So......what was 2013 like??

So, what makes up a great year of riding??  No rain to speak of, long rides almost every weekend, and some epic ones (like the Nifty 10-50) are some of the great memories of this past year.  Oh, and no crashes!  What's not to like?  Ok, maybe it was unofficially bracketed by two parts failures....the crankarm failure on New Year's Eve 2012 and a broken chain in early January of 2014.  And both were in the middle of nowhere.  Is that the appropriate way to mark the year?  Well, sure, why not?  Both ended up ok and it was all part of the adventure!  I guess I could carry more tools, but....maybe not!  With an "almost" record of about 7700 miles, it may be tough to pick out the best.  But let me try and tick off, in no particular order, my top 10 rides.  All of these rides and more can be found here:  http://www.strava.com/athletes/77170

1-2. Berkeley to Davis (2), April and Nov 2013.  What a great bunch of folks both times, followed by dinner at our house.  I think it's becoming a date on peoples' calendar!  The best part is the last 35 or so miles through the farmlands of Vacaville into Davis, followed by the train back to Berkeley with a cold beer.  Superb.

3.  Nifty 10-50.  50 miles of the "steepest sh*t" in the East Bay, adding up to 10,000 feet of climbing.  Throw in bad brakes on Brendan's mt. bike and you've got an epic ride.  Right to the last mile, where I almost bit it on Indian Rock because the brakes were no longer holding.  So much for disks?  Well, so much for my ignorance about disks.  All I had to do was turn the little knob and they would have been re-adjusted.  But hey, that would have taken away the thrill!  ;-)

4.  The Diablo stage of the TOC....Stage 7....especially the descent down the mt. to North Gate with the pros and 100's of other cyclists all at the same time!  Smooth.

5.  Furlough ride - San Francisco to Tunitas Creek and down into Palo Alto and back over the Dumbarton Bridge to Fremont BART.  I love those point-to-point rides!  Not the quietest or even prettiest ride, but a goal was met.  And like a few others in October, I was paid for it!  (Keep it up, Repugs.)

6.  MDR day?  That's the Memorial Day Ride.  It's our annual 4 day ride from San Jose to Santa Barbara, totaling about 375 miles.  I suppose I should be able to pick the best day, but they're all good.  Good company, good weather and good roads.  Who can pick a favorite?  Not me.  Let's do it again....for about the 15th time!

7.  Rides to the Farm.  I rode up to Kenwood to our friend's place a few times this past year from Larkspur.   It's about 60 miles and it's always a great ride.  There are a few busy sections through Petaluma.  And the hard climbs are at the end, when I'm pretty sapped of energy.  But for the most part, it's a beautiful ride.  The hardest parts are indeed the most beautiful as well.  Sonoma Mt. Road can't be beat.  Hard, bumpy, and steep.  But quiet, pretty, and remote.  The best there is if you're a cyclist.  And it's only a few miles from a cold beer at the house!!!  In fact, the year ended on New Year's Eve with a ride to the Farm accompanied by my workmate Jared joining me in Kentfield and departing in Petaluma.  Nice way to end the year.

8.  The Grizzly-Skyline-Pinehurst Loop.  I do this loop so many times each year (every Tuesday night in spring and summer), one would think it's not part of this list.  But it's emblematic of the unbelievable riding we have at our back door here in the East Bay.  Serious climbs.  Mostly quiet roads.  And wonderful descents.  Right into town.  That's the name of the game with this 38 mile loop.

9.  The American River Bike Path.  Not near home, but still accessible, this is the flattest 60 miles one can find around these parts.  It's the path that goes from Sacamento to Lake Natoma, where Caryn's and Brendan's crew meets are held.  I have a habit of losing patience and wanting to ride during these events, so always bring my bike up to regattas.  And it's so flat that I can set my own land speed records for mph.  Nearly 20 mph for 60 miles!  That's what you get when there's no elevation or cars.  Not bad.

