Rides for the Last Sunday of 2007? Dec 30

[RoadRaven]

Well, I did a long (40minutes) 10.7 km with my youngest son (12).

We rode back and forth on the strip of false flat in front of our house.

We coasted down the false flats to see who could go furthest (me of course - I'm about 40-50kg heavier than him I think) and then we would turn around and he would sprint past me. I would catch up and sit behind him til he got tired and he would declare that he managed to get up to 30kph (or whatever speed he managed that time) before he stopped pedalling.

Really alot of fun.

[Velobambina]

Sounds like a nice time, RR. You're the coolest mom!

I rode 43 miles--paved trail--to start off the day. It wasn't that cold but it was damp. Came home and then went w/my husband to the C&O (gravel/dirt trail that runs alongside the Potomac River). He runs while I go for a ride on my mountain bike. Well, it was a little foggy but there was a good bit of mud & several unavoidable puddles. I was officially christened a "dirt girl," literally. LOL. In addition to having mud spatters all over my body, a big chunk of mud landed on the right lens of my glasses. LOL. My poor Kona Lisa is now dirty, much to my chagrin!! The ducks and Canadian geese were all out in force, and a couple times, I had to wait for them to bail into the canal so I could pass. Total mileage 57.5.

[7rider]

Yay.
Kona Lisa is officially christened!

DH and I did the last shop ride of 2007.
I pondered doing the B-ride, as they were just lolly-gaggin' along today, but opted to go with the C-group at the split. There were just four of us on the C-ride today....made it rather difficult to paceline. One guy would do rapid rotations, another pulled for too long (and always seemed to move aside when the road turned uphill, leaving ME to pull up the hill! ). We dropped that second guy on two of the climbs of the day and would poke around at the top, waiting for him to catch up (he was a newb to the ride and didn't know the route). So we got caught again by the B-group sooner than I would have liked - it's a sort of a C-group competition to hold them off as long as possible . Still, I got to hook up with DH again, who was at the front of the pack. I hooked onto some wheels and away we went.
All in all...a nice ride (although, as with VB's ride - a bit cold and raw).

[smilingcat]

nice guy to rotate out just before the hill climb. And nice for the other guy to rotate out so quickly.

Well atleast, you got a good workout.

Didn't have a chance to go out today. busy working around the house.

Well, gonna hop on my trainer for about an hour to take out my frustration (computer head ache) Why do they make it sooo HARD!!!

smilingcat

[PscyclePath]

41.41 miles on the local bike club's Sunday "death ride" this afternoon, with a 14.9 mph average according to the computer. About a third is stop-and-go thru downtown Little Rock, and we were graced with a stiff southern breeze that gave us headwinds going out and coming back

Good ride, though... and puts us up around 4068 miles for the year, and at least for now, #1101 over at BikeJournal...

One more riding day for the year...

Tom

[Mr. Bloom]

I did 13 miles along the Ohio River. 38 degrees, sunny, wind about 10 mph.

I averaged 15.6mph...traffic was tough, but I stayed warm.

Winds here will be 20mph to 30mph tomorrow...So, I've had my last ride for the year!

[sundial]

I did 20 miles today in sunny 47 F weather.

[salsabike]

Ah, a nice day for a ride today. We took the tandem out to test my new bullhorns, and did 31 miles, with hill at beginning and again at end. It was probably in the high 30s, and one of those days where the sun is out in part of the sky and there are big dark blue-grey clouds in another, so you can see buildings and trees all lit up by the sun against that dark background--gorgeous! No camera with us! Dumb. Lots of wintering-over birds, herons.

[Aggie_Ama]

We did a short 13 miler. Last night we went out to College Station to visit friends, drank a little too much and came back later than planned today. That coupled with a tough week for both DH and I at work made for a short ride. I need 62 miles tomorrow to hit my goal, if the cold front stays back until 4:00 as forecasted I can do it!

[jobob]

Lee and I went on a really nice ride today, looping along the uppermost part of the East Bay area along the Carquinez Strait.

I was doing some recon for a 200K permanent brevet route I'm putting together (here's my most recent version of the proposed permanent route), and today's ride was over the one part of the route I've never ridden.

We started out at the Orinda BART station and followed Camino Pablo, San Pablo Dam Rd, Castro Ranch Rd, Alhambra Valley/Pinole Valley Rd, San Pablo Ave to Pamona Ave to Crockett.


Here's the view of the Carquinez Bridge from the Vista Point, before we descended into Crockett.



