Northern California - Joining AV B ride?

Hi! I live in Mountain View and I have been commuting for 5 months. I decided to take the sport more seriously (planning to join the collegiate race and CAT5 after transferring to a 4-year college) and I started training harder (Doing more climbs, doing intervals, working on trainer, reading training books, reading Lance's "It's not a bout the bike" and spending hours on bf despite mid-terms keep coming up :D ) like two months ago.... but I found myself not knowing how much progress I am making.

I wonder is it a good idea to start joining group rides so that I can ride and learn from more experienced riders? I just checked the route of the AV B ride and it looks pretty steep and I afraid that I might get dropped during the climbs and drag the schedule of the ride. Any suggestions whether I should join the B ride or not?

Thanks!

The B ride's real good about not leaving anyone behind. If you're interested in getting started, you can at least hop on for the earlier, flatter parts of the ride and jump off later on when it gets steep.

Go for it!

Hi. I'm the ride leader. You gotta start sometime. Like platypus says you can always join us for the first part of the ride and drop off to do you own ride if you find you're out of your league. You'll find out soon enough when we climb Moody. From the top of Moody, you can descend Page Mill. If you're still game, climb Page Mill. From the top of Page MIll you can hang a right on Skyline, descend 84, and head back to Mtn. View. From the base of Alpine you can go back to 84 and head east. The next decision point would be either to the top of Haskins and turn back or San Gregorio and back via 84. Once you get past San Gregorio, you're committed.

Just let me know, either directly or communicating with another rider, if you decide to drop off or take an alternate route. Tomorrow is one of the longer and hillier rides we do, but I've got a race coming up and need the work. Plus the weather's supposed to be awesome! Pretty hard to pass up a nice ride out to the coast at this time of year.

Hope you can make it tomorrow.

Back from work.

Finally got a chance to join the B ride today (I am the short guy in blue jersey and red bike).
My first time joining a group ride and I could feel my adrenalin pumping for the first few minutes of the ride. Anyway although I could only do moody and pagemill (I slept for less than 2 hours last night and have work at 11am) I still felt really happy! The climbs were painful but I really like the pain! Time to work on my techniques of climbing hills out of the saddle too!

I am looking forward to joining you guys for the weeks to come! Thanks Steve for leading the ride too!

I am looking forward to joining you guys for the weeks to come!

Cool. B ride is good, you can mix it up with the strong boys up front if you're feeling frisky, or if you're having an off day just sit in and enjoy the ride. It will definitely improve your skills (not to mention strength and endurance).



What kind of fiddling?

I was a bit shy through out the ride so I didn't have chance to really know more people... hopefully things will get better next time! More importantly I really need to rest enough the ride, my heart rate went over 200 during the climbs... maybe a signal that I didn't have enough rest.

Regarding fiddling actually I play classical music most of the time... but I am trying to do more fiddling and electric violin playing recently.

'nother -

What happened to you? I saw you at the start but don't remember seeing you at the top of Moody. (Rode hard up Moody to try and catch Mike G, but didn't succeed. He was crusin' and I was dyin'.) It was a great day, though, and a route I had never done before. My legs were feeling it today, although I did manage to get up Redwood Gulch.... just barely!

Eh. I was not having a good day (week, month). Al and I peeled off at the bottom of Moody and just did some laps in the hills for an easy ride. No way I was going to make it over to the coast and back, I am way out of shape.

I saw Mike today and he described his exploits up Moody and Haskins. He makes it look way too easy! :)

Eh. I was not having a good day (week, month). Al and I peeled off at the bottom of Moody and just did some laps in the hills for an easy ride. No way I was going to make it over to the coast and back, I am way out of shape.

I saw Mike today and he described his exploits up Moody and Haskins. He makes it look way too easy! :)Yeah, he goaded me on at the top of Haskins. I felt pretty good, though... old geezer getting up to the top in third position (plus Mike took the easy way out and turned around at the top. I still had the Stage Rd. "bumps" and Tunitas Creek to contend with.)