AV B-Ride on Sat. Improved my time on OLH by almost a minute ;)

He he, no, unless you meant incredibly stupid for thinking I could ride that much on a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit.

Here's the real reason.

Yesterday evening I rode from Foster City down to Palo Alto and across the Dumbarton bridge and back. I was scouting it out for possibly attempting my commute* on it.

Interesting sight - someone had driven their car into the bay! She seemed ok, just cold and upset. The car was not so happy though, electrical system gone haywire. CHP was working on it. I thought about taking a picture with my cell phone but it seemed a bit insensitive.

*My normal commute by motorcycle/car is 16 miles, from Foster City to Union City across the San Mateo bridge. By bicycle it would be about twice the distance via the Dumbarton bridge. I think I'm going to attempt it soon, my own personal "Bike to Work" day.

Did the Cool Breeze Century in Ventura. Got in my August century. See http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=334543 for more reports on this excellent ride.

Did a short 17 mile recovery ride on Sunday.

Saturday- Walnut Creek to Dublin. Get wheel trued at Livermore Cyclery. Take Crow Canyon up to Blackhawk on the way back. 40 miles

The Sunday Ritual- Mt Diablo. Didn't hit the road until 11am due to some poor decision making the night before regarding beer consumption.:beer: It was hot on the N.Gate road but once you made it to the junction there was a nice breeze all the way to the top. 38 mile

Did the Spectrum Ride on Saturday (sans Woodside maze - kept going straight on 84E and left onto Canada). Back on Canada Rd., Eric Wohlberg had gone off the front and blew by like I was standing still. Eventually got reabsorbed by the peloton just before Edgewood Rd. Managed to sneak my way toward the front by coming up the right side of the pack on the rollers after the Water Temple. Ride back was a bit mellower.

Sunday we did our last entire family ride together; riding from Cupertino and doing the "Loop" through Portola Valley. Next week, we head to San Diego to take my daughter to SDSU where she will be an incoming freshman.

SFO - Los Altos...via the SF Bay Trail, Oracle Pkwy, Marine World Pkwy, Bridge Pkwy, Redwood Shores Pkwy, Holly St, El Camino Real, Brittan Rd, Alameda de las Pulgas, Brewster Ave, back to Alameda, Santa Cruz Ave, Junipero Serra, Foothill Expy, turned around at S.San Antonio and back up again...all in all my 1st metric! :D but crap..my legs hurt.. :cry:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...2/DSC02234.jpg

San Mateo to Woodside, up Kings Mountain, Skyline to 84, down W84 to West OLH, West OLH up to Skyline, Skyline to 84, E84 to Portola, then the shorter Loop through Portola Valley and Menlo Park back to Woodside and home. 65 miles and a bit of climbing.

Gonna bring your bike? Lots of great riding there.

Nope. Too busy getting her settled in, sightseeing, hanging around together, etc.

Did the old la honda loop for the first time on sat, holy crap, that ws steep. Granted I grew up in SF and there are some hills there, but man, I haven't wish I had a triple for a long time. Lucky I had at least a compact. Would've died if I tried that with a standard.

Good job on your first metric.

We spent the weekend up at my folks' place in Tahoe City. I took my old fixed gear Trek because I didn't want to have to worry about my bike sitting up on the rack or overnight on the deck.

Saturday, just a few miles down the lake and back.

Sunday, Tahoe City to Kings Beach, up over the Brockway Summit, down into Truckee, and back to TC along Hwy 89. 40 miles and a pretty steep hill. Question to self: What kind of masochistic idiot tries to ride a 42x17 single speed bike up a mountain? Oh, yeah. Me.

Next time, bring the geared bike, M. Desgrange.

Saturday: Mt Hamilton, the back side, and the last climb on the front again, for 62 miles and 8900 feet of climbing. None of my friends wanted to do this ride with me, dunno why.
Sunday: passed on riding with a group doing the "ring of fire" which would be fun but sounded like a bit much as I already had 20k feet of climbing for the week. Did a 50 mile ride in the SC mountains with 5700 feet instead.

Sounds like folks are doing some awesome riding. I rode Alpine Dam and Seven Sisters from SF, for 60 miles and 4000-7000 feet of climbing, depends on whom you believe. Stats here.

Boy scouts 50 mile ride through the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California redwood country.

I didn't ride Saturday. On Sunday I headed out around 4:30pm and went up Old La Honda and down the other side. Joined up with 84 West and took that to Pescadero Rd, then up Alpine and down Page Mill.

