A fine day out indeed !

It was gorgeous out today !

Lee and I talked about maybe loading up the bikes and heading out to Sausalito and do a loop in Marin, but in the end we decided it wasn't worth the hassle to load up, drive out, unload, ride, & repeat.

So instead we headed out from home out to Woodside, one of our favorite rides. It was clear and sunny out with no chance of rain, so I took Dusty, who had been sorely neglected for several weeks now. She doesn't have fenders and has relatively narrow (for me) 25 mm tires so she doesn't get a lot of use during our version of "winter".

I'd been wanting to check out the Sawyer Camp Trail, which parallels Skyline Blvd and I-280 north of Rt. 92. So we joined the hordes on Cañada Road in Woodside. Several miles of Cañada Road are closed to motor vehicles every Sunday in an event they call "Bicycle Sunday". It's a really fun road to ride, especially without cars.

We reached the end of Cañada and crossed over Rt. 92 and continued north on Skyline for a couple of miles until we reached the beginning of Sawyer Camp trail. Geeze Louise, everybody & their brother was on it - it's a paved multi-use trail so for the first couple of miles we were negociating around family groups with strollers, skateboards, little kids on bikes - it was a jungle. Most times we barely cracked 8-10 mph, and it was windey so we used extreme care going around blind corners. Most of the road hazzards disappeared after a couple of miles and then we had the trail nearly to ourselves. It was very pretty - the first few miles overlooked the Crystal Springs reservoir, and then it went through a very nice forest. The trail emerged from the forest and it crossed over a small dam, and the views there were simply awe-inspiring. Naturally, I didn't bring my camera. We then exited the trail at Skyline Blvd. in Millbrae, way up in the hills just west of SF Airport. Looking across the bay from that point we had an incredible view of Mt. Diablo smack-dab in front of us, it was so clear out it seemed like you could reach out & touch it.

I'm usually a total map weenie - if I'm going anyplace with which I'm not completely familiar I usually take the Krebs map and a couple of AAA maps to boot. This time I only had the Krebs map. Minor mistake. We started heading southbound on Skyline Blvd. back towards Woodside, but then the road suddenly took a left turn and we were no longer on Skyline but instead heading down a very steep downhill road. I'm like whaaa? this shouldn't be happening, so we take a first right (nearly a mile downhill, arg), pull out the Krebs map and find it's too low-resolution to help us out. Great.

So we rode along this side road a bit and stopped near an intersection and asked a man mowing his lawn if he could tell us how to get back onto Skyline. The guy pointed up the street we were about to cross and said, well, you could go up there and hang a left and eventually you'll get to it. We looked up. and up. Oh crap. We thanked the man and started heading up on of the steepest roads I've ever climbed. Luckily it was only about 1/2 mile. We geared down and set off. At one point I snuck my hand over to my computer and clicked on gradient view - and it informed me at the moment I was going up a 17% gradient :eek: . Then it levelled off a tiny bit to "only" 14% for the rest of the way :p . Gah. But we made it up and that's all that matters, and eventually we found Skyline and were on our way.

Until it disappeared again. By now we were in Hillsborough, in the land of the uber-rich. We kept riding for about a mile until I decided, yep, we're lost again. This time at least the Krebs map was sort of helpful, in that it let us know that by now we should be on the other side of interstate 280. Okay, time to backtrack. At least we didn't have to slog up a 14 ++ % grade this time, and it was kind of fun checking out the mansions (not McMansions mind you, these were the real thing :rolleyes: ). We soon found the turn we should have taken and we were back on course once again.

By now Lee & I were starting to get tired, and while Skyline was a pleasant enough road, it had lots of rollers that were starting to wear us down. When we finally reached Cañada Road again we were also riding into a bit of a headwind. Luckily it was only about 7 miles to lovely downtown Woodside where we had a well-deserved lunch at the Woodside Bakery Cafe. We were both famished so we threw caution to the headwinds and each had a big ol' cheesburger. Gawd, it felt soooo good to be off the bike and out of the wind and in a nice warm room. While we were inhaling our burgers a couple of friends of ours, Cora and April, showed up, so we spent more time than we probably should have yapping with them (V and SK, you've probably met them on the Riv rides - Cora has the Rambouillet with the leopard-print painted fenders). But we had already gone over 50 miles, and the remaining 20 miles were for the most part downhill, so we weren't too concerned.

We headed for home, feeling much better after our meal & extended break. And as luck would have it, some very kind soul had switched off the wind-meter; we usually have a stiff headwind crossing the Dumbarton on our way home, and particularly over the last few miles up the road after we cross the bridge. But today heading for home there was essentially no wind at all. I was absolutely giddy over the lack of wind those last few miles to home - it would have been a really difficult slog for me otherwise.

We managed to cover just about 72 miles today, with about 2700 ft of climbing. And my knees felt fine ! The rest of me was pretty creaky, but nothing that a nice long shower and half of a large pizza couldn't cure :)

Sounds like you and Lee had a blast, Jo. Good for you!! :) Thanks for the great post!
-BikeMomma

Jobob - sounds like a great ride. Wonderful day for it. Now I feel a little guilty for going to play in the snow instead of riding.;)

Now you're making me feel guilty for making you feel guilty. :o

jo "can you tell I was raised a Catholic" bob

Sounds like you had a gorgeous day. It was so nice and clear yesterday. I thought today was going to be nice too, but it's not quite so pleasant here.

V.

Great ride report, Jo! It was really windy down here yesterday, so I'm glad it was nicer up in your neck of the woods!