Northern California - 5/9 Mt Tam Ride Report...Pt Reyes No Go!

Today was a great turnout, bigger than most for this ride. Unfortunately it coincided with a giant girl scout convention that march legion down Chrissy field and across the bridge. I was difficult for anyone driving to find parking. We ended up with a very late start coupled with some technical difficulties. Being behind on time we decided in a group vote to just do Mt Tam and forget PT. Reyes.

The weather was excellent and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Ron, Brent and Jeremy broke off from the main group at the top of Tam and cruised back to SF. We stopped for a little snack and coffee at "A Taste Of Rome" in Sausalito.

Fun ride out there today everyone!
I'm still editing pictures, so I'll try to get some more up tonight.

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How was the ride back over the bridge? I got stuck in traffic from a car accident on my way up the 101 =(

Good seeing you guys out there. Those BF kits are eye catching to say the least!

I was very close to heading up Tam with you all but my better judgement got the best of me and I decided that doing 85 miles with the Roasters was probably a good enough days work.

Great ride today everyone! Here is a teaser pic, more to come:

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That's a great pic! Looking forward to the write ups.

Great ride today everyone! Here is a teaser pic, more to come:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3615/3517107692_f1f4335488_b.jpg

Love this shot. NorCal checkered team time trial :thumb:

Holy **#.^.
Traffic on 101 is so bad that I have time to check the forums and post this. I'm thinking of pulling over, ditching the car and riding home. This is awful!

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Holy **#.^.
Traffic on 101 is so bad that I have time to check the forums and post this. I'm thinking of pulling over, ditching the car and riding home. This is awful!

Henry and I carpooled up ... my car was at his place, and I took Bart back to Henry's place. Nice, no stress. Drive home was via 280, and there was no hint of traffic at all. Driving via 280 to SF is always less stressful than 101.

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa292/taxi777/Chrisyduf.jpg

D. Vader, where you at? :thumb:

Any chance we can do some names? There seems to be a few unusual suspects.

I think there was an Arron, a Mike, a Dave, a Jeremy...Ok now I'm lost...I need a note book or a few more brain cells to remember these faces, names and avatars : (

Looks like you guys had fun. I happened to do the same ride today starting at 10:30 and saw a few of you guys at Mt. Tam. You guys sure are fit because I was suffering on that climb.

Make no mistake some of us (me) were suffering! At least now i know what to expect on a Tam ride from now on.

Looks like you guys had fun. I happened to do the same ride today starting at 10:30 and saw a few of you guys at Mt. Tam. You guys sure are fit because I was suffering on that climb.

Obviously, you didn't see me ... fit?

Obviously, you didn't see me ... fit?

Well you must be at least sort of fit if you're doing a double century next weekend. :thumb:

That, or delusional.

Too much fun you guys. I had to stay home and go to a wine tasting event. Glass after glass of fine wine. It was horrible. Shear torture. First Chardonnay, then Zinfandel, then Cab. You feel my pain, right? Then we had port and chocolate. At least MyLilPony and I were able to ride to and from this event, though the ride home on the fixed gear was interesting for me. ;)

But it looks like you all had a blast (at least riding. traffic sounds really annoying.) Nice photos!

Wow, awesome turnout!

The "across the bridge paceline" picture is very cool, powpow.

cccorlew - where at? I have a member pickup party to go to tomorrow up in Healdsburg.

D. Vader, where you at? :thumb:

Any chance we can do some names? There seems to be a few unusual suspects.

Everybody's a critic...

Besides, black is slimming. I look slim, right?! :P

Pete, you've gotta tell everyone a little more about that blasted bad-luck bear @ Mike's Bikes.

3 instances today of bad luck:

1) Ben had a mechanical - seized-up freewheel? I can't remember specifically.

2) Marco / Ruth with a flat.

3) I fell down.

I went as far as the summit to Tam and then changed my mind while going up to the Headlands. The scenery was just too beautiful and I slowed-down to enjoy the view. Next thing I know the group was gone so I figured I'd just tool-along, slowly, back across the bridge. It was nice. :D

One more thing, I'm never eating one of those stupid hot dogs @ the Mt. Tam snacky shack again. I went against my better judgment, b/c I was hungry, but soon regretted it after getting back-on the bike.

P.S. Ben, sorry about leaving early, you'll have to hold my helmet for a little while longer.

