jan nikolajsen 

Glendora Mountain road (GMR), a SoCal favorite. The first logical goal is the saddle by the Azusa Canyon descent. That's where I stopped after 15 miles and 2800' of climbing from my in-law's house in the burbs, but one can carry on to Mt. Baldy.

Recent rain had carried a fair bit of mud and debris over the road, so today the thrilling high speed return had to be approached more gently. This also closed the mountains to motorized traffic, a definite plus!

YoKev

Twenty five of my riding buddies got together last night for our annual club Christmas ride. Earlier this week, we donated 30 bikes with helmets to Social Services, and an additional +/-150 helmets to other institutions.

Last night, we adopted three needy families and a shelter to give them gifts that they would otherwise not be able to get. I hauled my friends wife around, and she didn't stop waving the whole time!

retrofit

I hadn't been on a bike for a couple of weeks due to cold and rain (I prefer to run rather than ride in the cold) but the weather warmed up over the past couple of days, so it was time get back on two wheels.

Earlier in the week I went on a brief ride between storms and stopped at the Custom House Plaza for a quick photo. Although there was still a chill in the air this morning, the skies were clear and the road was calling my name, so I decided on a quick 20 miler to shake out the bones and get the blood flowing.

The ride was mostly unremarkable--only a few runners and cyclists on the recreation trail and thankfully, no tourists walking four abreast impeding the way. It was smooth sailing all the way to Sand City and back to Pacific Grove.

The last 10K of my ride was a loop that took me around the Peninsula from Lovers Point to Asilomar Beach and back before heading up the hill toward home. All in all a nice little jaunt to clear the head and nurture the soul. Some pics:

At the Custom House Plaza ('93 Trek with Dura-Ace 7400)


On the rerurn, looking toward Monterey


The tide was high and the surf was up, battering a sea wall in PG




More waves




Circle of Life


Asilomar Beach



stan

dudeona3V

^^^Great pictures!!!^^^

JunkYardBike

15 miles at 15° F.

Ice blue on Budd Lake:



Headwaters of the Raritan River South Branch:



Even the Rhododendrons think it's cold:



Season's Greetings:

jan nikolajsen 

Good job. That's pretty burly. Especially for the toes.

jan nikolajsen 

Visiting my wife's family in SoCal. They have one grand child, my son, an ordinary 11 year old, who nonetheless is revered like a royal prince by the elders. Once I have delivered him and my wife safely to their door via a 1000 mile car ride, my existence here is merely incidental. This is good. Sometime after the customarily excessive breakfast I can retreat to the west wing, slip into my jersey and shorts, and jump on the bike. I will return mid afternoon, just in time for cocktails and the long build-up to dinner.

So has been the routine for 7 days now, 5 of which I have ridden in the nearby mountains. Could be worse. Today I went to Baldy Village by way of Glendora Mountain Road, a smoothly paved route with little traffic and a steady 5-6% gradient over 25 miles. Total climbing in excess of 4500'.

The route snaking across the hillsides in the background towards Baldy Village under the big snowy mountain:


The Razesa with the chaparral foothills falling away to the LA Basin


At my turnaround I discovered this little imperfection in the rear tire. Panaracer Tourguard with 2200 miles on them.

Lizzy

I rode my 69 Schwinn World Sport in the Tallahassee, FL Parade of Lights. Theme was Magic on Monroe St. I rode with the Intergalactic Order of Cyclopathics. It was fun. Huge parade. We circled in a 75 foot long area. Some kid kept crashing and darting in front of us during the ride but I stayed upright. I named this bike Storm, as she's silver. Decked her out with blue LED battery lights, silver and blue bells and silver ribbon streamers. She got lots of good comments. A little girl watching the parade said Ahhh... look, when we rode by, making it all worthwhile. There was one tall velocepede, lots of vintage steel framed bikes, a unicycle, tri-bike hauling a sound system, bike hauling a bed with someone in it, some kind of skate bike with 3 wheels, all kinds of bikes and decorations. It was fun. You can see my lit up Schwinn at https://lizabethwest.comxa.com/lizbikes.html

junkfoodjunkie

I actually took the camera to work with me today. A few pics from an afternoon ride around the local trails.

qclabrat

30 mile ride outside of Las Vegas at Red Rock National Park, about 40 degrees which is about the same as 15 at Budd Lake for locals, I'm from Jersey also so I wore shorts and a windshell

Sorry pics are so small, what's the max file size?

nlerner

That's cool! I did that same ride a little over a year ago (late Nov. 2008), and the weather was in the 60s. I was thankful for the beverage machine at the park entrance as my one water bottle was inadequate for the high desert climate.

