May 13th ride MOTHER's DAY

[five one]

We ended up cutting our ride short at just under 20 miles. DH had ridden a hard one yesterday with lots of climbing. I had stayed in yesterday with allergies. The wind in our area was terrible Saturday.

We decided Tracy's route would have been too much for DH after yesterday's tough ride, so after briefly saying hello to her, Jobob, Leebob, PABadger and her friends, we took off north figuring to ride Foothill Blvd. to Alpine and do the Portola Loop. I got a flat about three miles out (stem came loose - a first for me), but I changed out the tube in record time. Crank Bros. Speed Lever rocks!! Even when DH is with me, I change my own flats. By the time we got close to Alpine, DH knew Portola Loop wasn't in the stars, so we just turned around and came back. Not the best ride, not the worst. We sometimes do this same out and back on Friday evenings after work through the summer. There's often a great tailwind on the return trip and it's fun to fly down the road. And with any luck, you don't hit too many red lights along the way.

Tracy, it's a shame things didn't turn out quite as planned, but thanks for organizing the ride. Maybe next time you're in the area we can all try again.

[DrBadger]

Well, after biking over to Chain Reaction from home (with a minor detour as we almost went to the wrong bike shop), my roommate Amie and I chatted with Jo, Lee, Tracy and Five one for a bit, then as everyone went their seperate ways Amie, Lindsey (another friend of ours) and I decided to do the loop that Tracy suggested. All was going well, and we really enjoyed Stevens Canyon and Mt. Eden road....then we missed a couple of turns and got a little lost, finding some additional hills and dead ends before finally finding McClellen Rd, and getting back home. All said and done it was 42 miles for Amie and I, a bit less for Lindsey since she drove from home, with ~2500ft. of climbing. A fun ride though, and I felt really good for the whole thing, so that was good!

Here is the link to the route info from my GPS, you can see our wrong turns We got a nice, unexpected downhill out of it, but of course we had to climb it first....
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2723036

Thanks for organizing Tracy, even if it didn't work out as expected... I probably never would have found this route otherwise, and there were some nice roads.