Today we went out on the longest, most challenging ride thus far. It's a popular route just to the east of Oakland through the backroads of the east bay regional parks. I have the elevation profile below. It gives you a good idea of the workout. The first 2/3 of the ride weren't too bad. But then we hit the "3 bears". Mama bear wasn't too bad. I only have two gears in the front. I'm missing what is lovingly referred to as the granny gear, a gear that I have on my older bike. A gear I missed dearly when I met pappa-bear. 

After scaling Mamma bear, tackling Pappa bear was a challenge. If you look below at the elevation profile pappa bear is only about 200 feet higher than mamma bear. But at that point I was 16 miles into the ride and already done a bit of climbing. Scaling pappa-bear took everything I had. At one point I actually thought I'd have to walk. Instead, I convinced myself to keep going, stood up in my clips and cranked my way up the hill. It was pretty crazy and my quads were killing me. It's been a while since I've pushed myself to the point where I consider stopping.  Keep in mind, this is a nice Saturday ride for most of the cyclists of the East Bay. I think it's rated "intermediate" by cycling clubs. Little did I know that the best part of the ride was yet to come. Pappa bear was a bruiser on the front side, but by cranking up 1000 ft I'd earned some seriously fast down hill on pappa's backside. I don't have a speedometer, but I was seriously bombing. Some team members reported that they hit 37mph. Seriously fast. Well worth it. I've made it through the day without taking a nap. I should sleep like a rock.