East Bay ride: Calaveras-Palomares Sat. Feb 2

[Bike Goddess]

Jobob- When you have a free weekend day, I'd really like to do this ride. The reason I wanted to come down was to see you, Lee and the rest of the crew! Without you all, what's in a ride!

Hope the weather holds out, it sure is cold up here and not looking good!

[jobob]

Well, it turned out to be a pretty nice ride after all !

We had some members of TE, bikejournal and Nor Cal bikeforums turn up:

From TE, there was Mel and Veronica & honorary members Thom and Leebob

From Bikejournal, we had Roborider, LanceOldStrong and GT (who came down all the way from Sacto for the ride.)

And from Bikeforums/Nor Cal we had spingineer and Bostic.

We saw V & Thom briefly when we all headed out from Sunol, then they opted to go up Welch Creek while the rest of us headed up Calaveras.

We regrouped at the top of the false summit, and Lee decided he was going to kick back a bit and turn around at some point. He ended up turning around at the bald eagle's nest, after watching the eagle leave it's nest and go fishing at the nearby reservoir (must have been fly fishing, har har). Too cool! The most I've ever seen the eagle do was hang out perched on his tower.

The rest of us met up again at Ed Levin park on the far side of Calaveras. All except for Robo and GT, who passed by and yelled out to the front runners (Bostic & spingineer) that they were heading straight for the coffee shop and not stopping & that we'd meet them there.

The weather was looking ominous but so far only a few raindrops splattered down. We were at the halfway point and happily from that point on we had some nice tailwind most of the time.

We made it up to Mission Coffee in Mission San Jose about the time it started sprinkling. We looked in the shop, but no Robo & GT, so we assumed they continued onward. We were eager to get back to Sunol so a bathroom break and we headed onward.

After we were back on the road for a bit I started hearing a weird rhythmic sound coming from one of my wheels. For a while I couldn't figure it out what it was (sort of sounded like brake rub, but noo) and Mel hung back with me while the rest of the gang went on ahead. I eventually found it - a thin piece of wire was stuck in my rear tire. The sound was the free end of the wire rubbing inside my fender. Okay, now I know. Anyhoo, I pulled out the wire and had the inevitable flat a quarter mile later. I'm happy to say it wasn't one of my lengthiest tire changes, and Mel was great help and moral encouragement.

We continued on to Niles Canyon Rd, where the rain picked up a little bit but it never got opressive. The light rain and the tailwind made for a pretty pleasant ride back into Sunol. (We had decided at the start of the ride not to do the additional Palomares route on account of the likelyhood of heavy rain in the afternoon)

Lee, LanceOldStrong, Bostic and spingineer were patiently awaiting our arrival and we adjourned to Boscos for lunch and brews. (Well, Mel and I had brews, the guys had sodas & iced tea.)

There was no sign of Robo & GT when we arrived in Sunol but thier cars were still there. I assumed since we never passed them that they had decided to go up Sierra Road. I expected them to walk into Boscos at any moment. When we finished our lunch and were just sitting around chatting, it occured to me that I might have Robo's cell phone number - and I did. Ooops. So I called his number and reached him.

Come to find out they had missed a turn up ahead of us and went a few miles out of their way before they discovered their mistake. Then Robo had a flat. By the time they reached the coffee shop we had long gone but they decided to stop for a while. Then by the time they reached Niles the rain was coming down fairly heavily. When they reached Sunol and saw our cars weren't where we left them, they figured we had all left and headed for home themselves. (In actuality our cars were parked at Boscos and it didn't occur to them to look for us there. )

So for the most part we missed the rain - except Robo & GT near the end - and I think a good time was had by all.

[melissam]

Hey Jobob,

Thanks for organizing a really fun ride! I had a most excellent time during the ride and at Bosco's afterwards.

I recorded the ride on my Garmin Edge and uploaded it to the Motion Based site. You can see re-live the ride at my slow pace by clicking on the following link:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/4897222

The two pauses on Mission were when we were trying to find the source of the rubbing sound. However, I turned the timer off while we worked on your flat. If you look at it on the satellite map, you'll notice that the hills around Calaveras were a lot greener today than they were when the satellite photos were taken.

Thanks again for a fun day!

-- Melissa

[jobob]

Oh, that is cool!

I won't tell you what the elevation gain on my cyclosport showed, though

[Bike Goddess]

Glad to hear about your ride! It started raining up here about 9:00 so I figured sooner or later (turned out later) you'd get it! By the time we got going to do some shopping in Pleasant Hill- about 2:00- it was really coming down!

I'll look forward to doing this another time with you all! I had another engagement starting at 3:00 in Castro Valley so it worked out for the best.