P.P.S. Donald I just noticed your shirt in my car. I'll bring it back next ride.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/SgZGPT5TOFI/AAAAAAAABYw/0t8rPPFoBCs/s800/Picture%201.pngThis was my route. Had a great day. It was good to see so many faces out on such a perfect day for riding.

Anybody else associate this:



http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa292/taxi777/HenryRon.jpg


with this?


http://1heckofaguy.com/wp-content/photos/waynes%20world.jpg

It was a perfect day for riding. I could never tell what to carry on a ride in SF, so I carried my light jacket, stuffed it in my saddle back, and it stayed there all day. Fabulous day.

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Gathering at Sports Basement

As mentioned previously, the day was filled by many mechanicals, flats, and yes, a spill. Trinity was man enough to admit every time he's on a BF ride, unfortunate things happen. I'll just leave it at that.

After we crossed GG bridge, soon after the descent into Sausalito, I hear some really loud wizz in the distance behind me. I only found out after we re-grouped at Mike's Bikes, that it was Ben's freewheel. Luckily, he didn't go down, and was able to limp his way to Mike's Bikes, to get it taken care of.

For some reason, there was a stuffed bear, sitting on a pole just outside Mike's Bikes. Pete had his way with it, doing various things to it. He had his paws all over it!

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http://spingineer.smugmug.com/photos/532361774_BYyfw-L.jpg
Now that's just wrong.

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Henry and Pete showing off BF Checkered Kits with pride

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Chris, no hands!

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Getting ready to roll after fixing the flat on the tandem

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Some of us decided not to go to the top of Mt. Tam, and just head down. Also, we bypassed Marin Headlands too. We survived the trek without any further mechanicals or breakdowns.

cccorlew - where at? I have a member pickup party to go to tomorrow up in Healdsburg.

My college, LMC, had a fund raiser. Mostly Contra Costa wines, one from Livermore. Good stuff!

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My college, LMC, had a fund raiser. Mostly Contra Costa wines, one from Livermore. Good stuff!

Sweet! any day with wine in it is a good day by me! Wine and a Bike ride is heaven on earth*

*Disclaimer - In no way am i condoning BWI.

I love that pic, PowPow; if only Marco hadn't been enticed into using spray
adhesive on his Cat's Hill race number, we'd have a fifth checkered jersey.

What a wonderful day for a ride and a such a great bunch to ride with.
I'm glad to finally meet a bunch of the new faces and to see some friends
I haven't seen in a while. I had to cut the ride short but I can only get
half a day now-a-days to ride.

PS. Whoever's not on twitter, get with the program, it's a great way to
keep more in "real-time" touch. My Twitter. (http://twitter.com/henrymar)

Everybody's a critic...

Besides, black is slimming. I look slim, right?! :P

Any slimmer, you'll disappear! It's cool, seriously; all-black kits are like game faces. :thumb:

[quote=mellum76;8888568]
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3) I fell down.
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[quote]

Wuoh! :eek: What happened?

Great ride and great weather. It was nice riding in a big group again. Highlight of the ride was going to the real summit of Mt. Tam for the first time and seeing the city with GGB peeking out. Marco and I also shared a hot dog and ice cream sandwich :).

We got caught in the bad traffic on 101 on the way home too - so frustrating to be stuck in a car after a day of riding.

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Too much fun you guys. I had to stay home and go to a wine tasting event. Glass after glass of fine wine. It was horrible. Shear torture. First Chardonnay, then Zinfandel, then Cab. You feel my pain, right? Then we had port and chocolate. At least MyLilPony and I were able to ride to and from this event, though the ride home on the fixed gear was interesting for me. ;)

But it looks like you all had a blast (at least riding. traffic sounds really annoying.) Nice photos!

Sounds like fun, except for the drunk pedaling part. :roflmao2:

PS. Whoever's not on twitter, get with the program, it's a great way to
keep more in "real-time" touch. My Twitter. (http://twitter.com/henrymar)

Word.

What a perfect way to spend another beautiful day in paradise! Due to a series of unfortunate events which others have described this ride seemed destined to run a bit behind schedule. By the time we got to the turn off for the summit of Tam, I was already pushing the envelope for making my evening commitments, so had to skip the summit and roll back into the city - next time! It was really great meeting everyone; thanks for being so welcoming to the "new guy" :).

[quote=mellum76;8888568]
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3) I fell down.
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[quote]

Wuoh! :eek: What happened?

Some seriously broken-ass pavement, while trying to take a turn, did me in. The bike's ok and I've got some new scars-in-the-making to show for it. :thumb:

GOOD NEWS!

