shatdow

I was in South Lake Tahoe this weekend helping my girlfriend close down her seasonal cabin rental. She brought her skiis, I brought my bike. Saturday I rode around the lake starting from Meyers, logged 80.5 miles total, 5 hours ride time. I've done it once before in the counter-clockwise direction, but this time I did it clockwise. Much better ride IMO, I'll do it that way from now on!

It actually snowed most of friday and overnight into saturday, so this was the scene at the cabin on Saturday morning before the ride:



Couple pics from the ridge above Emerald bay, first is Fallen Leaf lake, second is the bay:




And two more scenes.

ifox

Wente RR on Sat.

reidconti

Rode from Santa Clara up to West Menlo, met up with someone, and did the Portola loop + OLH climb, then rode home. 60 miles total, about 2500 feet of climbing. My first time up OLH. Was hoping to come in under 30, but was 31 flat. The girl did it in 25.

Interestingly, even though I haven't been riding regularly, I felt really strong in the morning. Riding north I was cruising at 20-22mph which is several MPH faster than usual, and my heart rate was just sitting on 160. I was flying as if I had a tailwind, but don't think I did since I was riding north. Even on the way home with tired legs (yeah, they shouldn't have been that tired from the riding I did..) I was going 20 easy.

I think I averaged 15.6 for the whole ride, not much climbing.

JoelS

Had a great ride yesterday on a new route for me. 6 really good hills, 81 miles, 6000 feet. Climbs were Iron Point, Beatty, Serrano 1. Then turned South and went over the ridge at Cothrin Ranch. Then down to Brandon and turned North up French Creek. Lunch at Subway, then continued North and climbed Deer Valley before heading back on Green Valley and E. Natoma.

DiabloScott

Went for a tandem ride in Lodi

msincredible

Wheeee!

BottleRocket

Hey Henry, I just saw this.

I'm assuming behind that little red X is a picture of me suffering on the climb.

I've got a pretty good bag of excuses for this race which I won't bore you with . Basically I DNF'd. I got popped at the end of the climb on the first lap with about half of the E4 field. Spent the rest of the lap trying to bridge up with a small group and cramped pretty bad. I did another lap easy and pulled out.

It was a great course though and hope to be back next year under better circumstances.

BenRidin

Hey I did that w/ my 16 y/o two weeks ago. It was a blast. Must have been for your 50th, right?

On Sat., I did a double dip up Diablo:
Up Southgate to summit
Down to Northgate kiosk
Back up to summit
Back down to the car.

Was a lot of stupid drivers. Almost got hit. Twice!

zoltani

I got two rides in this weekend. Saturday I went from SF across the GG bridge, then along HWY 1 to Stinson Beach. After a nice sandwich I climbe up Panoramic HWY to the Pan Toll Campground before heading back to SF. It was about 45miles total and around 2700-ft of climbing. All in all it was a great ride despite the terrible headwind on HWY1 and a really close call with a BWM on the Mt. Tam decent.

I always take the lane on that decent because I am going at least 30 and the curves are tight. In my mind this is the safest way for me to ride. Apparently a silver BWM station wagon did not feel the same and passed me very close, honking and flipping me the bird, with an oncoming car in the opposite lane. Am I wrong to take the lane on such a decent? Why is it always the luxury cars that are so impatient and feel the need to put people's lives in danger?

Yesterday I did PAradise loop from the City. It was windy, but a nice day to be out on the bike. Total miles from my place is about 46 miles. Hopefully the two rides have helped me prepare for my 400+ mile tour that starts this Friday.

DiabloScott

Yup - officially tomorrow. Everything seems really boring today after doing that yesterday.


Was one of them a big black SUV? Almost got me too... he wasn't even passing anybody, just driving in the wrong lane around a blind corner on NGR.

Red Rider

Two tandem rides: 45+miles on Saturday (my longest ride in 6 wks.), and 34+ miles on Sunday, a reverse Winters loop. We liked riding into the wind in the beginning and getting a tailwind to push us up the slight grade on Pleasant's Valley Rd.

silentben

I take the lane on the descent too as long as I'm traveling at motor vehicle speeds. If the road levels off or there's a straight spot and there's nobody in front of me and there's a car behind me that seems to want to go faster I'll try to give them room to pass .. just seems like common courtesy.

At the end of my ride Saturday I was taking the lane while descending Highway 84 and a car passed me. They didn't come close to me or honk but they were completely across the double yellow heading into a blind left turn. Downhill traffic was heavy and slow moving and passing me got them absolutely nowhere. I hope they had a chance to think about their actions with me in their rear view mirror all the way down the hill

Going back on topic, I practiced backwards unicycling on Sunday. My girlfriend just bought a 20" uni the previous weekend and she's still learning to ride so I decided to learn how to ride backwards so she wouldn't be the only one falling all the time

commo_soulja

This past Saturday, I rode with the MBoSC / Mere Mortals at Wilder Ranch. Nice having the locals lead on great trails. Sunday I found time to ride out and back to Arastradero to do a quick lap. Great weekend weather...

silentben

Did a cold, windy loop involving my first time up Black Rd. I was going to meet Marco and Ruth in Los Gatos but I guess they weren't feeling up for a ride. But I ran into Ramon on the way down there. We took the dirt trail from Los Gatos to the Lexington reservoir and got some friendly "hellos" from some mountain bikers but didn't see any road bikes. The trail was in surprisingly good shape considering the wet weather and the only tricky parts were managing traction on a couple steep uphills.

