Sonntag, 28. April 2013

Mission Cycling Club / Paradise Loop


So today the plan was to join the Mission Cycling Club for their Sunday tour, at 1030 at the meeting point (south Golden Gate) I seemed to have missed them. But I was not the only one. Ilia had the same problem as me and after a short chat he agreed to team up and he suggested a nice ride, being the Paradise Loop. If Nomen est Omen, what could have gone wrong here? Well, as it turned out Ilia was a 29 year old Hedge Fund Manager out of SF who was just making a final training tour for a half Iron Man Triathlon (1.9 km swimming, 90 km bike and 21.1 km running) next Saturday and that was exactly the pace we were running at. The first half I could not do much more than cling to his rear wheel.

You will notice that there are no photos in this Post. The reason is simple. We didn’t stop to make any! For those who know the area, you will know that it is packed with cyclists (especially on a Sunday) and we were not overtaken by a single one the whole ride. At the end, when the pace became a bit more humane, I could even take the lead on some stretches and give Ilia some tail wind. We even found the time to discuss the future of the Euro, which was of great interest to Ilia.  

From what I have notice out of the corner of the eyes the loop must indeed be very beautiful, however I need to do it once more with a bit more leisure to really know for sure.

Tomorrow I will start for a little tour that will take me first to Reno, NV to get me rich. On Tuesday I plan to cycle around the “big blue” Lake Tahoe and Wednesday Yosemite National Park is on the list. Thursday I will be back in Santa Rosa.

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Samstag, 27. April 2013

Resting Day / Fisherman’s Festival


Today regeneration is on the program, which means no cycling. I have not yet written much about the place where I stay: Santa Rosa. Well evil minded people could say that the reason is simply that there is not much to write about. That’s certainly a harsh way to put it, but may be not completely wrong. With its 150’000 inhabitants Santa Rosa make a quite relaxed and save impression. I have not yet seen neighbourhoods where I would feel very uneasy.


On the other from the architecture not too much should be expected. Santa Rosa looks like a typical West coast community. The Emipre Building at the Old Courthouse Square is one of the few older buildings. Otherwise things look like more or less anywhere else. 

The only further thing is that Down Town is divided in east-west direction by a large shopping mall the “Santa Rosa Plaza” it is like a gigantic red brick fallen between the two centres of down town.



First I wanted to visit the “Dear Machines” Fair at Half Moon Bay, which is south of San Francisco, however tried to drive too far I decided to visit something closer, the “Fish Fest” in Bodega Bay. I do not want to see snobbish, but the fair is exactly what the clichés would lead you to expect, but therefore also it has its charm.





You could find stands selling more or less everything and the question from handcrafted Ravioli rolling pin to homemade soap in any shape. What has it to do with fishery? I do not know and the people certainly didn’t care. Of course also country bands were playing.
This following is for my cousin Cri “Purtroppo non ho vinto il Quilt, che è stato il primo premio della lotteria qui.”


 Last but not least the prospect of some real good sea food helped to make the decision to come here and indeed the BBQ Oysters with Garlic-Butter were delicious.    


However they did not pack too much meat. So it was very fortunate that I run on my way back to Santa Rosa (via Petaluma) on a roadside BBQ grill were the half rack Spare Ribs made for a great lunch and dinner as well as I could only negotiate half of the portion. The ribs were a bit on the fatty side, but were super tender, abundant, spicy, sweet and sticky with one word great! The place (http://www.bubbaquesdeli.com/) gets apparently some mixed reviews, however if I need to pack some calories next time, I know where to go.  


Tomorrow I need to be at 1030 at the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge to meet up with the folks of the Mission Cycling Club for a ride.

Freitag, 26. April 2013

Urban cycling in San Francisco


Today the weather behaves the same as the other two days, which means that the sky is overcast in the morning and temperatures are below 10 degrees. First thing today is mending the flat tire and the tube, which is rapidly done as the culprit was a small sharp needle (see yesterday) and the small hole is easily fixed. Never the less I got a new tire and tube from the Santa Rosa Treck Store and also pumped my tires again to 7 bar, which would have been impossible with the little hand pump I have.

