I didn't think there was water at Inspiration Point? Where's the spigot located?

Riding through Canyon up Pinehurst is one of my favourite rides round here - should be nice to have some company for a change! Who else is in?

I am in, I ride most of route in different chunks on a regular basis.

See you all there.
Brentley

OOps, I will have to check on Inspiration Point. We might have to stop in Tilden Park where the Grizzly Century has a reststop if someone needs water.

Yes, Canyon is cool. Amazing that they have their own public school and post office. One cannot see many homes around.

I updated the OP with the list of riders.

Being someone that's not a very experienced hill climber, would I be able to keep up at all? Should I pass and wait for another, less hilly ride? I've rode 50 miles with some rolling hills before, but this ride seems like it involves a lot of serious climbing.

You might be doing fine on the ride. Just take it easy at your own rhythm.
A couple hills are rather steep (end of Pinehurst before reaching Skyline and end of Rheem) but only for a quarter of a mile. So it you take them easy you will be fine.

Here is the breakdown of the climbs:
- Canyon/Pinehurst 4 miles, 3 easy at 3-5%, 0.75 at 8-10%, 0.25 at 12-13%.
- Grizzly Peak: 2 miles at 8-10%.
- Castro Ranch: 1 mile at 7-8%.
- Mama Bear: 1 mile at 10-12%.
- Papa Bear: 2 miles at 8-12%.
- End of Bear Creek: 0.25 mile at 12-13%.
- Rheem: 1 mile, 0.75 at 5%, 0.25 at 12-13%.

OK, I am still recovering from a cold, so we'll see how I feel tomorrow morning. Is it still 730 at Lafayette BART?

The ride is next week (9/20) not tomorrow. And yes 7:30 is still the starting time.

I just realized that =) Oops

Apparently you can find water at the Brazil building and also the junction of South Park Drive and Wildcat. I've previously stopped off at Sibley for a refill FWIW.

Roll call for Saturday's ride.
Meeting place is in front of the Lafayette BART station where the bus stop @ 7:30am. There's plenty of parking space either on the main lot or the adjacent one.
Let me know who is arriving by BART or if you might be a bit late. I will post my cell phone number on the OP on Friday evening.

Still In!

Hey George - I'm a maybe. Your key words: social and no-drop helped, and Lanceoldstrong's hill climbing description have got me thinking, "Yes, I can.."

May BART it.

Since I really want to ride with you all, but I have a really important training ride (Mt. Tam) ...I'll try something different and see if I can be in both places almost at once...If that makes any sense? To complicated to explain right now...Too much scorcery, but I'll do it!
Houdini

That should be interesting. I updated the OP.

Tonight I found out that Skyline is closed about 500 feet north of Snake.

And it is closed, with a 3 foot high wall all the way across the road, I had to climb over with my bike to get through the section. The way the road was torn up it looks like it is going to take them a while to fix this, I will try to determine how long they are going to keep the road closed.

We may just have to go down snake and then climb old tunnel as well. that would add about 1000 feet of climbing.

Bummer! Is there a way to walk past the work area?
The additional 2 miles and 1,000' around seem to have a steep section.

That area was damaged during last winter and only had a one lane section since. I am not surprised they want to fix it before the heavy rain comes back. It will take a while for sure.

I was able to get off the bike and climb over it the walls. There was no one doing construction though.
It won't be open until they are done (one of the lanes is missing) but as long as there is no one there we should be fine, I am looking forward to the ride. If there is someone working on the road on the weekend, then it would be hard to get past them. I will go up that way again before saturday and see if there are signs. I looked at oakland public works and they have the notice for the previous closure but not this one.


brentley

I still plan to be in too - plan to ride to BART, but will call+post if I'm going to be late for any reason.

Bummer about Skyline, there could be a few alternates if Skyline is blocked -- perhaps we could climb Pinehurst, go south to Redwood, back down the other half of Pinehurst and loop back through Moraga and head up to the 3 bears (Pete could peel off to Orinda BART then at ~30mile mark...:D). You could then do the 3 bears or climb up Wildcat and take one of many routes back down to SPDR. Lafayette to the Pinhurst/Redwood loop + 3 bears without wildcat is probably at least 50miles.

I was just going to suggest the redwood route, it is a very very fun downhill.

So did they final close the road where they've been single tracking it for a while? Every time I've been up there on the weekend, there's only been a single lane open, but you could still get through.

BTW have you ridden down South Park in Tilden? That's my fastest downhill in the bay area to date. It's a bit of a beast to climb up (not as bad as El Toyonal) but the downhill is fantastic - sweeping roads, smooth tarmac and good visibility. Redwood is nice though!

Update on skyline
 

so tonight I rode past the construction site on Skyline again.

They have put up fences in such a way that they don't want you go around them. I had to cling to a tree and carry my bike around. I don't know if I will get back up there tomorrow to check it out for the weekend, but we may want to look into a different route.

I have gone down both El Toyanal and South Park. I much prefer south park it is a very fast downhill.
As a younger rider we used to hit 55 on the glorietta downhill into moraga, but that was when I could spin a 53-11.

So don't be frightened if I show up out of nowhere...I've consulted several different wizard "Advisors" and they've all agreed on the wormhole corridor I'll be using. I'm not quite exactly sure where I'll be dropping in. Hopefully I won't be coming in naked on a Unicycle, then I'll know for sure that the witches are surely "Bit$*# and cannot be trusted.

Hopefully we'll be sharing an "Epic adventure" even if we must scale walls and moats over skyline...Don't forget your brooms or you'll be answering to Sir GPelPlel "Grand Wizard" of the Royal French Brigade!

Man these brownies Cathy gave me are really great!!!

Harry Houdini Potter
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...ixcartelop.png

I went up to the 'WALL' this afternoon. I am sure potter777 will find a trick for us at skyline gate 9 and 3/4.