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  • may 11:27 pm on April 2, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling   

    Novato to Tomales Bay Loop 

    tomalesbayloopMap

    This past Saturday, peliom came along on my bike ride and we did a loop in Marin from Novato to Tomales Bay. It was a great day! (though there were definitely more cars on these roads than on the Petaluma-Dillion beach route). The ride was 48 miles with about 1800 ft of climbing. This was also my last ride for the month of March which turned out to be a pretty good month. Aside from the week I spent out of town, I managed to get in the recommended 100-125 miles of riding per week. Yay! My training schedule roughly works out to this (on an ideal week)…

    • Mon – 5 miles (commute)
    • Tue – 6 miles (commute) + 45 min. swim (or weights if I don’t feel like getting wet)
    • Wed – 25 miles (butter lap around the city)
    • Thu – 6 miles (commute) + 45 min. swim (or weights)
    • Fri – 5 miles (commute)
    • Sat – 25-50 miles
    • Sun – 50-70 miles (lifecycle training ride)

    Of course I don’t always follow this to a T, but when I miss a day, I try to make up for it on another day. Mondays and Fridays are my “rest days” so sometimes I’ll drive to work on those days. Anyways, two more months til I ride down to LA. For the month of April, I’m supposed to bump up the mileage to 125-150 miles / week. I also signed up to do the Wildflower Century in 3 weeks on April 22nd. my first one ever!

     

    • sonya 11:42 pm on April 2, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      The pretty purple flower looks like ice plant — brought over here from South Africa to stabilize soil beside railroad tracks, and still used by Caltrans on road projects…meanwhile the park service spends millions to remove it.

  • may 11:27 am on March 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling   

    Flat tires come in twos… 

    or so it seems because I got 2 flats again yesterday! That’s the second time in about a month that I’ve gotten two flat tires within a couple hours of each other. Luckily my flats have happened on Sunday rides which I do with a lifecycle group (instead of when I’m out in the middle of nowhere by myself) so I’ve had support from super nice people who stopped to help (and even offered a spare tube when my tire blew out a second time to get me back on the road really quickly! thanks Sabine! thanks Tia!!) Although I always carry a spare tube and pump with me, I’ve now resolved to carry at least 2 tubes and 2 CO2 cartridges on every ride (if for no other reason than to be able to stop and help someone else if they need it!)

    Anyways, this Saturday I didn’t go on a ride because I’ve been recovering from a nasty cold / flu so no pics this weekend unfortunately. I did make it out yesterday with my regular group though and we rode from San Francisco to China Camp in San Rafael and then along Lucas Valley road to Nicasio and back (about 70 miles). It was a gray drizzly day and the flat tires made it even harder. But in the end I was super happy because it was my first long ride with clipless pedals and I managed to stay upright all the way. yay!

     

    • Q 3:09 pm on March 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Nice job with the clipless pedals. You’ll grow to love them and never be able to go back.

      I normally carry a spare tube, a pump, and a patch kit on rides. I lost faith in the CO2 after wasting a couple because I didn’t have it on the valve correctly. A friend always says about those things: “two is one, and one is none” meaning you should count on wasting one of them.

      Again, you’re making me feel fat and lazy with your bike stories. Keep them coming.

  • may 10:09 am on March 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling,   

    Petaluma to Dillon Beach Bike Ride 

    Last Saturday, I went on a pretty bike ride starting in Petaluma along Chileno Valley Road to the coast and then back. It was a perfect day! Along the way, I saw cows, horses, an alpaca, bunnies, a turtle, goats, sheep, a snake, black birds with bright red cheeks, blue jays, carniverous looking birds with huge wing spans and some other animals I’m forgetting right now. The ride was 56 miles with about 1,800 feet of climbing, so it’s sort of long but not overly strenuous.

    Here’s a map and route directions for anyone else that wants to go!
    petalumaDillonBeach.gif

    Driving Directions to Starting Point
    Take the 101 North to Petaluma and exit Petaluma Boulevard South. Drive north 2 miles and make a left (west) on Western Avenue. Drive 2.2 miles and then turn left on Chileno Valley Road. Drive .8 mile to Helen Putnam Regional Park on the left. (the sign for the park is facing the opposite way so it’s easy to miss…if you go more than 1 mile after you get on Chileno Valley Road w/o seeing the park, turn around and you’ll be sure to see it. It costs $5 to park in the small lot but you can also park on the opposite side of the road for free).

    Route Directions
    0.0 Park at Helen Putnam Park and ride west on Chileno Valley Road.
    3.0 Turn RIGHT to stay on Chileno Valley Road.
    12.6 LEFT on Tomales-Petaluma Road.
    13.8 RIGHT on Alexander Road.
    14.8 RIGHT on Fallon-Two Rock Road.
    17.2 LEFT on Petaluma-Valley Ford Road
    26.0 LEFT on Valley Ford Estereo Road (in the town of Valley Ford…this small road can be easy to miss…make sure you don’t continue onto HWY 1)
    31.8 RIGHT on Dillon Beach Road. Ride out and back to Dillon Beach and then turn around to return to the junction with Valley Ford Road.
    34.6 RIGHT on Dillon Beach Road
    37.2 RIGHT on Shoreline Highway (Hwy 1) in the town of Tomales. Make sure you get some foccaccia at the bakery!! it’s really good!
    37.5 LEFT on Tomales-Petaluma Road.
    42.7 RIGHT on Chileon Valle7 Road.
    52.3 LEFT to stay on Chileno Valley Road.
    55.5 Arrive at starting point.

