Nice 3-day weekend for me!
Friday I headed out and rode part of the 2011 Tour of California route for stage 3. I'm already familiar with bits and pieces of it, but there were some roads new to me. Rode from home out to Oakdale and back, getting in around 30 miles. Bentley Rd. is in pretty bad shape with some potholes deep enough to swim in. There were also a disturbingly high number of dead goats on the side of the road.
This is out at Bentley Road and Patterson Road.
Saturday, a friend and I went out and rode the
Turlock Lake Road Race route. Quite beautiful and challenging. While the overall climbing is only around 400 ft for one lap, a few of the gradients are very dramatic.
Los Cerritos Road in La Grange, CA.
When I was out photographing the Snelling RR and Merco last year, I decided I desperately wanted a picture of my bike leaning against this barn. Finally got it. Then I was attacked by two barn owls.
Hawkins Road heading back to Turlock Lake.
Turlock Lake... a beautiful setting for a road race. We capped off our ride by dipping our feet in the cool water and skipping rocks!
Word of advice... if you want to ride this route, they charge $10 for parking at the lake. If you drive east on Lake Rd, before you get to Los Cerritos Rd, there will be an area on the right where parking is free.
(This post could also be titled "Playing with Hipstamatic on my new iPhone because Verizon finally got a 3G data plan to work for me!")