I had a really fun ride today. My hubby wasn't feeling too great so he stayed home & I went off on my own.

I really wanted to do a long-ish ride today with a goodly amount of climbing, so I headed down the Alameda Creek Trail to Niles, went down Niles Canyon Blvd to the small town of Sunol, and then I went over Calaveras Road which is a very remote country road with a gradual climb - not bad, really - and lovely views of the Sunol reservior. (Hey Melissa, do you remember this route from the Cindy training rides? )

Then I went down the descent that people around here refer to as the Calaveras Wall (heh heh, part of the reason why I go in the direction I do - I get the long gradual climb rather than the short yet steep climb )

But instead of my normal route where I hang a right at the bottom of the wall and head into Milpitas, this time I turned left and slogged up Felter Road.

Felter is the back way up to the Sierra Rd. summit, made famous as a Cat. 1 climb on the Tour of California. Rather than Sierra Road's 1800 ft of climbing in about 3.5 miles, Felter is only about 1200 feet (since you're already partway up on account of the climb up Calaveras) for about 4.5 miles. Still, there were a few steep bits (12%+, woo woo) but they don't last for long... for the most part.

I had started out the ride wearing two lightweight smartwool longsleeve tops under my yellow vest. About a mile or so into the climb up Felter I needed to remove one of the wool layers, but the remainng one was lightweight enough on its own under the vest that I didn't overheat. It started sprinkling on me a bit near the top of Felter, but it stopped before I reached the summit.

The sun came out by the time I reached the summit and wow, was it beautiful up there ! I'll bring the camera next time, I promise !

For the descent down Sierra Rd. I figured it would be cold so put my second wool top back on, and added the zip on-sleeves to convert my vest back to a jacket. That did the trick nicely.

I was pretty cautious going down Sierra Road, it's a very steep descent and although the road seemed dry, there were leaves & clumps of mud & other debris in the road, and I wasn't going to take any chances. My hands were a bit sore from all the brake feathering (and sometimes more than feathering, lol) I did going down. But it was no problem.

When I reached the bottom of Sierra Road I hung a right and started heading back for home. I took off the sleeves on my jacket soon after since I was starting to warm up a lot then, the 2 thin layers of smartwool & the vest were just right.

Just before the last steep-ish climb of the ride (which is blessedly short), the heavens opened up and poured down on me. By then I was about 20 miles from home and I figured oh well, so I'll be wet.

Gotta love that smartwool, even though I was soaked I stayed reasonably warm - so long as I kept moving. My feet were so wet that I could feel my socks squishing at I pedaled. gah. But I was wearing 2 layers of wool socks (one thin, one less so) and my feet stayed relatively warm.

So, Jo Drowned Rat finally reached home, dripipng wet & muddy but otherwise none the worse for wear. I felt great on this ride, and I'm really thrilled that I "conquered" Sierra Road - albeit the easy side, but I'll make it up the hard way sooner rather than later, methinks.

66 miles
3500 ft of climbing
12.5 mph (oh well ... )