steep grade, but people powered through to the top, back into Tilden over to Canon, the sixth climb, and the final one before "lunch". Canon was scary but not because of the climb but because of some horrific driving (seriously, group of forty cyclists, you can wait your turn, if you're going through Tilden you shouldn't be in a hurry). At the top of the sixth climb was when I started to drop off the group. I had no trouble on the climbs, but it was during the flats that I seemed to struggle to hang on. Maybe it's my lack of skill in a group, or maybe it's the disadvantage of my less aggressive frame, or hell, maybe it's just because I'm weak. Either way I had the fortune of catching up at lunch with the group.

At lunch everyone, including the A team was enjoying snacks and talking about Marin and the rest of the ride to come. I wasn't too social, but I did get to meet some nice people, even those who had drove over from the Headlands and had never seen these roads before. So I suppose I at least had that advantage. I was prepped for after lunch to hit South Park, a brutal climb, then two less bad climbs, then straight up Hiller back down to the final climb.

After our light lunch it wasn't long over to South Park. The fog really was laid in thick over the group now making for a majestic climb up to Grizzly Peak. As the stronger rides pulled out in front, they disappeared into the fog, only maybe to fall back into view for the "slow-n-stead" group. It was interesting to watch the different styles on hitting the hills, some attacked early, leaving it all on the hill, others took their time, conserving for what was next.

After South Park, things got hairy. The group turned down Grizzly Peak, going opposite of our final ascent towards Skyline. This section of road has no shoulder and there was a good amount of traffic, which made it difficult to ride freely and stay with the group, trying to not get hit. Not knowing how to ride with a group didn't help much either. By the time I hit the intersection of Skyline and Grizzly Peak, I was off the back starting the short climb up Skyline, that was the last I saw of the B group, pulling away on the climb.

Being dropped is a shit feeling. There's no other way to describe it. It takes your pride and rubs it in the mud, plus I didn't want to be stuck trying to figure out how to get to where I need to go. I just wanted to stick with the group and finish with everyone else and share some laughs, but instead I was falling off. I decided I needed to catch up. I put my head down and mashed my pedals along the longest flat section.

This would prove to be my biggest mistake. On the descent down Shephard's Canyon the A group zipped by me. Even on the descents I was slow (although I've always been painfully aware of how bad of a descender I am). At the bottom I turned the corner with the A group up Snake and thought, alright, let me hang tight til I catch up with the B group, which was a huge joke. I was hurting. Attacking on Skyline Blvd left me nothing in the gas tank and I watched as the rest of those left behind passed me on their way up. I felt in last place, my body was gassed, I ate all the food I had, hoping that might cure me, but my pride hurt and I wasn't sure how to cure that. Snake is climb 7, I had three more climbs after Snake. I knew Hiller would be rough, Broadway isn't so bad and I've done Claremont to Grizzly Peak before, the question really was how close my body was to shutting down. I huffed and puffed to the top of Snake. It would be so easy to just spin down and go home from there and call it quits. That was my tipping point right there. I knew it was do or die right there. But it wasn't. What was one more climb? Let me try Broadway.

I started descending down the curves of roads from my 100 turn cue sheet and caught up with a group of three other cyclists who got dropped, including the fellow on the cruiser bike in gym shorts. We decided to stick together and use our combined skills to finish. Good thing our skills were lacking, maybe we left our brains back on one of the climbs but we ended up taking a wrong turn and climbing a pretty big climb straight into a dead end. We stopped and pulled out our cue sheets and maps to figure out how to get back. The motto of the day has always been "if the road goes up it must be right", well this one was wrong. We got back on course with some extra mileage, but more importantly extra feet.

We broke apart a little on the climb up Broadway, a gentler climb, but still easier to take at your own pace. By this point getting lost we all agreed that catching the B group wasn't possible, so we stuck it through together regrouping up on top of Broadway. All the food that I threw in me on Snake was finally doing something, my body felt better on my favorite descent from the hills on Old Tunnel Road. Curving back and forth I rested until the final corner where I pushed on the downhill to get as much momentum up Hiller's face. I didn't get as much as I'd had on other days up Hiller, but I was getting up it. I could feel my legs burning, it was going to be tough to get up, so I started tacking back and forth on the wide roadway, some call it cheating, but who cares, I topped out.

It was some twisty bends through the backroads around Hiller, which I led out with cue sheet in hand. There was talk of skipping those because of our added climbs, but I insisted. I didn't want to be a foot short. So we navigated around until we turned the ups to downs and stopped at Peets, unfortunately not finding any of the other riders there (apparently because they didn't stop either). 9 climbs over, the longest one was left, from the base in Berkeley to the tip in Tilden. This was it. We went out together. One fellow rider was picking my brain about my bike tour, I didn't have the nerve to tell him I just wanted to concentrate on the climb, so I let him get away a bit, but also because his pace was better than mine. Again in that low low low ratio I took my time. The sun was now beating down on Claremont and I was sweating through up Claremont. Time was passing quickly, I wasn't, but time was, before I knew it, the first section was over, onto the gentler Grizzly Peak. Other Nifty Ten Fiftiers passed by on their way back home and passed on words of encouragement, and that helped. I could feel it almost ending, just about there. I spun into the Steam Trains parking lot, where the trail to Volmer's Peak begins and I worked my way up, slowly but surely and pressing that final leg up to the summit. Everyone had left, but it didn't matter. It was about finishing and I finished. And better yet, I didn't finish last, and I'm not talking about my fellow riders (who all also finished), but rather the people who quit halfway, the people who didn't ride, but especially myself, the me that quit on Snake and went home and felt sorry for himself, I beat him with no mercy.

When it was all said and done I had finished one of the tougher East Bay rides and felt good about it and learned a lot. First of all, my riding ain't shit, some people can really ride. Secondly, I really enjoyed riding in groups and I need to try to do that more. But most importantly, I learned the importance of setting a goal and beating it. I need to do that way more than I already do.