    Route directions are from this excellent book which I highly recommend Northern California Biking: 150 of the Best Road and Trail Rides

     

    • Q 5:23 pm on March 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Aren’t you supposed to be training for the AIDS ride? How can you get a decent workout with all of these photo stops?

      Just kidding. That looks like an amazing ride. You’ve made me realize that I need to a) seek out more interesting rides and b) take my camera along.

    • may 11:06 pm on March 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      well i did go on another ride the following day from San Francisco to Nicasio. That was 69 miles with 6,500 ft of elevation gain…also pretty but no photo stops because I do Sunday rides with about 100 other people! (i don’t write about those cause i don’t want to bore you guys, but maybe i’ll start a separate AIDS-ride-training-journal where I can write about my training schedule and all the new things I’m learning…like the fact I’m not supposed to wear underwear with padded shorts – who knew! i have a skin-less bottom now b/c i didn’t know that!

      Anyways, on Saturdays I like to go on a ride by myself or with a couple people and just enjoy the scenery :-) oh and the animals…it’s all about the animals!!

    • rajbot 11:44 pm on March 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I no longer ride everyday, and now ride vicariously through your bike posts… please keep posting them here!

  • peliom 3:06 pm on March 8, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling, ,   

    Clyde Wilson’s Totally Kickass Nutrition Philosophy 


    I went to a nutrition workshop last night expecting an extremely boring and yet slightly motivating remix of the food pyramid for athletes.

    Instead I was blown away by a rapid fire how-to-fuel-your-body talk by Dr. Clyde Wilson, and left with that feeling of “living in the bay area totally rocks.”

    Clyde is one of those of those OCD professors that is crazy smart, loves teaching and optimizes every minute of his life to making the world a better place while at the same time having as much fun as possible. In philosophical terms, if there is such a thing as “The California School”, Clyde is headmaster. After high school he spent 6 years in the navy as the “supervisor for reactor chemistry and radiation control” aboard USS Carl Vinson in Alameda. His Standford PhD thesis was “Biochemistry in Single Cells Using Microfluidic Systems.” He is now teaching courses on clinical and popular nutrition at Standord and UCSF, and he is Director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the Sports Medicine Institute in Palo Alto.

    Reading Clyde’s website, which I highly recommend, is a deluge of facts and figures about why and how we should eat and how to make it simple. It is ironic that by following his obsessive regime you actually become less obsessive about reading labels, the right thing just happens automatically. And Clyde jokes that he loves pineapple juice and root beer floats, being healthy doesn’t mean not having fun.

    Pinapple Juice!!!!

    This guy is one of us …. so check out his

    Link to Dr Clyde Wilson’s Website

     

    • rajbot 3:40 pm on March 10, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for posting all the info!

      Can you clarify what dark vegitables mean exactly? Banana and cauliflower aren’t dark (in color at least) fruits and veggies, but they are on the shopping list.

    • peliom 9:49 pm on March 10, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Another aspect of Clyde’s research is about longevity … minimizing toxins in our bodies and maximizing nutrients, check out his Core Motivation

      So I don’t know exactly about the dark vegetables, he didn’t address it directly in the seminar. I’m sure he talks about it somewhere in the website. But he did talk about bananas as being this kind of health superfood (esp when combined with nut butter and bread) so I think the list is just his list of things to eat that are a good idea. Dark vegetables are much richer in nutrients (per pound) than say, iceberg lettuce.

      And cauliflower? Who eats cauliflower? ;-)

    • rajbot 10:56 pm on March 10, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      OMG you probably have never had Jess’ amazing cauliflower subji! She made it for my parents when they came to visit, and it is fabulous. We really need to have more TikiRobot dinners!

  • may 9:34 pm on March 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling   

    Mt. Hamilton 

    mtHamilton.jpg

    So, since this is my very favorite time of year to be out on my bike, your resident TikiRobot cyclist will once again resume periodic trip reports of places to take your bike. And since I’m supposed to be riding 100-125 miles / week this month for aids ride training, I will be covering lots of ground. (although i’ll be gone in texas at sxsw the following 2 weekends, so no trip reports then. not quite sure how i will make up for it yet. eek.)

