From: bushnell@lmsc.lockheed.com (Bill Bushnell)
Subject: Trip down Butano Fire Road
Organization: Engineering Computing Systems
Distribution: ca
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 18:23:54 GMT

Here is the third in a series of articles on combining an otherwise
ordinary paved-road ride with a scenic unpaved segment in and around the Big
Basin State Park area.

Equipment: I ride a 1991 Bridgestone RB-T with 32mm Avocet DURO 20 tires.  These
           are slick tires.  When fully loaded the bike weighs 38 lbs.
           Measurements below were made with an Avocet 50 cyclecomputer. 

Route Log:

--------			-----------------	-----	-----------
location                        altitude/climbing       miles   time of day
--------                        -----------------       -----   -----------
home					20/0		0.0	9:40a
Foothill College			310/240 (?)	7.3	10:15a
Foothills Park (via Altamont)		840/820		10.5	11:00a
Page Mill & Skyline Blvd.		2230/2290	16.6
Saratoga Gap				2600/3140	23.0
Waterman Gap				1250/3140	29.1
Hwy 236 & China Grade Rd.		1790/3860	33.7
China Grade Rd. & Gate 12 Rd.		2230/4370	36.1
Butano Fire Rd. & Olmo Fire Rd.		1730/4690	40.6
Butano Fire Rd. & Cloverdale Rd.	180/4820	46.5	4:30p
Butano Cutoff & Pescadero Rd.		70/4820		49.9
La Honda Market				410/5940	62.0	6:00p
Skylonda				1450/6970	68.2
home					10/7130		80.2	7:40p

Total time: 10:00
riding time: 6:47
ave speed: 11.8
max speed: 35.5

----------------------------------------

On this ride I cajoled my friend, Frank, into trying the off-road portion of
this ride.  Frank doesn't much care for riding off-road.  He gives the reasons:
"My neck gets sore.", "The road's too bumpy.", "My bike gets dirtier.", "I
can't ride as fast on the downhills.", "I don't have as much control.", and
"It takes too long."  It was the last reason he repeated to me while we
pedalled home from La Honda as the sun was setting. :-(  Fortunately, (for me),
Frank rides a 1992 Bridgestone RB-T, virtually the same bike as mine, and if
I can handle the unpaved road on my RB-T, so can he.

I start the day by riding from Foothill College up to Foothills Park with some
friends who work at Xerox PARC.  They're going to do a hike and then ride down.
I prearrange to meet Frank at the park entrance where we begin our long ride.

The ride up Page Mill is relatively uneventful.  At the steepest portion just
below Shotgun Bend we pass an older fellow taking a break from the climb.  Later
up on Skyline he catches up to us.  He's 60 years old and 190 lbs, but he's
doing a the Western Wheelers "Climb Page Mill..." "D" ride.  We tell him
that he's about 10 minutes behind the group.  Apparently they're going north on
Skyline to Kings Mtn Rd., and then they're going to do it all over again!  They
should come on our route.  It's about as long, and more interesting than doing
Page Mill _twice_.

We continue south on Skyline, stopping at the Fire Station to refill our water
bottles and eat half a lunch.  The air is clear, cool, and a little breezy.
The sun is warm.  It's a great day for a long ride.  We continue to Saratoga Gap
and then head south toward Boulder Creek.  At Waterman Gap, we head straight on
Hwy 236 and continue to China Grade Rd.

We turn right, heading uphill.  The road is paved and somewhat steep for 3/4
mile but then becomes less steep as it winds up through the cleared forest.
After reaching the top, the road drops for 1/4 mile to the Gate 12 Rd. junction.
The pavement ends.  We stop and eat the remainder of our lunch on the big log
by the side of the road.  On the south side of the road is Big Basin State Park
and on the north side is unincorporated San Mateo County.

We haven't seen other cars since we left Hwy 236, but while we're eating, a
couple cars of hikers park and hike up the trail behind the log.  A pickup
truck drives up Gate 12 Road, and another pickup truck comes driving up the
road we're about to head down.  After taking too long a break we continue, on
dirt now and for the next 10 miles.

The road is packed dirt here.  It seems there is frequent auto traffic coming
and going to BSA Camp Cutter.  In about 2/3 mile we reach the turn-off for
Johansen Road.  Someday I'll have to try that one.  While we briefly stop, we
meet some mountain bikers coming up Johansen Rd.  They're amazed when they hear
we're riding our "road" bikes down the Butano Fire Road.  They're going as far
as the Olmo Fire Road and then returning to Gazos Creek Rd.  We continue
straight, passing a sign warning "Private Road -- No Trespassing".  There are
no houses in the area--no signs of development, so we continue anyway.  In about
1/2 mile we reach a three-way fork.  The main road goes straight and down,
presumably to Camp Cutter.  I almost head down before I realize my mistake.
The left fork cuts over to Johansen Rd., and the middle fork is the Butano Fire
Road.  After lifting our bikes over a thin cable stretched across the road, we
start heading down.

