April 15th rides SUNDAY

[jobob]

I did my East Bay loop today. It was cool and sunny and windy today.

I thought I'd take it kind of easy going up Palomares today, unlike last Sunday when I pushed it and felt like crap for a good part of the rest of the ride. Thing is, since I was taking it easy, and using my beloved granny gear a lot on the climb, I assumed my time to the top of Palomares would be a lot slower than last week. So, just for yuks I checked my time at the summit, and it was exactly the same as last week, 1 hour 20 minutes from my home. I got a kick out of that.

At the northern end of my loop I checked out a couple of bypass routes to see if I could find a better way around the higher-traffic areas of Lafayette and Walnut Creek. The Moraga-Lafayette bypass wasn't so great, narrow roads heavily populated with monster SUVs. The Walnut Creek bypass was pretty good though, that one's a keeper.

I had a really nice ride, up until the very end. I live near a multi-use path called the Alameda Creek Trail which I use at the start and finish of amny of my rides. Today it was the freakin' Alameda Creek Wind Tunnel, I was getting the brunt of the afternoon wind off the San Francisco Bay for eight wretched miles. I could barely get over 11 mph into the headwind, and I was starting to ache. But, that ended (none too soon) and I was finally home, where my sweetie had cornbread muffins waiting for me.

82.6 miles, 3660 ft of climbing, 6:10 ride time, 6:45 total time. I'm really happy with the total time because I'm trying to get into the habit of keeping my stops as short as possible. Err, except for the obligatory stop at the Peets in Danville ...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Wow, I'm so impressed by everyone's rides today! You all RULE.

I did a lot of good hard hills yesterday. But today was and the next few days will be nonstop cold snow/rain, so I'll just have to sit here dreaming about bikes while catching up on work.

Mimi, I can feel you breathing down my neck on BikeJournal while I sit stuck inside here!

[run it, ride it]

Hmm, I guess this counts:

1am ride about 5km from my friend's house to the bar we were meeting up at. I told everyone driving there that I would beat them on my super-speedy 80s roadie. No one believed me.

So there I am furiously pedaling, the bar just metres away--when a car CUTS ME OFF! I swerved to avoid it, crashed, sprawled out on the pavement. My left brake hood was bent in, my front gears bit into my calf pretty hard, and a mighty black bruise showed up on my thigh today.

So there I am lying in the middle of the street, the offending car of course long-gone. Pulled my bike out of the traffic, bent back my brake hood, locked it up outside the bar--and everyone who took the car appeared just then! I DID beat them, crash and all!

[pooks]

Wow -- you rock! Way to show 'em.

I hope your leg and bike are okay, though.

[weathergal]

Did my first 40 mile ride of the year. My average was slow, as usual, but I'll put part of the blame on the 18-20 gusting to 25 mph winds I had to fight against. At least the temperature was nice, getting up into the 60s. Not too bad considering we had 10 inches of snow fall on Friday.

[lesliejo]

I am trying to get ready for a local ride happening next weekend, so I took off for a three hour spin. I wanted to get some hills in just to test the thighs. Rode up a four mile grade that did the trick. Sure was fun coming back down. It was a beautiful day, started out at 44 degrees, but when I got back it was in the upper 50's. Saw lots of wildife, between the birds and coyotes. The wildflowers are in bloom along with the fruit trees. Rode through some beautiful orchards. Such a nice time of year.
I think I am ready for the ride! Ended up clocking 48 for today.