Dchiefransom

Only three more weeks until the Primavera Century on April 11th. We tried to pick a weekend without other centuries. Apologies to those that like double century weekends.
https://www.ffbc.org/primavera/

johnny99

The Primavera is the first organized century that I did in the Bay Area. It is still one of my favorites. The routes are very scenic with little traffic.

SesameCrunch

Thanks for the reminder. I have very fond memories of the Primavera. Am tempted to do this one.

Anyone else going?

Beaker

I'm doing it with a couple of guys from work. Hope to get a faster time than last year; my first century ride. Loved the route, so I'm in again.

subframe

[edit] nevermind, links are working now [/edit]

I remember wanting to do this last year, i may be interested this year... Nothing like a last-minute century

RoboCheme

I'm doing the metric

1jacktripper

Looks good!

mtnwalker

A friend and I will be doing the metric as well. I look forward to "the wall"

mtnwalker

Crap. Storm forcast for this Sunday. Time to get the rain gear ready.

Beaker

2009 Wine Country Redux? Oh well.

mtnwalker

LOL! This time I'm keeping my fenders attached to the bike. I'm still debating about the rain jacket. Even though I was soaking wet in last years Wine Century the cold wasn't that bad.

danec99

I am in for the metric as well, hopefully the weather won't crap out - it's been so perfect this week.

Beaker

Definitely thinking this is likely. Looks like I'll be getting my entire WCC uniform back out again tomorrow. Have fun everyone.

Ygduf

On Hamilton it was COLD and WINDY today. Caps for emphasis. Good luck tomorrow!

Beaker

Thanks Chris.

Beaker

Thanks to FFBC - a great ride again this year.

It was pretty clear from the get-go that the weather kept a lot of folks at home - one of my party of 3 bailed (as he's not on BF, he doesn't know how to HTFU), so me and a work colleague headed out just before 7. It was windy from the very start, and that definitely kept speeds down, my plan was to try to conserve through at least the half way point, as I figured that the worst of the wind would be out by Altamont and if we could make it past there without being blown off the road or drowned (what with the stormaggedon we'd been hearing about for the last few days) it'd be a victory.

We were stoked to make it up and over Altamont in good time, and it was nice to chit-chat with Britpower again at the lunch stop. (Damn, if that wasn't the best soup and sandwich ever.) At this point, my riding companion and I made the stoopid, STOOPID move of finally uttering what we'd been thinking for the last 50-60miles. "Wow, we've been lucky with the weather". Well it was windy, that was a given, but as early as Calaveras Rd we'd seen some truly gnarly looking storm clouds gathering and had both been thinking to ourselves that we'd be overrun and drenched by them at any moment. Naturally, that was pretty much what happened over the last 30miles. A few spots of rain ended up in a pretty relentless downpour. On the Dublin grade there were rivers of water running down the road. Also my friend ran into some leg pain (ITB?) and my fingers were gradually going numb, while we were both sloshing around in our shoes by the last rest stop at mile 87. My hands didn't improve much thereafter, by the time we were back on Alvarado-Niles I couldn't shift to my 50T without moving my hand onto the lever and pushing with my palm, but my legs felt good through to the end. When I got to the car, I got a pretty good case of the shivers - that took a fresh set of clothes, some food and a good 30mins to get calmed down.

Very happy to get the first century of the year in the bag, and also glad for the extra training from mother nature.

Next stop Wine Country Double metric; couldn't rain there two years running, right?

gpelpel

Great job Richard. I thought about you guys while watching a couple water polo games at Davis. It was a constant rain and the drive back home was a really pain. Certainly not a good day to be riding.

prathmann

Second the congratulations to everyone completing the Primavera ride. Our club put on the Cinderella the previous day, so today was our afternoon swap meet and I led the usual short club ride in the morning. Our ride went over Palomares in the opposite direction so we saw many of the early Primavera riders heading up the north side and stopped to chat with some of the Freewheelers at their Palo Verde rest stop. We were pretty lucky with the weather and didn't get any serious rain until the descent into Dublin - and then we could dry off and warm up at the swap meet. But looking out at how it was pouring a little later I had some sympathy for the century riders who were still out on the road.

Dchiefransom

After I closed the Water Stop, I went to the Lunch Stop. Just as they were breaking it down, the wind came in howling. I was looking around for a funnel cloud. After that it never stopped. It got so bad that the guy with his daughter on the tandem had us take them back to the start.

Which riders were you?

Beaker

Hmm maybe we were chit-chatting for a while: I was riding a black Roubaix, wearing a yellow rain jacket, white helmet and cycling cap, my friend was in a purple jacket and silver helmet. We're both Brits if that provides some aural prompt.

gpelpel

You, actually, might have felt right at home. Todays weather was very British too.

RoboCheme

Kudos, Richard, for finishing. Tell Curtis that you don't need the HTFU on your jersey collar.

I turned my Primavera Metric into a Primavera 70K because of the brutal wind. It seemed to blow in my face both going south on Mission and north on Calaveras (how does that work?). Just as a I got back to my car at noon the deluge started.

BTW, coming back on Niles Canyon Road (84) was scary - no shoulder and lots of traffic. I'll never do that road again.

jobob

Lord-a-mercy, I forgot that Primavera was Sunday.

My TNT DR team rode Diablo/Morgan Territory on Saturday, our route overlapped a bit with the Cinderella course on Highland & Camino Tassajara. All we had to deal with was freezing cold, fog at the Diablo summit, some wind and a bit of rain. It would have really sucked if we had done that ride on Sunday.

Kudos to all of you who braved the elements!

Dchiefransom

Yeah, Niles Canyon was something we already heard about. We have club rides that go through there. The problem is, it's about the only way to get out to Livermore/Pleasanton without making it an out and back. I don't think there's a way to get back to Union City from the Dublin Grade without going through a lot of city streets, plus, I think people like the climbing.

What did you guys think of the route markings? We found out the hard way that they had resurfaced a road that we painted the arrows on.
Do you think the arrows are big enough? Far enough ahead of the turns?
What about the drinks we offer. We have Gatorade, as do all of the rides I've been on. Would an energy drink be good, or are there too many to find one that the majority of people would like?
There was a suggestion to laminate the route sheet, but wouldn't that be a large hard sheet of plastic to carry?
Everyone on the forum, please feel free to comment.

Beaker

I thought the arrows were pretty good - at least I could follow them pretty well, but then again I had ridden the course last year and am somewhat familiar with the area.

Re- rest stops I normally just use water and bring powdered HEED or perpetuem in a flask - so obviously pre-made HEED would be nice, but everyone's got their favorite, right?

Laminated route sheets would only make sense if you could reduce it to say a double sided sheet that could fit in a jersey pocket. That'd be neat, but not sure if it makes economical sense. I just folded it up and put it in a ziploc, not as elegant, but just as functional although I didn't really need to consult it.