Today I wanted not to do some fixed route ride, but rather stroll a bit around to get the acid out of my legs. So I choose to make a sightseeing tour of San Francisco. I hoped also that around 1130, when I would get there, the overcast fog would have cleared up.
So off I went and at the north end of the GG Bridge it was still cloudy, windy and cold (12 degrees C). Crossing the GG is always a great experience no matter what the weather is. The first stretch went along the Lincoln Blvd. and a look out on the see shows exactly how the weather felt. 

Afterwards I just criss-crossed through the roads without any plan, only following what seemed interesting to me and with the rough goal to traverse the city and make it to the Embacadero on the other end. Here in the vicinity of the coast are some really nice neighbourhoods.







As anybody can imagine strolling around in SF means one thing climbing and descending all the time.


Any doubts on that? Then watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lbs_nYW3-o). Some of the grades of the street are brutal (25% and more). I wish I could say that I looked great on all of these grades, but on some (e.g. the next photo) I needed to do some zig-zag in order not to over stretch my chain and my muscles.    


In these side roads there was literally no traffic and riding was really pleasant and over many turns, climbs and descents I made it to the St. Ignatius church and from there on down Fulton to Alamo Square, where the park and the view invited my for a little rest. 


The uncool thing regarding the bike ride here is that at every 50 m you have a traffic light or worse and much more often a Stop sign. I was told that the fine for not stopping is 250$ and that the local police is completely without humour regarding this issue. So stopping means to come to a full stop with the bike and put at least on food on the ground. I did this exactly twice and then had enough. If I would accumulate the fines for transgressing Stop signs only today we would look at 10’000 $ or even more. But sometimes there was no choice other than to stop due these “car driving bastards” ;-)
  
Around Alamo square SF looks just like San Francisco, who knew?


You will also notice, that now, just a few kilometers from the coast, the sun is shining from a blue sky. Still the wind, at the moment tail wind, was very chilly. How did Mark Twain allegedly say: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”.  









Well now all went straight down to the Civic Centre which you can see with the golden cupola in the far back of the next photo.      

Riding down Market street and passing the financial district with its sky scrapers I arrived at the Embarcadero with the famous clock tower that plays the Big Ben melody ever quarterly hour. If you zoom in hard on the next photo you can see the bells... ehmm sorry the loud speakers ;-(



Now we are of course near the Bay Bridge and I slowly drove passed Fisherman's wharf (very bussy and packed with tourist) back and cross the GG to Sausalito where I parked my car. Now we are of course near the Bay Bridge and I slowly drove passed Fisherman's wharf (very busy and packed with tourist) back and cross the GG to Sausalito where I parked my car. Now the wind was full inmy face and really brutal.

I tried to avoid the Friday evening rush hour out of SF north and took off at 1510 from Sausalito, however it took my 2 hours to get to Santa Rosa as compared to 50 minutes that it took me in the morning.    


Echelon Grand Fondo


You may ask yourselves, how it came that I chose Santa Rosa as my “home base” for my bike vacations. The reason is actually that I wanted to participate in a charity cycling event, which are held in various forms all over the world, the “Grand Fondo”. Particularly it was the “Levi’s Grand Fondo” (http://www.levisgranfondo.com/) which attracted my interest, due to the fantastic route and due to the fact that it was set in Northern California, where it was my long time dream to cycle.

However, due to my duties at work and otherwise it was not possible in 2011 and 12 to participate and also this year only the time slot in the spring was the one which allowed me to take the very long vacations I am now enjoying.
However as I found out just by chance yesterday (on the local radio) there is another “Grand Fondo” coming up on the 18.5. right before my door steps: The Echelon Grand Fondo! 


Date and route are just perfect and I subscribed for the 125k ride, some stretches of this route I already rode (http://ridewithgps.com/routes/880390).  

This will certainly be yet another highlight of my stay here and you can participate! The goal of the Grand Fondo event is fundraising for charity. This is done by sponsoring a rider individually or a team. So you can sponsor my ride and I will give here more details how to do that. 