Just heard back from Henry (Blast Radius) and he still has a small jersey that I can buy. Unfortunately no bibs as he only has medium and i am a small =(

But i will still be able to show my BF Pride!

GOOD NEWS!

Just heard back from Henry (Blast Radius) and he still has a small jersey that I can buy. Unfortunately no bibs as he only has medium and i am a small =(

But i will still be able to show my BF Pride!

Welcome to the Team!:D

Pete we really need to start looking into 2010 kits... if we make a 2009 order the season will be over before we get them. Then we are riding 09 gear in the 2010 season.

*P.S this idea is not my own! hehe...hi Henry! But i would like to see a new kit order go down! Maybe with some red in them this time?!

Maybe with some red in them this time?!I think you need to get some contrasting colors going, or you're going to start looking like Gossamer out there... ;)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Gossamer_restored.jpg

LOL gee thanks Alex!!!

Edit: There is a striking resemblance between us isn't there! lol

Great ride yesterday and good to see some new faces! Final stats for me: 68 miles and 6000 vert.

A few more pics:

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Pete (Taxi777) and Brent (brentley) head toward some famous bridge.

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Ramon (Bostic), Henry (BlastRadius) and Donald (dl33) head up Bolinas-Farifax Road.

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Marco and Ruth at the dam.

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Pete showing his feelings toward an a-hole driver who nearly ran him down.

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Henry cruising the Seven Sisters.

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BlastRadius and SilentBen reeling 'em in on the Seven Sisters.

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Ramon with a much-deserved snack at the summit of Mt. Tam.

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The summit crew (L to R): Adam (powpow), Chris (Ygduf), Erin, Donald (dl33), Michael (mellum76), Ramon (Bostic), Ben (SilentBen), Marco (uspspro) and Ruth (Ruthness).

Hey Chris, is that Erin from WCC? If so, congrats on recruiting another BF'r - I didn't recognise here straight away sans garbage bag

Yep, that's her. She's a strong rider.

[QUOTE=1jacktripper;8889137][quote=mellum76;8888568]
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3) I fell down.
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Some seriously broken-ass pavement, while trying to take a turn, did me in. The bike's ok and I've got some new scars-in-the-making to show for it. :thumb:

It was more like a trip than a fall ... :lol:

[QUOTE=mellum76;8890504][QUOTE=1jacktripper;8889137]

It was more like a trip than a fall ... :lol:

It was a low speed clatter down. I watched someone run over the rear wheel and destroy the blinky on the seat bag.

The locals immediately came out of their houses to see what the commotion was, I guess someone yelling "crash" in that neighborhood will do that.

But Spingineer and I did see something that made us wonder while we were stopped. There was a man who ride by on a tricked out cervelo time trial bike, wearing street clothes and (drumroll) Crocs. Spingineer looks at me and says "now that is a real Fred".

the other odditiy that I came across on the ride was a Snickers bar lying in the middle of the road on one of the downhills. Just seemed so odd, I was just hoping no one hit it and crashed, I half expected someone (Taxi) to stop and pick it up and take photos of it.

A great ride overall.

[QUOTE=spingineer;8891765][QUOTE=mellum76;8890504]

It was a low speed clatter down. I watched someone run over the rear wheel and destroy the blinky on the seat bag.

The locals immediately came out of their houses to see what the commotion was, I guess someone yelling "crash" in that neighborhood will do that.

But Spingineer and I did see something that made us wonder while we were stopped. There was a man who ride by on a tricked out cervelo time trial bike, wearing street clothes and (drumroll) Crocs. Spingineer looks at me and says "now that is a real Fred".

the other odditiy that I came across on the ride was a Snickers bar lying in the middle of the road on one of the downhills. Just seemed so odd, I was just hoping no one hit it and crashed, I half expected someone (Taxi) to stop and pick it up and take photos of it.

A great ride overall.

I didn't know that my rear wheel got run over. Hmm, that might allow me to justify those wheels I had my eye on recently. :innocent:

[QUOTE=brentley;8891891][QUOTE=spingineer;8891765]

I didn't know that my rear wheel got run over. Hmm, that might allow me to justify those wheels I had my eye on recently. :innocent:

Heh. your wheel was perfectly true when you stood up, and you rode another 40 miles on it. :P

Buy the wheels you want, but you're not fooling anyone. :thumb:

[QUOTE=brentley;8891891][QUOTE=spingineer;8891765]

I didn't know that my rear wheel got run over. Hmm, that might allow me to justify those wheels I had my eye on recently. :innocent:

Yep, that is what whacked your blinky, but I checked your wheel right after and it looked like it survived. I am not sure that I would trust it though; you never know. :)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3519416032_13b959eeb7_b.jpg

Who's the fred on the right? Helmet mirror, blinkie, bike-mounted camera .. sheesh.