10.   Grizzly Peak.  Why is this so special?  It's on almost every ride we do around these parts.  Well. this was the year they repaved that sucker!!!  After 20+ years, they repaved it this fall and it was SO SMOOTH, it was hard to believe.  There is a god.

That's the top 10, but there were many other great rides that didn't make the list.  Our coastal ride in CT among the colorful leaves.  The Chico Gran Fondo, which I need to do again to appreciate it more.  And the Patterson Pass / Del Puerto Canyon / Mines loop with Marius and Jules.  Been hearing about that 100 mile loop for years, but this was the first year I did it.  One memory of that ride was cruising along at 28 mph for 16 miles with no work.  There's a lot of wind in that valley.  And thank goodness we were riding in the southerly direction!  And finally, riding on Todd's birthday ride (43 miles for 43 years that turned into 72 miles).  It wasn't the course or the distance as much as the company.  I was able to talk to Calvin T. for quite awhile hearing about the history of Bay Area and California racing, including how he "taught Greg Lemond how to race".  Hmmm.

Here's to more memorable rides in 2014!

HNY!

Happy New Year in 2014!  It's been a great year for many things, including riding.  I've achieved my highest mileage in almost 20 years, which is since Brendan was born.  It was due to a number of reasons, including very little rain, consistent long weekend rides and of course, the gov't shutdown, which gave me plenty of free time to ride!  Whatever the reasons, I had a little over 7700 miles this year!  Below is a Strava accounting of my rides (on one chart, which is a bigger number b/c it includes all activities) and a picture of Brendan and me on a ride a couple of days before Christmas.  I actually got him out for over 50 miles in the week or so since he got home for the Christmas holiday!  Maybe with that bit of base mileage, he'll be encouraged to get out there more during this new year.  And maybe those who read this will too!

Happy Holidays!

Beyond Cycling....

....Karate and Crew.......

It's been a bit of a weird time....I blogged at the beginning of the gov't shutdown.  But then it continued on for 2.5 weeks!  To extend it, I took a vacation that actually started towards the end of the gov't mess, so had a string of 23 days off in a row.  Wow!  Call it "FUN-employment".  Plenty of time to ride for sure.  I took a few epic rides, including one in Marin County out to Marshall, down Hwy 1 and up Bolinas Fairfax Road (69 miles).  Then, I went down the Peninsula from San Francisco, through the new tunnel out of Pacifica, down the coast to Half Moon Bay and over to the Bay (Palo Alto to Fremont) via Tunitas Creek Rd (82 miles).  Finally, I rode up Mt. Diablo with a couple of friends (83 miles).  Those were some great rides!  But then, it was time for something different.

Even though I'd been able to pedal my ass off while on furlough, Caryn's been on fire in the sporting world over the past few weeks too.  And making me pretty proud, I might add!  At the end of September, she tested for her 2nd degree black belt and passed, getting accolades from the "Master" of her form (a rank even higher than her own sensei).  Here are videos I took of her board breaking and applications (choreographed fighting with two other black belts).






In mid-October, she and I took a trip to New England, seeing family and a lot of friends in CT and Boston.  And she got to row in the Head of the Charles!  It's touted as the largest 2-day rowing event in the world.  Earlier, she had a chance to gain a seat in the Lake Merritt Rowing Club boat that would attend.  But with the karate test, she wasn't all that interested.  Unfortunately, someone planning to row got injured and when her coach asked if she was interested, of course she said yes!  We were planning on going on the trip to support the team anyway, so why not!?  Her team was to race two boats that day and she was in the 40+ women's 4-seater.  And they did pretty damn good!  Most of them (3/4) are novice rowers, so they were realistic about their chances.  But they met their goal, which was to row faster than half the boats in her category.  The got 10th place out of 24 boats.  Coming in ahead of 50% of the boats allows the team to get an automatic entry for next year!!  (Granted, the rowers will have to fight for seats again next year, but this is a great start!)  Here is a video of the final 30 seconds or so of their 5K race.




