Patterson Pass - 1/2/2010
 

Hey all,
It the beginning of the next decade ... ok, so that is up to interpretation. Anyhow, I figure to kick it off, we can do a century/double century training ride to get the year starting off on the right foot. Hopefully the rains will clear out by this weekend, and it should be clear enough to view the windmill farms in Patterson Pass (plus Michael's been dying to see those fabled windmills).

When: Saturday, 1/2/2010 ... so don't go partying too much
Time: 8 am
Where: Fremont Bart station

We'll head straight out on Niles Canyon, and head east. Route map will pick up the route once Hwy 84 passes 680 freeway.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3377100

From Fremont Bart it adds about 9 miles each way, so should be about 80 miles.

Sorry Ron, thought I might be in for this, but looks like I'll be on kid duty. Still, as my toasting of the New Year will be delayed from Dec 31 to Jan 1 anyway, an early start on Jan 2 might not be realistic for me anyway ;). Looking forward to the reports.

I too am pulling kid duty. My wife has a Team in Training ride that day. Have fun.

Aw, man ... waiting for some locals to chime in. Otherwise, we'll have to keep a really good cue sheet.

Yeah, blame the coaches!:innocent:

JB

Ron, don't you have a 705? Draw the course and upload the .gpx into the courses folder on the garmin, then you don't need a cue sheet. :P

No, I only have a 305 ... no maps

Damn, got no locals biting ... oh well, hope we don't get terribly lost. :p

Well, I'm pulling SAG duty for that same Team in Training ride, so I guess I'll blame the coaches too !

...Err, not that I'm up to 80 miles yet by any stretch of the imagination but I thought I'd take the opportunity to blame the coaches anyhow. :notamused: ;)

Well it was just 4 of us ... Ramon (Bostic), Donald (dl33), Michael (michaellouie), and myself (spingineer). The weather looked really dreary, overcast, but figured it will burn off by the time we get to Livermore, or at least when we started the climb on Patterson Pass ... but it did not. In fact, it was really foggy, so much that we never saw one windmill, because it was shrouded in the grasp of the fog banks. The fog was so bad, we couldn't see out our glasses. The visibility at its worst was about 50-100 feet. Some stretches, I could only see where the road was turning. The descent on Patterson Pass was interesting ... normally, we would pick up some insane speeds, but because the visibility was so low, our descent was extremely conservative. I had to take my glasses off, just to see where I was going.

Taking Altamont Pass, the rollies were just torturing us. I just couldn't pick up any energy going on this road, and was glad when the last of the ups on the rollies were done. Then, it was a left on Carroll, then onto Flynn. Again, the climbs were shrouded in fog, and again, we couldn't see any windmills. The windmills are closer to Flynn Rd, but even with this, we couldn't see any windmills.

What made the ride funnier was that none of us knew the area, and the big challenge is where to find the Starbucks. We could go in the reverse direction to find Starbucks, but we decided to head on the way back, and try to find one somewhere. We finally located one somewhere in Livermore, but then we didn't know how to get back on the route. Thank god for iPhone and google maps.

My Garmin also decided to turn itself off about 3 times today. So who knows how accurate my readings were today. My profile definitely has some stairsteps ... I got 79 miles, and 3800 feet climbing. Not the typical Wrecking Crew ride, but we did finish it in 6 hours ... even with the Starbucks stop!

Oh, and sorry, no pictures. My digital camera decided to konk itself out yesterday, so it's in the shop.