The deal is the following if I can raise more than 300$ for charity then my entrance fee of 125$ will be waived. Now this is not really my goal, so the deal is the following one, if we can raise 150$ or more I will donate 150$ which will push the total above 300$. As there is also the intention that the effort goes “viral” on the internet, you might tell your friends and colleagues of the possibility of “sponsoring” me for this ride and make reference to this blog, so that everybody can check how hard I prepare for it ;-)       

Donnerstag, 25. April 2013

Napa Valley – Dry Creek and Veeder Mountain Rd


The weather today is similar to yesterday, the sky is overcast with thick, high level fog and the temperatures are around 10 degrees. I assume, that towards the inner land the fog will be less dense and dissolve in the course of the day. Therefore I decide to cycle in the Naa valley. It takes me roughly 1h to get to Napa and indeed, when I arrived around 11 o’clock the sky rapidly cleared up from the remaining few cloud shreds and blue sky without a single cloud appeared.


The Napa valley is somewhat narrower than the one where Santa Rosa is situated in and every scratch of land is plastered with vineyards.


For my ride today I chose to drive up Dry Creek Rd and then come back on a parallel track, which is the Mount Veeder Rd.
Dry Creek Rd starts off as a broad, flat level street.Then it narrows down and follows the wild romantic valley of the Dry Creek and traffic is non-existent also on Mt. Veeder Rd.   


The valley is quite narrow with thick forest and gives a very secluded and remote aspect, which is, as said before, amplified by the complete absence of traffic. During the 15 km ride through the valley there were 2 cars passing me by. Also typical for the States you still find a lot of homes build in the midst of the forest.


Some very nice and tidy ...


And some that with a lick of paint will look like new...


The way back to Napa I made via the Mt. Veeder Rd, which starts with some serious climbs of 15% grade, fortunately not too long. The road is wonderful, thickly covered in the woods with many, many switchbacks which always give a break in the climb.


And close to the summit this sign...



Man you must be kidding me! As I said before the back roads here are quite far from being smooth and even the ones with tons of holes, cracks and loose gravel that I rode so far hadn’t had this sign! What should I expect now for the decent? After all the labour an extra bumpy ride down? Well as it turned out is was only a small stretch in a climb that was indeed fucked up pretty badly. 

On the summit then some great view over the tops of Napa valley.


The decent turned out to be the highlight of the ride. The grades were much less may be 5% and no sharp turns but only smooth bends. One could really pace out and even the Truck drivers pulled out to let the bikers pass (I'm in heaven). No pictures for obvious reasons.

So back it went to Napa. As the ride was not very long 40 km or so I decided to make an extra loop. First I looked for a “historic” centre of the town, which I couldn’t find and then found myself on the Silverado Trial, which passes by some quite impressive wineries.






The capitels are copies of the Sumerian one on display at the Louvre (which is absolutely stunning) , though much smaller of course. The mix of styles in general is a bit funny and certainly over the top. Yet, I shouldn’t brag around as it didn’t fail to attract me like a fly to sticky-paper.

At the turning point of the extra loop, i.e. the farthest point from my car, I noticed a funny slide on my back wheel in the corner and indeed one mile later the tire was flat out. So this is my first puncture over here. Usually I have a puncture may be every year once, i.e. every 4000 km or so. Here it was after 350 km. What did I write about the scrap metal and glass on the road here before? Well honestly the tire was already worn down quite substantially. So let us see how long the new one will make it.


After the rides of the last days, my legs now feel a bit tired and tomorrow I will first have a look at the flat tire and tube for mending them and also go in town for replacement. Ride wise I think it will be only something easy and short.    



And here is the little bugger, a really fine an needle like 5 mm metal wire going right through the middle of the mantel of the tire.  











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Mittwoch, 24. April 2013

Santa Rosa Cycling Club Ride 1


As I announced previously, today I will take a ride with the SRCC (http://srcc.memberlodge.com/). The morning didn’t look very promising as the fog now arrived also at Santa Rosa. Sky was grey and the temperatures down to around 8 degrees. Quite frisky compared to the heat wave before. Actually, I learned that the high temperatures were really quite unusual and in some areas even reached record highs.