Pokey and Waldo were patiently waiting for us




We had a nice lunch at the Valona Deli in beautiful downtown Crockett - they make excellent sandwiches there. (Since it's open all day, it's probably going to be one of the controls on my permanent because it's at the extreme north end of the route.)

Then we continued on along the Carquinez Scenic Drive which runs along the Carquinez Strait. About 25 years ago a portion of this road was washed out and has never been repaired, so it's closed off to cars for a couple of miles. It's now part of the Carquinez Strait Shoreline Park and there are convenient staging areas on either side of the closed off section. As the name implies, the views of the bay from this road are lovely. The closed off part of the road was a bit rough but not too bad, though we had to go gingerly across the washed out section which was muddy.

The road surface was pretty good for the most part.


Except the washed out part was muddy - glad we had our fenders after that!



We then meandered thru Martinez and on to Alhambra Ave then Pleasant Hill Rd. By then Lee was starting to feel really funky, coughing and wheezing up a storm. My poor honey has lungs of Saran Wrap. So instead of heading to the Walnut Creek BART station as we had originally planned, we went to the Pleasant Hill BART instead, and then rode it back to Orinda.

It was about 38 miles and around 1800 ft of climbing. There were some long grades but nothing particularly steep.

A really nice ride, at least from my perspective. Lee felt fine again once he was out of the cold.

[Mr. Bloom]

Hey jobob:

I enjoyed your blog...first time I've seen it.

Favorite Quote: "Climbs faster than a toodling tarantula."

Right next to 225,000 feet of climbing - WOW! At that pace, it took you 51 years to climb the distance you achieved in '07.

That's awesome! I'm a jealous flatlander!

[jobob]

Thankyee kindly, Mr. S. I'm slow but I get there eventually.

[Veronica]

It must have gotten sunny faster out there in Martinez than it did here. It looks like you guys had a great day. Sorry about Lee's lungs though, poor guy.

How much climbing do you think your 200 K will have?

It got sunny here in Antioch around 2, so I got in a short ride - after we finished painting the family room and I helped Thom get set up for grinding the floors. He's still grinding today. Hopefully we'll be laying some floor this afternoon. I don't like living in a construction zone.

We woke to sunny skies today. It's still only 39 degrees out though. I gotta prune my roses, so hopefully it will get a little warmer.

V.

[Bike Goddess]

What great pictures you took! Must have been later in the afternoon as it was totally fogged in when we got up and looked out. Didn't know you would be passing by or I would have waved to you from the other side of the river. I ended up waiting until the sun came out (around 1:30) and then did a pre- New Year's ride- our Tour de Benicia.

We do the ride you mention on the water the other direction (from Martinez) on the way home. The first part of the ride is up Cummings Skyway which you passed (as you probably know) on the way to the bridge. We then go to downtown Martinez and return via the scenic route.

The dirt part you mention is no fun for me either! It's kind of grin and bear it til you get through. We generally don't do that trail after the rains as it gets pretty muddy in that section and who wants to clean a muddy bike when you get home!!!

I'll be interested in your route as I'm always looking to extend my mileage. 200 K is about my limit.

Thanks again for the great pictures. Had I known you were that way, I would have braved the cold and ridden to the bridge. I can get you to the other side of the river if you want to extend your ride into Solano County. We have some nice routes over here as well as good food for rest stops!

By the way, the park service is planning to make that trail into a Class I bike trail in the next few years. They will have to build bridges across the places where the pavement is slipping. Won't that be great!

[jobob]

How much climbing do you think your 200 K will have?

Well, according to the Bikely map (here) it's on the order of 6500 feet.

That's the maximum amt of climbing I'd like to have on the permanent route.

Turns out it's kind of hard to find good 200K routes that meander through the East Bay without a lot of climbing.

By the way, the park service is planning to make that trail into a Class I bike trail in the next few years. They will have to build bridges across the places where the pavement is slipping. Won't that be great!

Wow, yes it would. It's a really great area to ride. My only concern about trying to run a brevet route through there are possibile liability issues - technically, bikes aren't allowed through there, altho it's apparently not enfored. But that may raise issues with RUSA's liability insurance. Something I'll be asking the SF Rando RBA (Rob Hawks) about when I get closer to submitting the route.

Problem is, McEwen Road -the road you would take to avoid the washed-out section - appears to have a steep climb and so the total climbing for the route would be in excess of 7500 feet. I know that isn't much for some people but I don't want it to be excessive for people like me.