We went clockwise around the reservoir and up Black Rd and then to fire station near the 9/35 junction. At this point Ramon headed south to go home via Highway 9 and I went north to descend Page Mill. It was cold and misty and windy (always a headwind it seemed) at the top but it got warm and dry about 1/2 way down the hill. I stopped for a shawerma wrap on California Ave in Palo Alto and then home from there.

70 miles, 4300 feet of climbing, 1 filthy bike (already cleaned though)

msincredible

The other day I was doing the short descent at the top of Alpine to Skyline. I had stopped at the top of the climb to put on my jacket. Just as I was starting my descent, a car came up behind me. I stayed to the right, thinking they would try to pass, but they didn't. A couple turns later I looked back and they were gone, so I figured they had turned off into a driveway.

Well, they caught up with me on the last bit, the straight down to Skyline, and complimented me on the "clip" I was going at.

msincredible

That's a good place for Middle Eastern food, always a favorite.

msincredible

Just did a short 16.5-mile round trip to the grocery store with Jammen, I hauled the load (dinner) on the way back.

trinity000

Did a very WET metric with Marco Polo, X136 and Tony (whats your screenname? man i forgot to ask). It was supposed to be a full Century (Wine Country Century) but the rain was non-stop and alot/most shortened their ride.

Beaker

Good to meet you Jeremy (if only briefly). Variant 76miles of the first part of the WCC 200km route with top drawer company of gpelpel, Robocheme and Ygduf

redspoke

Must be training for a double. Had the day off with no kids so I hopped on the ride and pedaled to Old Sacramento and took the ARBT from end-to-end and back. Ended up with a lot of exacts today... 108.00 miles in exactly 6 hours stops included. Wind kicked up on the way home but it was a sweet tailwind from Old Sac to my house. The sails were sagging a little at that point so it was very welcomed.

1jacktripper

Went up Page Mill, Kings, and OLH, in that order; descended 84 after Page Mill and OLH. First time doing these three in one setting, and I cried uncle in the middle of OLH. The revelation is that Kings and OLH almost felt gentle in terms of gradients after Page Mill. I think about 60 miles in total.

Red Rider

Rode the tandem out Brown's Valley to Cantelow to Steiger Hill, then out to Pleasant's Valley for a Winters Loop. 34 mi., light winds, 20.3 mph avg. -- our best time since January. We were home by 11:30. It was a glorious day for a ride!

Ygduf

I've done that ride before. It's no joke, and more like 70 miles and 7000ft.

BenRidin

Saturday did a early morning Rocklin-Auburn loop w/ my good friend Jim. As always, when riding w/ him, it's a hammer fest. Getting in over 5,200 footies in 68 miles, in some beautiful country, my senses are alive.

BR

bikingshearer 

Had a great time yesterday with the entire Bigbossclan (meaning bigbossman, Queen Bossman and Princess Bossman) plus MarcoPolo. We met up in Sunol and headed out Niles Canyon to Palomares Rd. I figured traffic would not be too bad on Niles at 10:00 on a Saturday morning. Wrong - everybody and his/her dog were driving that road.

Palomares more than made up for it. None of us are exactly polka-dot jersey caliber climbers, and bigbossman is still feeling the effects of some bug or other the turkeys gave him in Oklahoma, but we took our time, stopped whenever the mood struck, and enjoyed the lovely scenery and the absolutely awesome descent on the northern side.

The east on the I-580 frontage road - a gentle climb, and little traffic, but lots of noise from the freeway. Close to the top, at the Rowell Ranch rodeo grounds, there is a new road that cuts under 580 and commences a short but steep - and I mean steep, definitely over 10% - climb to the western extension of Dublin Blvd. Bigbossman really wanted to do this even though he was not feeling his best. Why, you ask? Because the pay off is a descent that is just short of perfect - new, smooth-as-glass pavement, basically straight, with a few very gentle curves, a road where the only the thing to slow you down is your personal internal FearMeter. (Or, as we experienced, if there are a gaggle of stupid teens on skateboards going at varying degrees of too slow and not in very good control of their boards ) It's steep enough to let you go as fast as you dare, but not so steep as to make it hard to modulate your speed. The only thing that makes it fall a little short of perfect is that it is a residential area (newish) and has a stop light and a stop sign. You are going across the top ot the "T" at both intersections, and the sight lines at both intersections are very good, so you can easily gauge whether blasting through (and thus breaking the law, which, of course, I can not advise ) is not a good idea. It really is a great descent, roughly 2 miles worth.

After a snack break in Dublin, back to Sunol via Foothill Road and a lovely lunch at the restaurant next to the bar where Bosco, the fomer mayor of Sunol and a fine specimen oif a black Labrador Retriever, now serves as a beer tap. And no, I am not making this up. I swear. The bar keep pulls his left leg out sideways and the beer comes out -- well, it comes out exactly where you would expect it would when a male dog's rear leg goes out to the side. The regulars, who seemed to be well into their cups, were highly amused by us noobs being initiated into the Bosco Beer Dispensor Viewing Guild. Big fun, in a juvenile, mildly gross sort of way. (BTW, I think Bosco dispenses Bud, which means it tastes about the same as what came out of there in Bosco's salad days . . . .)

Simply a wonderful day. The only down side was BBM not feeling 100%, but at least we could point and laugh at him.

Oh,yeah - 29.5 miles and 3840 feet, according to my VDO MC 1.0+ computing device.