Renegade Ride, Napa

Saturday we did our "sort of monthly" Renegade ride in Napa, up the Silverado Trail through Calistoga and St. Helena to Taylors Refresher, then back to the Silverado Trail and south to Napa. About 20 people showed up to ride at 9. I think I had my best time yet up the Silverado Trail (28 miles) in about an hour and fifteen minutes. My computer said I averaged 17mph, which felt about right because I was starving by the time we hit Taylors!

What's nice about Renegade rides is that although we all start out at the same time, its everyone's "own" ride. By that I mean no one has expectation about others waiting for them, (or waiting on them!) and its a time for everyone to focus on their own training. Since most of the riders out Saturday were TRL's, it was a good feeling for all of them to have no one to worry about except themselves, it was our own training day... there's the normal concern about your friends, but its different than when you are officially leading and can't leave until the last person is accounted for.

The weather was beyoootiful, definitely shorts and short sleeve jerseys. We had one newbie with us, and one roadie and several "non ALC" riders in our group of 20, all out to enjoy the day. It was Super Duper!

89 Degrees to 49 Degrees

Brrrrr.... only 6 days ago I was in 89 degree weather. Today it did not warm up past 49.

I had a Tiburon Loop ride scheduled as an official ride this morning. The sky looked fine at 8am so I drove out to the Sports Basement in the Presidio to meet up with 8 other folks. When I got there, it was cold but no rain in sight. Makoto, Jennifer, Bruce, Joe, Jodi, John Y, Donald, John F. and I rode out from the SB parking lot at 9:05 and headed for the bridge. Once in Sausalito, the rain started to sprinkle and by the time we were on Bridgeway it was coming down lightly, but steadily. Looking ahead to the north, you could tell it was not going to get any nicer, so we stopped and officially canceled the ride. Luckily, we stopped at Cafe Trieste- yum- for coffee and a croissant and to wait out the rain. Makoto and Jen decided they'd ride back to the SB (and go to work, I guess) so the rest of us warmed up and ate.

John Y. decided since he had actually parked in Larkspur he'd ride over to his car, so he left us. Jodi, Donald, John, Joe, Bruce and I braved the cold cold raindrops and headed back to the bridge where we decided if the ride was gonna be cut short, at least we could get some climbing in. So, once at the top of bridgeway, we took a right turn and followed the signs toward Ft. Baker. The climb from the waterfront back up to the bridge is a doozy, but without traffic so it was worth the workout.

Once at the north end of the bridge, we did a cyclocross move and carried our bikes down the stairs, rode across the path and carried our bikes back up stairs on the other side. From there it was smooth sailing across the bridge and back to SB. A whopping 12 mile ride for the day but some good hill climbing in for good measure.

Every February I say this..." when will it stop raining so I can get some training in???"....

Tour de Palm Springs

This past Saturday, I rode my first century of 2006, the Tour de Palm Springs. This annual ride is a fundraiser for about 50 different charities in Palm Springs and one of the biggest cycling events in California. I ride it each year because it is usually in early February, right about the time I'm getting really sick of riding in the cold damp weather of Northern California. This year the temperature in Palm Springs during the day was in the mid eighties, topping out at about 90 degrees right around 3pm. This was the first year I actually got in before dark, with my actual riding time about 6 hours and 40 minutes. Not bad, considering I even stopped to help two people with flats. Oh yeah, and I got my biker tan back.

Organized Rides/Centuries I'm shooting to do this year:

Solvang, 3/11
Cinderella Century (metric century, girls only!) 3/25
Tierra Bella 4/8
Go Greenbelt 4/23 thru 4/29
Wine Country Century 5/6
AIDS Lifecycle June 4-10
The Deathride: Tour of the California Alps July 8

can't think much past July for any more....

Renegade Rides

Often enough I lead "official" training rides for AIDS Lifecycle on the weekends. Every once in awhile I decide that I just wanna ride.... no stretching, no safety speech, no rules.... well pretty much anyway. This past Saturday was one of those days.

Nine of us met up at 10am (after the rain had passed), and rode out to the Cheese Factory, climbed Wilson Hill, rode through Chileno Valley to the town of Petaluma where we ate lunch at the Apple Box Cafe. We then headed back up 'D' streeet (aka Red Hill) back to the Cheese Factory, through Nicasio back to my house. 58 miles, all hills in February. Not bad considering we we've been riding pretty average 40 mile routes for the past month. It was a great day- a bit windy but that made it more of a workout of course.

Our next "Renegade" Ride is Saturday Feb 25th in Napa Valley.... I was gonna post this as an official ride, but didn't hear back from a co-lead (Dave Kim... where are you?) so we're renegading it with a stop at Taylors Refresher for lunch! Let me know if you wanna join in.

Go Greenbelt Bike Ride

So call me crazy. In addition to riding AIDS Lifecycle 5 this year, I am also riding another week long ride April 23-29th. Its called the Go Greenbelt Bike Tour. Go Greenbelt supports the Greenbelt Alliance in it's mission to protect the region's Greenbelt in an effort to prevent "Urban Sprawl".

Greenbelt Alliance is the Bay Area's leading land conservation and urban planning non-profit. Think of the out of the way local country places you have been cycling-- These are all of the types of places that the Greenbelt Alliance is working to set aside to protect, while still helping to revitalize the regions downtowns by directing new growth within existing cities instead of out in the Greenbelt. As a native of the Bay Area (I grew up in East San Jose), seeing all of the changes to our landscape in the last 30 years or so, I felt it an important cause to support, and hey if it involves a bike ride- you know I'm all over it!

Here's the info: http://www.greenbelt.org/get involved/events/go_overview.html

Feel free to sponsor me today! (Nothing like being a little direct, eh?)