45 miles, 4500' climbed, and I made it back home just as the sun was setting. Also I took 1:12 off my previous fastest OLH time :)

Salt Flats
 

Not a big one but I took my new fixed-gear conversion on a little 15mi round trip from Redwood Shores to the salt flats (aka. Leslie/Cargil Salt co.) I love the mostly flat terrain on the East side of 101 - such crazy variety right off the beaten path. Absolutely perfect weather at 7am, saw some cool stuff and took the camera with me:

So I actually got my act together and did my commute today. It was a little shorter than I had expected, 50 miles round trip. Not bad! Takes a bit too long to do every day though. :p

Congradulations ... woohoo ... :beer:

Yea, I wouldn't do this every day, but if you can get this in twice a week, you'll be in awesome riding shape (you are already in awesome shape already :D )

You can bring your bike, ride home. Ride to work, drive home. Drive to work, ride home. And so on.

Wow, that's a very creative idea, I never would have thought of that. Only problem is I sometimes need the car for errands at night (carrying dogs, violin, etc). Plus then I won't be getting so much riding time in on my other bike (the Ducati) :D

Thanks! :) I think I'm going to aim to do this 1-2 times a week, at least while the weather is still good. That is, until we move offices to Sunnyvale (sometime next year). With that commute I would also have the Caltrain option.

Alright - I recently returned from a glorious 5 day trip to Mammoth Lakes, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in CA. For those of you that have visited the Owens Valley and seen the geologic wonderment firsthand - you know what I'm talking about. For those of you that haven't been there, it is about as spectacular a natural environment that one could imagine and defies description - words or pictures do not convey the awe you feel when actually seeing it with your own eyes.

Basically, what you have there is a high desert valley floor that is 7,000-8,000' in elevation, surrounded on both sides by mountain ranges with most peaks exceeding 10,000' in elevation - and indeed, many in the 11/12/13/14,000'+ category. Adding to the visual impact is the complete absence of foot hills - you stand on the valley floor and look up 1,000's of feet to the top of the range. Mt. Whitney (the highest mountain in the contiguous United States) can be found here, and there are several peaks that are just a few hundred feet shy of it's elevation. This area is geologically young, and is still very much an active work in progress. There still exists glacial remnant ice sheets, evidence of huge glacial activity, dormant volcanoes, and steam vents. Ancient craters, calderas, cinder cones, and lava flows litter the landscape as far as the eye can see. Massive granite and basalt walls seem to sweep upwards endlessly up to the sky, and creeks and lakes abound. It is a wonderful, magical place.

While this trip was a family vacation, I did bring my Palo Alto along, and did manage to log about 60 miles in between sleeping, eating, fishing, napping, more sleeping, and some hiking about. I did two rides total - the first was a nice scenic 40 mile loop through the June Lakes region with about 5,500' of climbing, and the second a mere 20 or so loop from the condo out to Hwy 395 and back with about 1,500' of elevation gained. The climbing numbers don't seem too impressive, but keep in mind the condo where I was staying was at 8,200' in elevation and the air is pretty thin up there for a sea-level creature like me.

I took over 160 photos, and it took a bit of time to post-process them for display. I picked out a few for your viewing that you might find interestng:

Road up to Convict Lake. The lighter gray Mt Morrison is in the background, standing a mere 12,268' in elevation. The little brown hill that partially obscures it is Mt McGee, at an unimpressive 10,871' in elevation:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...morrison-9.jpg

Mt. Laurel in early morning light, from the valley floor. Adjacent to Mt. Morrison (halfway out of frame on the left), it stands 11,812' high:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/mtlaurel.jpg

11,059' tall Mammoth Mtn - a dormant volcano, world-class ski resort, and mtb mecca:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...es/mammoth.jpg

Somewhere on US 395, coming back from June Lakes, north of Deadman Summit:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...akeclimb-2.jpg

From left to right - Mt. McGee, Morrison, and Laurel, with venting steam in the creek below:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...hotcreek-1.jpg

Evidence of Glacial Till and end moraine. You can see the walls of rock and debris the glacier left behind as it retreated up the valley. Note the breach in the front wall, where the greenery is - must have been a heck of a flood:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ermorraine.jpg

Coming out of the June Lakes Loop, with Mono Lake in the distance. Doing about 35 mph:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t.../dashboard.jpg

June Lake:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...JuneLake-1.jpg

Skirting Grant Lake:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...rantlake-2.jpg

High desert sky, at about 8,000' in elevation:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...kes/clouds.jpg

Great pictures bbman!!!!

bbman, I'm all ready to go watch a Western now!