The ride started from the Ragle Park in Sebastopol. I had two options either join the B level riders (Touring pace) or the C level ones (fast pace). As I wanted to enjoy the ride and the scenery and also chat a bit with the people, instead of gasping for air, I choose the B riders and didn’t regret it.So here we were two handfuls of people of very mixed ages. To take off for a 38 Mile ride of which I lost the direction slip which now makes it hard for me to retrace the track, as we followed some really small roads.


For sure I would have had no chance to find these super nice tracks we rode this morning, so “stick with the locals”. 



The first serious climb did take us up the Graton Rd. Yesterday I was fiddling around with setting my gear shifters and never reached really a setting where I was happy with the smoothness of the shifts in all positions. On this climb looking and hearing at my fellow riders I need to reconsider my standards and may be lower them a bit. For some folks the scratching and unexpected gear changes were really painful to watch.


So we passed through woods and hidden wineries.


Next we rode down Green Valley Rd and May’s canyon Rd. Steep and very bumpy roads, but absolutely great. As there are not much occasions for tacking pictures on group rides here a few images from Googe Maps.



This decent lead us to the Russian River, where I paused yesterday in Jenner at the coast and I wrote that Russian River would be another ride on my list and today it already happened. 




After chatting and stopping for coffee and snacks back we rode to Sebastopol. In a week the SRCC will have a 100 Mile resp. 100 Km challenge to which I have been cordially invited. Well need to think about that one. 


For the next days I need to do a little bit of planning. Saturday or Sunday I will join the Mission Cycling Club of San Francisco (http://missioncycling.org/) for a ride. Monday I will be driving to Reno, Nevada and Tuesday ride around Lake Tahoe and give it a try to become a Millionaire in the Casino. For short or for long I will also need to take a recovery day (why not at the Beach) not to over crank it. 








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Dienstag, 23. April 2013

Bodge Bay – Fort Ross and back


So, what I was only scratching at on Sunday, now is for real. 100% Hw Number 1 starting again from Bodega Bay and heading to Fort Ross. The reason for my decision is that there will be a drop of temperature from above 30 degrees to 25 degrees. This is due to the wind now will blow land inwards from the Sea, this in turn means that fog can form and indeed from tomorrow on of fog is expected on the coast and SF. So I thought, that I will make use of today for my first real coast ride.

Arriving in Bodega Bay I realized that the fog already was there. Not very thick but still outward on the sea the low clouds were all around.



Luckily a few miles north the weather cleared to an impeccable blue sky, however temperatures were quite low 13 degrees and I was quite happy to have taken my long sleeved jacked with me, which at first, in view of the 33 degrees of yesterday, seemed ridiculous to take with me in the first place.

First stop was Jenner, with is bay leading to the Russian River (the road along the Russian river is another ride on my schedule) which also passes at Santa Rosa and marks a famous wine region.



The scenery on this ride is plain and simple unbelievable.





On the last picture one can see the thick fog band at Bodega Baya (just at the horizon) which in the course of the day did not dissolve but keept creeping up north, which I had to experience on my way back. The last 5 Miles were in thick fog with temperatures around 10 degrees.   

With the ups and downs (which can be quite substantial) it seems like a ride in a hilly mountain region, with the tiny little difference of looking at the Pacific Ocean most of the time.


The road and the scenery are far beyond great and although I have driven this stretch several times (lucky me) by car, there is absolutely no comparison to doing it by bike. The traffic is literally non existing and the fraction compared to Sunday needs to be expressed in per mills rather than per cent. This ride is beyond my wildest dreams, no words to express.


While Bananas during the ride keep you going, the machine also needs some more refined fuel and in Bodega Bay you will get Fish and Chips, where you can bet any sum that the cod fish of which it is made of yesterday was still swimming in the ocean. 



Whereas on the quality of the chips one might discuss the fish was great and substituted some of the calories lost on the 70 km ride, which although following the cost line amounted almost to 1000 hm. 

For tomorrow I will not need to make any plans for the ride as I will join a training ride of the Santa Rosa Bike Club and only need to follow the herd. As it starts from Sabastopol at 9 o’clock in the morning (I just wonder what people have time on a Wednesday morning for some 30-50 Mile bike rides? Except me that is!) I will need to leave 815 or so. What a stress… 




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