The Burning Elmo - New Ultra-Endurance Cycling Route in Los Angeles (and training through quarantine)
Like many athletes, my training plans were completely cast aside once Covid-19 shutdowns went into effect. I didn’t feel comfortable riding outside, especially in groups (I still don’t, fyi), so using my indoor bike trainer became my primary form of exercise. For the next 2 months I rarely left my house except for essential trips like groceries. For someone who typically expects to spend 16 or more hours a week outside this was a big change of routine, but one I felt I needed to make until doctors, scientists and city officials could better assess and handle what was going on.
Logging lot’s of trainer miles has it’s advantages, like; saving time, the conveniences of home (“I can make rice on the stove as I ride?!”), and allowing you to focus on your numbers without the hazards of the road getting in the way. Purely looking at my power numbers my fitness looked really good and after 2 months of strict stay-at-home mentality, I finally decided I needed to do something outdoors. Something big.
The Burning Elmo is a route I came up with in 2018 when I was looking to put something together that no one had done before. It connects two astonishingly large climbs by linking the top of Mount Baldy to the top of Mount Gleason. Oh, and it has one of the longest climbs in the United States, Highway 39, in between them. This is exactly the type of ride I am interested in. I was really eager to complete this route as my previous attempt was cut short halfway through.
From my first attempt I learned that proper timing on this route is really important. It needs to be during a time of year when the days are long to maximize safety, it’s not too hot (or cold), and all the roads through Angeles Forest need to be free of construction. Either spring or fall made sense to me.
My first attempt on The Burning Elmo was solo. For this, my second attempt, I invited my friend Connor. 7 months prior to this ride Connor said something to me like “I don’t see any reason to do a ride over 12,000 feet.” Since then Connor’s fitness (you may know him as Spongebob if you’re in LA) had exploded and he had completed his first 200 mile ride and 14,000 foot ride and was still talking like he was hungry for more. So I posed the route to him about a week before and he was really enthusiastic. I had no doubts his fitness was high enough, so seeing that type of energy really solidified my confidence that he was a great choice for a riding partner.
Ride essentials:
Hydration Pack (1.5 liter capacity)
4,000 calories (rice bars, peanut butter sandwiches, Ensure, gummy candy)
Light in Motion headlight
Continental Gran Prix 4-Season Tires
We met at 3 AM the next week to roll to GMR where we would start our climb up to Mount Baldy Ski Lifts. The temperature at night was perfect and we set a great pace to the top of our first climb. We didn’t plan on it, but we had a mostly full moon that almost made it possible to ride without a headlight. As we descended from our first summit we turned on to East Fork to continue our journey to the next climb - Highway 39.
The sun was getting pretty high above us as we linked up with The 39. Remember when I was raving about my fitness from my 2-months of trainer rides? Well, there’s a lot of things trainer rides don’t prepare you for, like climbing in the heat. We were less than halfway through the ride and I was really starting to suffer. I brought my intensity way down and increased my hydration and food intake to try to compensate for the loads of fluids I was losing. It didn’t help that the temperature just kept climbing. I think we peaked at 100 degrees F that day.
At the top of The 39 I slammed a water bottle, ate some food and laid under a tree where it was shady. Typically Connor’s fitness and my fitness are pretty similar, and neither of us like to take too many breaks. However, on this occasion I probably could have spent 30 minutes lying down. Not wanting to throw off my riding partners momentum I got up after about 10 or 15 minutes, got back on my bike and kept rolling.
In the next 40 miles we ascended to the top of Clouds Burst (the highest point of the ride) and dropped down to Monte Cristo Fire Station on the north end of Angeles Forest. At this point I was totally cooked and we still had the hardest climb of the day ahead of us. Whether this climb is the hardest is debatable, as I think the Baldy Ski Lifts are the hardest, but most people you talk to will say that Mount Gleason is harder. We should probably just look at all 3 of these climbs as “really hard.” Whether you do one first, or last, there’s no scenario where it’s going to be easy.
By the time we made it to the top of Mount Gleason I didn’t even want to talk anymore. We had climbed some 18,000 feet in about 135 miles and we STILL had over 3,000 feet to climb and 60 miles to get home. Connor was feeling really great and wanted to blast home, but I convinced him I really needed an extra water stop at the base of Mount Gleason. I really appreciated that we got to stop and then take it easy as we rode out of Angeles Forest.
While this ride was a success, and I am very proud of completing it, it really exposed a lot of areas I need to improve. In hindsight, I am more critical of the fitness I built on my trainer. In a trainer environment I could push high watts for long periods of time without stopping. In real life, I couldn’t tolerate heat, my nutrition strategy was disrupted with being able to eat whatever I wanted at home, and my body wasn’t used to any sort of road vibrations or movement of the bike. As fit as I was, it wasn’t the fitness I needed or the fitness I have relied on for past rides.
There’s an old saying that you should train for your sport. It’s not elegant, nor is it terribly creative. It is simple and it reminds us that if there are things we want to be doing, like riding in the heat, we should practice doing those things. For me, that translates in to more consistency training outside. And should we need to quarantine again you can bet I will be getting A LOT more creative with my training.
Check out this video Connor made of the ride 🎥 🚵 ❤️
The original version of this post concluded that this ride was a “failure” because of my improper training and level of suffering experienced. However, I thought it was more appropriate to say that I realized a lot of areas I need to improve upon.