The road, covered with branches and other debris, descends rather steeply here
and is not so smooth.  Someone has dug small holes in the _middle_ of the road
and placed wooden red-tipped sticks in them.  I wonder who and why.  After
going up and down several times, the road levels off and becomes more constant.
We pass a couple pull-outs with some old, rusty picnic tables.  Who use(s,d)
these?  In about a mile we reach the Roy Linden Memorial Trail and then shortly
the junction with the Olmo Fire Road.  The Olmo Road goes to either Butano
State Park entrance or to Gazos Creek Rd. just up from Cloverdale Rd.  The Olmo
Road would be a more challenging ride:  it has several steep up and down
sections.  I'll save it for next time.

We continue mostly down now through a somewhat older forest.  Frank is grunting
and sighing.  "My neck is getting sore.", he complains, "I can't maintain
traction.  How many more uphills are there?"  We come to a 1/2 mile climb which
ends at an old abandoned airstrip.  It's an eerie sight.  The idea of a runway
on top of a mountain so far from civilization strikes me as odd.  Jobst tells me
that this was used by the CDF for airtankers at one time.

The road is smoother, with a surface of finely chopped rock.  The road heads
down and then briefly up for the last time and then heads down at a nice,
gradual grade.  We make good time, though we watch carefully for the occasional
rut crossing the road.  We also take care around some of the turns as we're
riding slicks, not knobbies.  At a saddle point with a nice view we fly past a
group of mountain bikers.  This is getting fun.  The road is fairly smooth and
straight now with a nearly constant grade.  We come upon a couple of hikers, a
couple of horseback riders, and a family who have just driven their Jeep
Cherokee partway up the road!  At about a mile from the bottom at a nice
viewspot overlooking Cloverdale Rd. and the valley beyond, we stop and take a
stretch and eat the remainder of our food.  Just before we start up again, the
group of mountain bikers we passed earlier zip past.  We continue down.

Immediately the road becomes very bumpy.  It seems as if horseback riders came
up here while the road was still muddy.  Now it's like riding on an egg-carton.
To complicate matters, we are buffetted by strong, gusty north winds.  Finally
we reach the bottom, and after passing through the small gate, we're back on a
paved road.

I thought it was a fun trip through the woods.  Our wheels are still in true,
and our derailleurs are still indexing.  A little bit dusty, but no coats of
mud. We start up Cloverdale Rd.  50 yards later we cross through some water
running across the road.  The amount of mud on my bike has just doubled.  We
pedal in a pseudo-paceline into a fierce headwind.  Finally we come to Butano
Cutoff and Pescadero Rd.  Now the wind is helping us home.

Tired and hungry we stop at the Loma Mar store.  We continue past Memorial Park
and stop again to eat our food.  Then it's up Haskins Hill.  We're tired now,
but somehow we manage to get over the top and down to La Honda on the other
side. Again we have to stop for food.  I should've brought more food.  Frank
didn't even bring a lunch, just a bag of fig bars!

Fortunately, I packed my lights.  I didn't think the ride would take so long.
My Gazos Creek ride was longer, but took less time.  We pedal now with greater
urgency.  Luckily the traffic is light, but my Vistalite seems to be helping. 
Whenever a car comes up from behind, we hear the engine slow for a moment, and
then when the driver recognizes what the flashing light is, the car passes
carefully.

We think about taking Old La Honda, but that would be harder and would
take longer.  So, since traffic is light we decide to head back the quickest
way.  The trip down the east side of Hwy 84 in the dark is something I've never
done before.  There is just enough light to see the road, except when a car
passes with its high beams on, or when we pass over a particularly dark
section of road.

Finally we get home.  This is the most difficult ride I've done, but
I'll probably be doing even more challenging rides later this summer.

-----------------------------------------

Another friend of mine developed a simple calculate-in-your-head indexing
system for measuring ride difficulty.  It takes into account both linear
distance travelled and cumulative altitude gained.  It's most accurate for flat
rides or hilly rides where the grade is not so great that I can't pedal uphill
at a decent cadence (>60 rpm) and where there are no long gradual grades where
I can get away without pedalling.  Also, the formula assumes no wind.  The
formula is:

	index miles = (linear miles) + (altitude gain in feet)/250

Index miles are equivalent to miles ridden on flat land on a windless day at an
average speed of 15 mph.  If there is a net altitude gain or loss for the ride,
the index is adjusted accordingly.  Our ride was roughly equivalent to 108.7
index miles. 

------------------------------------------

I am in the process of drawing a bicycling map of the Santa Cruz Mtns. covering
the areas I regularly ride.  The map indicates distance and altitude gained
between common junctions and points of interest.  If anyone would like a
PostScript copy of this map, let me know, and I'll try to get it to you.  The
map isn't finished yet, and probably won't be for a long while, but it's fairly
well filled out.

-- 
bushnell@lmsc.lockheed.com	(Bill Bushnell)
Organization: Freshman, IM - H&SS Track, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA