the ride of the mad march hairs
Yes, that's right, hairs, not hare. I didn't name this ride.
For those who are unacquainted, my DH aka Raleighdon and a good friend Pansy Palmetto; both of whom are rather notorious on bikejournal.com put this ride together for the second year in a row. It's actually a series of rides, one being climbing to the top of Mt Diablo, (which I missed) and another exciting ride to old Sacramento and back on the gorgeous American River Trail, but the ride I'll tell you about is the ride yesterday, which started out in Fairfield, California and did a loop in the Napa hills and a little bit into the Napa valley.
We started out at a restaurant for breakfast and got reacquainted with a bunch of nice people, including my cousin's husband who is part gazelle we later discovered.
The ride started out with 3 tandems and 4 or 5 singles. the tandems being SalsaMTB and Mr Salsa, Raleighdon and I and the indomitable Pansy and Mr Pansy. Almost immediately we were rolling up and down hills, and they got increasingly difficult in grade. The Salsas and my DH & I quickly left the Pansys behind, and after doing some really fun up and downs on some snake like roads, we lost them. We sent back some speedy single speedy cyclists to
see if they were all right, and discovered that they got a double flat on a pot hole. it took them almost an hour to fix it. So some of us waited, some of us, on speedy single bikes went back and forth giving progress reports. And some of us ventured into the bushes to go to the bathroom.
We climbed a little more and the pansies (or the palmettos) decided enough was enough; and they turned around and went home. So we continued over the pass, and skirted a dam, and finally found ourselves on the flats with a tiny bit of a tailwind. We rode as fast as we could on our tandem, with our previously speedy single bike companions holding on for dear life. (in our draft) it was incredibly awesome. For the first time I discovered that I could do more good by focusing on the stroke between 4pm and 10am because DH's regular stroke was so strong I could barely push any more there. It was a very exhilarating ride, particularly considering that I haven't been riding very much this year. We ended up with 62.5 miles, a metric century, and over 4000 feet of climb.
Then there was today. Today was to be a shorter, friendlier ride. (Photos must wait until tomorrow, unless you go to bkejournal where Pansy will be posting) we just did a 28 mile loop on the American river trail; but Raleighdon had a little chevas regal crown on his helmet with his tuxedo jersey and Pansy wore a wedding veil. People thought they were just married, and me on the back of the tandem. we got laughs, smirks and giggles for 28 miles I never had a laughinger ride in my life. it was hilarious.
and we ended with VERY GOOD ice cream.