Neal

JunkYardBike

I'm sure it is cold to the locals, and from what I understand, I don't think you'd want to get caught there after sundown with light clothing.

On the pics, you might want to try a photo hosting website - that's how to embed the largest possible size photos in your post. I think the max file size for attachments is 100 KB.

Amani576

First ride on rollers today...
If you wanna count that as riding anywhere...
-Gene-

drummer5

Aaaand in contrast to Gene's post....

Took the fixie Mirage for her first ride in the snow today, probably nothing more than 3 miles.



Thinking about loosing the toeclips for the winter in case of fast bail-outs.

Mike Mills

It's more imprtant to know how to fall (slide, actually). Sometimes being strapped in helps because it controls where your feet and legs are - they can't go flopping around.

Don't ask about how/why I know this.

drummer5

True, I do quite a bit of mountain biking during the summer so I know pretty well how to handle a fall, along with correcting a slide. I only fell once on my ride today, just a slow speed fall, the rear wheel slid out on me, but I feel if I wasn't clipped in I would have been able to put my foot down and save it. Then again I also got used to dealing with the rear sliding around the more I rode and was able to build my confidence so we'll see. There's a whole new learning curve when you're riding through 2 inches of fresh lake effect.

HamboneSlim

in the town formerly known as Red Hill...








...December 24th, 2009

funrover 

Well plans did not go as planned today. My wife is currently stuck in Wyoming and the highways were closed all day (Just recently opened)! She has drifts 4+ feet deep on 3 sides of her Discovery and a fence on the 4th. So after watching reports, conditions, and such around 3:30 we decided it was going to be tomorrow before she was going to be able to come back home. Well I had already been home all day on the net/phone and had to get out! I took the old 1994 Pro Flex 754 for it's first run since I got it. I have done a few items on it for repair and figured today was a great day for a shake down run. Went from my apt. to Glendale Open space and back. While the total mileage is not impressive the snow made for a good work out. All of the hikers prints made the first uphill more of a hike a bike but I still had a blast!











Well I was out longer than I thought ( along with starting later then I realized) it got dark on me. Glad I always carry my camping headlight just in case.






Don't have pics from when it was dark, but the last bit was fun. I had a dog sprint across a parking lot after the owner took off the leash for him to get in the car.. Yeah that was scary. Got a couple garage shots after the ride

bigbossman 

Managed to get 10 miles on the new mountain bike in the Diablo Foothills Regional Park on Christmas Day, and another 33 miles today with MarkoPolo, tooling around the Diablo Valley on my Pogliaghi.

No pics from today, but a few from the mtb adventure on Christmas Day. Sure is pretty up there.....

vdrummer9

One of Tulsa's best assets: The trail systems. Nice pics.

bigbossman 

Tulsa? Must not be referring to my pics......

retrofit

I love this shot. It's reminiscent of some of the color etchings by Stephen McMillian, a very talented northern cal artist:
From his gallery: "Winter Light"


I happen to own a couple of McMillian's prints, but perhaps from now on I'll just print and frame BBM's ride report photos!

stan

bigbossman 

Thank you for the HUGE compliment - that late afternoon light is really something. Can't do it justice with the little pocket camera, though. Whish I could carry something better.

junkfoodjunkie

Probably mine BBM, I don't think anyone will mistake my pics for yours. Not a lot too look at on my routes.

Jake

stausty

Today - a whopping 5.4 miles on local bike paths on my recently completed Grand Record restoration. First time back in the saddle in 2 weeks and I certainly am feeling it. I also think that Ultraglide freewheels ruined me after trying to shift a Nuovo Record RD across an Atom 5-speed freewheel. Other notable events on the ride include a torn pants seat, losing a crank arm dust cap (don't worry - I found it), and having my first 0 mph fall thanks to toe clips. The post-ride endorphins are doing more than enough to cancel out any bad feelings, though.