Egan Ride

Bikers Paradise

By Hunaid Hussain

June 15^th, 2016

We’re all certifiably insane

Crazy people climbing crazy hills. Intervals for people who hate organized training.

Usually when people talk about intervals they‘re thinking of really horrible structured workouts like “30s on, 2 minutes off, repeat five times, then switch to 10s / 45s, then…”. That‘s very hard to do and requires a lot of dedication and/or a coach. The Egan Ride gets you most of the benefits of intervals without the drudgery, and in fine company with plenty of time for laughing and chatting. Maybe half the people are racers, the rest are just in it for the fitness. Most of the non-racers like climbing, and Egan is a very good way to get better at climbing.

Dirk Bergstrom, the certifiably insane leader of this pack

The Egan ride has been going on in various formats for something like 20 years. It was originally run by the Western Wheelers but at some point long ago Alto Velo took it over. Since Dirk started leading the ride attendance has gone up steadily, and this year there are about 33 riders each week. The ride is every Tuesday from March through September. Dirk Bergstrom has made it into one of the most organized and consistent club rides in the area. The route is different each week and he keeps the pace controlled during the ride and tells folks about the intervals coming up. They get together for beer and burgers before the first ride in the spring and after the last one in the fall. The secret to the ride‘s success is that it‘s a great social ride with killer training cleverly hidden under the surface. That and it‘s like doing ten mini races in a couple hours — great for people who are secretly competitive.

The ride meanders through some scenic yet grueling challenges as it winds along Altamont road towards black mountain.

Riders sweating it out on the first challenge to the top of the hill on Taaffe road.

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Write your story here. (Optional)

A well deserved rest.

Want to Join?

Show up at Egan School around 6:00 pm on Tuesday. Wear a helmet, have good bike handling skills, be comfortable riding in a pack, and be able to climb Old La Honda in under 25 minutes. For those who want to try it out before joining the ride Dirk also has a list of example routes. Alto Velo page has more information about their group and rides.

A big shout to my friend and partner in crime Faraz Shah who helped me with this shoot.

When Dirk approached me with his idea to take photos of riders as they struggle to climb up the hill, I thought it was perhaps only one hill and I can safely perch on top of the hill and take photos as the riders come up to me. There are around 8 hills all connected by a single lane road with sketchy cellular signal. So I scouted all locations and created my own map and on the day of the shoot me and Faraz ran up to each hill to take photos of approaching riders and as the riders left for the next, we would run past them to the next hill to rinse and repeat.