11 posts tagged “bicycle”
Alleycat. Saturday, December 8. Race for food on your fixie/MTB/cruiser/junker/whatevs. Prizes for biggest turkey (or ham), specific items, and most food collected. All proceeds (and food) go to feed families over the holiday. I raced last year, and I’ll race again this year.
Much higher coordination of skills than Critical Mass, despite the [required] PBR fitted to your bottle cage.
We were driving back from Davis on Sunday, discussing how we could possibly characterize the stress of the previous day to non-cyclists, particularly endurance cyclists. Anecdotes were mentioned about telling coworkers and friends about the miles ridden this weekend, met with basic incomprehension.
On Saturday, Tina and I qualified for the 2007 California Triple Crown. Every one of those three days was hard. Really hard. Anyone who tells you different is soft pedaling (hah) or has a bad memory. Maybe that’s why the average age of folks who do these things is somewhere north of 50. :)
Saturday was also one of the most enjoyable rides I’ve ever done, thanks to the support of the Davis Bike Club and their volunteers. However, it was not the “fast, fun and flat” ride for beginners it was supposed to be. A fire near lake Baryessa closed half the route, turning the otherwise reasonable loop into an out-and-back with all the hard climbs, twice.
Good times.
We woke at 4am, dressed and packed our bikes & gear, then drove on one of the many nameless county roads from Woodland to Davis. Upon arrival at 5:30, cyclists were already departing. We finished gearing up and headed out. The sun rose by the time we reached the first rest stop, a ranch around mile 20. That’s where the confusion started.
We found out about the fire (and saw the smoke in the distance) and heard that the course was being altered. At this point our route sheets were essentially void, so we stowed those and took off in a pack of about 30 riders. We rode a couple miles past the rest stop into some rollers when a SAG truck blazed past and headed off the first riders. Apparently we missed a turn. We turned back and rode a half-mile or so back to an unmarked right (now left) and got back on track.
Because it’s okay to have a carbon footprint, as long as you pay for some guy to plant a tree.
I’m participating by driving my dog Pista to Work Today.
Tina and I rode 160 miles this weekend. 75 on Saturday, taking a modified Mt. Tam, Seven Sisters + Alpine Dam route, out through Fairfax with a Strawberry detour. 85 on Sunday, on this brutal fun Luna Chix training route that took us to the top of every hill in Oakland, some twice.
High point: Riding on near-abandoned east bay roads on Super Bowl Sunday.
Low point: Missing Prince’s halftime show by 5 minutes.
I went to bed at 9. Pista was happy about that…
Today, Tina and I rode the longest bike ride of my life. We covered Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo county, beginning before the sun came up and finishing after the sun was set. We rode 150 miles, spending 11 hours on the bike, the trip totaling around 13 hours. We cycled through pitch black Sausalito, frost-bitten Belvedere, across San Francisco twice, climbed Devil’s Slide and 3 incredibly long hard climbs out of Pescadero to reach the Skyline Boulevard summit between Alice’s and 92.
Interesting mile markers:
- At mile 49, we circled to my house to walk Pista and change up gear.
- We rolled through Half-Moon Bay at mile 75, our halfway point.
- Ate lunch in Pescadero at exactly 100 miles (at the really fucking awesome bakery there).
- The final moment of serendipity occurred at mile 150, exactly at the entrance to the South San Francisco BART station. This turned out to be fortuitous…we were spent and it was dark.
The second-to-last leg of the ride (before dropping down into Millbrae/San Bruno) was on the bike path paralleling the reservoir next to 280. It got scary dark.
Last night I went climbing for the first time in a couple weeks, finally (somewhat) recovered from the Cold. Struggled up my first 5.10d (woo!) and knocked down this 5.10c that had been a thorn in my side. The secret was a faraway single foothold on the other side of the overhang. Janet says I’m just using my feet and/or brain more instead of trying to brute force my way up the wall. She’s mostly right, except for the brain part.
In other news, I just registered for a double century. This is a bicycle ride where you go 200 miles in one day. Only insane people who wear spandex and spend way too much cabbage on bikes do this sort of thing. Now that that’s out in the open, I’ll be stealing some of Nick’s cookies.
48.6 miles, 2:58. Sunrise photo is from last Tuesday's ride. Daylight savings time is good for something after all!