Who's the fred on the right? Helmet mirror, blinkie, bike-mounted camera .. sheesh.

Isn't that the dude with the very loud freewheel and no sunglasses?

I realize I'm a bit late to the game (this is my first time sitting down at a computer since the ride) but I'll add in my 2 cents of a ride report.

So I left home around 7:15 and rode to the Menlo Park Caltrain. $6 for a ticket to San Francisco! And they are looking to raise fares again! A couple stops up the line Chris (chrisoco) got on and we rode together up to the city. After getting off the train It was a nice quick jaunt up to Sports Basement where we met Ramon ... but no other BFers in sight. Just lots of girl scouts and a security guard who "kindly" told Ramon to park somewhere else.

I had no service on my phone so couldn't call anyone or check twitter. Chris and I decided to ride up to the bridge and meet people there which worked out okay except that we missed out on the pre-ride meet and greet. There were so many new (to me) faces on this ride and I really only talked to a couple of you so that was too bad :(

We made it across the bridge and I stashed my backpack in an undisclosed location while we joined forces with the north bay folks. Then coming down the hill into Sausalito I heard a super loud and shrill humming noise. It sounded like an air horn. I thought it was coming from Ron's bike ahead of me. Then I saw a little pumping station or electrical transformer box on the side of the road and thought maybe it was an alarm siren from there. But then I realized it was my bike! So I stopped to investigate. Adam also stopped (thanks!) but we couldn't find anything wrong.

Continuing on down the hill, the noise happened again and I this time when it happened, my chain got thrown off the big ring to the right side and ended up dangling on my right crank. Weird. At this point I still had no idea what was going on, not even a guess. I decided to stop at Mike's Bikes and see if anyone there could figure it out. Pedaling through the flat parts of Sausalito everything seemed okay and the problem only was occurring during high speed descents.

One of the mechanics at Mike's inspected the bike and found nothing wrong other than a tight rear hub which Marco had also noticed. Here is the telltale symptom: raise the back wheel and give the cranks a good push to get the rear wheel spinning. Let go of the cranks and they will "creep" forward due to too much resistance inside the free hub. Henry also said that if you put heavy grease inside there it will eventually degrade and get sticky and cause the problem I was having. He recommended a much lighter lube.

Once I had an idea of what the problem was (and that it wasn't caused by anything being loose or on the verge of exploding) I decided to continue with the ride and just not coast since coasting is what caused the noise to happen. This ended up making for some interesting riding as I had to pedal through turns on the descents. I actually clipped the ground with my left pedal early on before realizing I was going to have to take it a little slower on the downhills than usual. I've never ridden fixed gear bikes but it must have been a little similar :)

The snickers bar was mine. I bought it at the 7-11 in Fairfax but it flew out of my jersey pocket somewhere between there and the dam.

The climb up from the dam to Ridgecrest was lovely as always. I charged up the 7 sisters a little harder than planned but it felt good anyway. When I got to the top of Mt. Tam I was pretty hungry. I had left my two clif bars in my backpack and then lost the snickers. So I got a hotdog, giant frosted cupcake, and a can of coke which is just what the doctor ordered. If that little snack hut hadn't been there I would have probably bonked but everything worked out perfectly in the end.

Descending Tam was interesting. The slow auto traffic was frustrating but I kept reminding myself that it didn't matter since my speeds were limited by pedal clearance anyway. So I rode the brakes all the way down the hill and got a chance to exercise my left hand and also my patience and self-restraint.

By the time we did the Headlands loop it was down to just Marco/Ruth, Donald, Chris (ygduf), Ramon, and me. The main notable thing here was me almost crashing at the very end of the loop. I was coming downhill and needed to slow down to make the right turn into the parking lot and grabbed too much front brake too fast without transferring my weight back enough. The rear wheel lifted, scooted an inch or two to the left in mid-air, and then came down again as I modulated the front brake. Could have been a lot worse.

I retrieved my backpack, rode back across the bridge and then to the BART station. Total distance on the day for me was about 78 miles.