Tandem Cycling - Chico Wildflower Century-4/27/08

Sassy and I are signed up for this one on our tandem. Who wants to play???

http://www.chicovelo.org/wildflower.html

Northern California

My stoker does not want to come out and play, so I'm doing the Wildflower on my half bike (Co-Motion, of course).

DBC look forward to seeing you there. We usually like to get started early 6:30-7:00 a.m. We will be wearing our sport & spine kits (green and white). So flag us down and say hi.

So flag us down and say hi.

Assuming he can catch you. ;)

Wish we were making the trip north to ride the Wildflower with you guys...we love that area and Chico Velo does a great job. Unfortunately we have a conflict that weekend but will be down the road from there at the Delta Century (metric for us) the following weekend in Stocton. That one will be a first time experience for us...Enjoy the wild flowers.
Bill J.

Hey There,

Kahuna1 and Agent 19 will be riding. We will be camping out that night and hope to get an early start. We are on a black Trek 1000. It would be great if some of us could meet up!

Hey There,

Kahuna1 and Agent 19 will be riding. We will be camping out that night and hope to get an early start. We are on a black Trek 1000. It would be great if some of us could meet up!

Great!! We will keep an eye out for you. We are staying at the hotel-ruffing it :D

Hey There,

Kahuna1 and Agent 19 will be riding. We will be camping out that night and hope to get an early start. We are on a black Trek 1000. It would be great if some of us could meet up!

We will be on the lookout for everyone too. We will be driving from Davis that morning and may not get started until around 7. We'll look for big bikes throughout the day. I'll be on a half bike: hopefully my new Americano (lusty red with vanilla shake panels) if the replacement fork comes in. Tried again to get stoker Terry interested in taking our Speedster, but this is during prime gardening season.

Two weeks, just 2 more weeks.

See you guys there :D

Assuming he can catch you. ;)

Well???? You gonna make it????

Well???? You gonna make it????

:( Not this year. :(

I'll be working instead, dagnabbit. We'll miss you tandemistas -- post pics and a full ride report, please!

We are signed up to do it again. Last year we did the full century for the first time on the tandem.
I remember being rained on in Paradise and then it turning out to be a pretty nice day. It would be
nice to do it again this year without the rain (or this wind we've been having). This last Sunday
we climbed Mt. Diablo for a nice training ride. It was a spectacular days ride.
We must have passed 8 other tandems that day. Are tandems getting popular, or what?


2006 Co-Motion Speedster Co-Pilot

:( Not this year. :(

I'll be working instead, dagnabbit. We'll miss you tandemistas -- post pics and a full ride report, please!

Darnit!! We will miss you guys...

We are signed up to do it again. Last year we did the full century for the first time on the tandem.
I remember being rained on in Paradise and then it turning out to be a pretty nice day. It would be
nice to do it again this year without the rain (or this wind we've been having). This last Sunday
we climbed Mt. Diablo for a nice training ride. It was a spectacular days ride.
We must have passed 8 other tandems that day. Are tandems getting popular, or what?


2006 Co-Motion Speedster Co-Pilot

Yes tandems are :D We are going to be rolling around 7 a.m. Will you guys be there early?

[quote=chainedtogether;6520043]We are signed up to do it again. Last year we did the full century for the first time on the tandem.
I remember being rained on in Paradise and then it turning out to be a pretty nice day. It would be
nice to do it again this year without the rain (or this wind we've been having). This last Sunday
we climbed Mt. Diablo for a nice training ride. It was a spectacular days ride.
We must have passed 8 other tandems that day. Are tandems getting popular, or what?

Hi Chained Together,

We are Rosevillians also. Whats your planned take off time at the Wildflower?

Kahuna1

Hi Chained Together,

We are Rosevillians also. Whats your planned take off time at the Wildflower?

Kahuna1

Hi Kahuna1. Another Rosevillian (Roseville-ite), cool.

We should start at 7:30, but for us, early starts can be hard to achieve.
I will add that last year we missed the dinner. They had shut it down just before we finished.
The Wildflower has always had really good food.

Watch for us. We have a White Co-Motion Speedster with an Arkel trunk bag.

Unfortunately we will not be making it :( You guys have a great time!! Read on:

Well last saturday was my big race. 19 mile mountain bike, about 3,300 ft. climbing. It was 45 degrees and windy at the start. I was actually shivering.

We finally started. My goal was a top 20 finish-so I stayed with the lead group as well as I could. At minute 25 I crashed passing on the outside of a downhill corner. My front tire got into some sand and plowed. I went over the bars-not such a big deal in a mtb race. Only problem was my right out stretched hand impacted with a rock. I got right back on my bike and kept going-self assessing on the way. I was pretty sure I had done some damage-how bad I did not know. My bars were knocked a little out of alignment-I could deal with that. I kept racing and trying to put my wrist pain out of my mind.

The pain was increasing as I continued. I looked at my time- 1:25. Lots of pain now, but I knew I should not have too much farther to go.

The last section of the course to the finish line was very rough/bumpy. I just had to hang on a little longer. Finally I saw the finish line in the distance while my brother Tony cheered me on. 1:40:40, 22nd place out 106. Top finisher in my class was 1:31:14.

MTB XC EVENT: 124-XC SPORT 45-49 MALE
FINAL RESULTS - Saturday, April 19, 2008 1:49:39 PM
PlaceBib First Name City/State Finish Time
April 17-20, 2008

1777 GORDON OAKLAND, CA 01:40:40
22 REESE 00:09:23.3
22 REESE
I went to first aid right away. My 2 brother's and sister in law were there to give me support : ) First aid thought I might have injured the scaphoid bone in my wrist. Jeremiah and I got out of there as soon as possible-drove me to Kaiser. X-rays, diagnoses - fractured scaphoid bone.

Healing of this bone is complicated by the lack of blood flow in this area. Here is information on this :

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00012

I am Happy that I finished. Lessons learned: get much stronger so that passing on the climbs is no problem. Passing in the tight higher speed areas is not necessary.

Gordon

the splinted, left handed typer

Unfortunately we will not be making it :( You guys have a great time!!

Really sorry to hear about the crash, and hope you heal soon to get back on the big bike. We'll miss you at Chico this Sunday. Since my stoker is staying home to garden, I'll be on a 1983 Specialized Expedition (new Americano not yet repaired from being hit by a car -- I was luckier than the bike).

We see each other another :D

Have fun!!

Can we have a ride report??? Looks like the weather was warm...wind? course?

Can we have a ride report??? Looks like the weather was warm...wind? course?

Warm day, some tailwind, great day for cycling. Climb to Table Mountain was long and hot -- at least hot relative to the last few months. We saw several dozen people walking the steepest part of the hill. Honey Run earlier in the day was just fine, partly because it was entirely in the shade. This was an extremely well run ride, despite the very large number of people. As usual, map was printed on a cotton bandana and everyone got a good water bottle. Even the goodie bag was cloth for reuse. Although I rode a half bike, saw a lot of tandems -- even a Bike E recumbent tandem (did not know they existed).

Normally this time of year the wildflowers would be everywhere along the course. Lack of rain the last two months meant that the flowers had already bloomed, except for the occasional flower gardens near farm houses. All in all a great day to be on a bike.

Thanks for taking the time to do the nice write up on the ride DBC Steve...sounds like it was the fun ride we thought it would be ...the bandanas sound pretty cool. ' felt bad missing it but won't next year.
We'll have our C'dale in Lodi/Stockton for the Delta Centruy this weeekend and at the Fresno Cycling Festival the following one .
Bill J.

Thanks for the report. We will try again for next year.