Julian Fall Ride-12 November 2016
by Rob Verfurth
Riders: John M, Len (TE), Jeff S, Bernie, Eileen, Flo, Guido and Rob
As predicted, it was an absolutely beautiful day in the mountains around Julian. It was time for our annual Julian Fall Ride. The theme is to wear retro kits and ride some great roads around Julian. A small crew joined together at the start near Dudley’s Bakery; most wore old retro kits. We rolled out and immediately climbed up to Wynola Road. Jeff paced us up the first few miles of the climb. We regrouped at the start of Wynola, all except John; he rode in his parallel universe the entire ride. The air was crisp and the sky bright blue. The Wynola loop is a scenic route that connects back to Banner Grade. We regrouped again before starting our descent. The car traffic was pretty heavy on Banner, lots of folks heading out towards the desert to enjoy the fall weather. Bernie, Flo, Jeff & Eileen all headed for Scissors Crossing. Len and Guido stopped at the Banner Store. I continued down to Banner Queen Ranch before turning to start the climb back up to Julian. It was such a nice day that the leg pains did not seem so bad. Everyone stopped at the Julian Pie Shop in town to regroup, except John. Guido enjoyed his snacks and coffee, he was heading back to the start and skipping the remaining part of the ride.
We rolled to Pine Hills Road and onto Boulder Creek. My rear tire started to get soft so I stopped and waited for Len while the others headed to Engineers Road. After a quick pumping of the tire, Len and I descended down toward Engineers. My rear tire softened again so I told Len to carry on, I was going to changed my tube. The leak was slow and I decided to just use my CO2 canister to fill up the tire. I turned around and retraced my ride back up Boulder Creek, skipping the fun Engineers Road section of the ride. I stopped a few more times to top off the tire. As I got back to Highway 79, I contemplated climbing back up to Julian to take the Wynola Road loop since I knew I was well ahead of the group. I did not have confidence in my tire, was now out of CO2 and decided not to change to a new tube with my lousy pump. Instead I just headed west on Hwy 79 to ride back to Santa Ysabel.
I made it safely back and decided to add some mileage by riding up toward Mesa Grande. I did a 5 mile out-n-back, got back to the parking lot with 45 miles of riding and about 4,300 feet of climbing. I was disappointed that I missed Engineers Road but got back only 10 minutes or so ahead of John. He had turned early on Banner and went straight to Engineers Road instead of stopping in Julian. A few minutes later the rest of the gang came back, having completed almost 60 miles of total riding. The Julian Fall Ride is a classic; hope you decide to come next year. Below are links to photos.
San Diego Descenders Cycling Club 