Of course, I did get a few rides in while in CT.  Traversing old roads that I rode when living there almost 30 years ago was fun.  They seem so quiet, clean and safe with polite drivers (just like home in California...not!).  And the weather cooperated with 60s, colorful fall trees and sunny skies everyday too.  I didn't get to see all my friends - it doesn't always work out - but it was a nice trip nonetheless.

Shelley, Mike, Jeff and Caryn in Essex on the CT River

Deep River lake on a ride with Stirling, Jeff and Shelley

Stirling and Jeff debating traffic law

Shutdown Cycling

Well, I'm part of the 800,000 gov't employees who have been furloughed as part of the shutdown.  It's been in effect for over a week now and to tell you the truth, it's been kind of a nice break.  It's given me a chance to catch up on a lot of things, but also do plenty of riding.  The politics behind the whole shutdown are crazy, but that's another story.

I've been kind of absent on this blog lately.....maybe too much riding?!  I've been averaging close to 150+ miles per week, including a recent highlight, the Chico Gran Fondo!  Fondos are basically centuries that are raced.  While my friends and I hung on for about 20 miles with the big group, we ended up just enjoying our own pace for the remainder of it.  Here are two links:  the results and some pics.

http://underthesunevents.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FONDO-OA.htm

http://www.chicovelo.org/main/Fondo2013/

Climbing in the Fondo - John, me, Dan, an unknown lurker and Lauren

The weather was much cooler than a normal day up there in Chico in September, having dropped down after some unseasonable rain the day before.  (Great timing!!)  We started at 51 degrees and peaked at only about 75 degrees.  I had never ridden up there before, so it was nice to see some new roads for a change.  Lots of rolling roads with plenty of climbing sandwiched in the middle of the ride.  Few vehicles, but they were big when we were passed!  Lots o' pick-em-up trucks, but 'most' everyone behaved themselves.  Our Santa Barbara ride organizer, Janine, was the organizer for this event too and she did a great job as usual!  Finally, it was fun to ride with some Santa Barbara buddies, including John, Dan, Lauren, Eddie and Wes.  Maybe I'll be back next year!

Huge chainring on Chico bikepath

Ride "Heatmaps"

Check these out....someone has created a program that compiles all of your rides (and runs or both) from your Strava account and posts them all on maps with color codes.  Red means more times on particular roads; blue not so many times.  Here is the link to my activities up until today (August 16, 2013) since I got the Garmin.  Most are in California, but check out the Pyrenees and the big hike on Saba too.  It's all there!

http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.html?id=42baae32abfae98bff247b250c81e1a4c3669f96

Hills.  Bitchin' hills.  But what a view from the top!

Life is sometimes about scaling hills, right?  Some are easier than others.  And some seem insurmountable.  Unless you take it in stages.  With rests along the way.  My life is pretty good for the most part.  Sometimes things don't go my way.  But let's save that for another time.  For now, let's try and keep this is about cycling, right?

I've been wanting to do this climb called Sierra Rd. for sometime now.  For the past couple of weeks, I did a few extra climbs with Sierra in mind.  Tough climbs like South Park, Elverton, Woodmont and others in the Berkeley area that usually get passed by.  But when I got down to Sierra this past Saturday with my buddy Jules, those others just weren't a match for it!  What a bitch!!  3.5 miles at an average of about 10%.  Sometimes less angle, but often steeper.  And after about 66 miles and in the low 90s, it was .....Ugh!  I'll admit to no one (except this blog and Jules knows) that I stopped 4 times for rests in those short 3.5 miles!  What a wimp.  But I did it.  And it does have quite the payoff with beautiful views towards Mt. Hamilton.  Sometimes persistence pays off!  Don't give up.

Here are a few pics from the day.

Sierra, looking west from the top

Mike - sweaty, tired, but happy to be at the top of Sierra

Ditto

Mike and Jules

The end of Sierra and the beginning of Felter (just over the top)

The view east of Mt. Hamilton from the top of Felter

Felter Rd. looking west as it turns into the top of Sierra