    Anyways, this morning was clear and beautiful so I rode up to the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton which is just east of San Jose. At 4,209 ft, Mt. Hamilton is apparently the highest point in the Bay Area. However, lest you think I’m crazy, I did not ride from the bottom all the way to the top. (maybe one day I’ll be that crazy person, but today was not that day.) My bike ride began at Joseph D. Grant County Park which is about 11 miles from the top and even though you have to ride mostly uphill, the grade was pretty gradual (5%-7%) so it wasn’t so bad. Altogether, I climbed about 2700 feet and the views were spectacular. I was hoping to see lots of wildflowers but we’ve had so little rain this year, I didn’t see any at all. I did, however, see some melting snow and some really big telescopes.

    mtHamiltonMap.gif

     

    • peliom 5:28 pm on March 4, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I know it’s a backwater but I think they have bikes in Texas….

    • may 9:54 pm on March 4, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      what i meant was that it may be hard to block out time for it when i’m there b/c there are fun things to go to all day and all night so even if i wake up super early, i will be totally pooped! but i’m gonna try. arena is bringing her folding bike so i may rent one while i’m there

  • may 11:58 pm on February 24, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling   

    they’re like banana peels 

    frogsOnRoad.jpg

    Spotted while on my bike somewhere near Rodeo Beach today. I didn’t see any frogs though.

     

    • rajbot 10:43 pm on February 25, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I think this post is in need of the bobslobster tag!

    • may 11:57 pm on February 25, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      ah, how could i have forgotten? here you go Bob! :-)

  • may 12:46 am on February 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling,   

    Tour of California 

    tourOfCalifornia.jpg
    So I’m kind of bummed that I missed all the bikes that zipped through the Bay Area for the Tour of California last weekend (my mom was in town and it was Chinese New Year so there was family stuff to tend to) but I just discovered that I can follow all the other stages live from this nifty web app. I don’t actually follow cycling and have absolutely no idea what’s going on (there’s some information overload happening on this app)…but I like looking at photos of the landscape because it gets me psyched for June when I’ll hopefully make a similar (but shorter and muuuch slooooowwwer) trip down the coast. It also gets me psyched for the weekend so i can go on a bike ride!

     

    • Q 7:15 pm on February 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      That’s neat. We should outfit you with a GPS so we can track your progress during your ride this summer. Live updates on TikiRobot would be cool.

  • peliom 2:05 pm on January 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling, ,   

    Let’s Get Physical 

    Per today’s visit to Physical Therapy I am now the proud owner of a 6×36″ Foam Roller. You may recognize this object, the hated tool of the physical “therapist”, the Room 101 of stretching. A while back I used one to stretch my Iliotibial Band in the interest of less painful cycling. Stretching the IT Band kills … it’s best to do it at home because you are likely to start crying at the gym.

    My physical therapist assured me that the four foam roller exercises she is prescribing for me are not painful like the IT Band stretch. She says I have really bad posture and that is leading to this painful Shoulder Impingement, possibly catalyzed by hitting the riverbed when goofing of and diving in the Kings River. I do have horrible posture, no suprise there. Putting my back and shoulders into a supposedly “normal” anatomical position requires a lot of effort and is not a fun resting state. I have a super-stiff neck and upper back too, owing to my hunchback computer lifestyle. Hopefully these exercises will help.

    Just like every physical therapist and ergonomics specialist I have ever met, she expressed shock upon learning that I spend 14-16 hours a day in front of a computer.

    “Wow, that’s really a lot”

    I don’t get it … that level of computer time is an industry standard all across silicon valley. Why isn’t the PT industry in tune with that? I can see now why so many co-workers are triathletes. It’s not just about exercise … training at that level makes you pay attention to your body and keeps you in touch with sports medicine physicians that can be a valuable resource for this type of thing.

    Then again there are the chain-smoking, hard-drinking mexican web developers that I work with. I think I’m going to just get a cortisone shot and eat some candy.

    Link to AMF Should Impingement page

     

    • rajbot 5:03 pm on January 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      My one Alexander Technique lesson with Nick taught me a New Way To Sit, which really helps my bad posture and significantly reduces RSI pain I get while typing. When people used to tell me to ‘sit up straight’, I would use the muscles in my back/shoulders to straighten my upper body, which did not help. But I learned that simply ‘rolling forward on my sit-bones’ changes *everything*. It’s hard to describe, but really simple and I can’t believe I didn’t know about this all my life. I will show you next time I see you, but this might just be a rajbox thing, since I am oddly-proportioned..

    • may 6:26 pm on January 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      14-16 hours straight is a lot. i don’t think our bodies have evolved to sit for that long. i was doing that a couple weeks ago and now my lower back is totally killing me.

      i think training for some type of event helps me too because it makes me pay closer attention to my body and also more disciplined about doing things that aren’t so exciting (like stretching to avoid injury). plus i can also secretly pretend that i’m training to become an elite-kick-ass-ninja-fighter! (another childhood fantasy that comes from watching waaaay too many martial arts movies :-)

  • may 9:05 pm on January 2, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling,   

    AIDS Ride / LifeCycle Kickoff 

    aidsRide.jpg In case anyone is interested in doing the AIDS ride from SF to LA this summer, there’s a kickoff gathering and info session this Sunday at Hotel Nikko from 11am-4pm. My friends kathryn and arena are going to be training ride leaders this year so it should be fun. If you sign up there, the registration fee is only $55 (instead of $75). I’m going to sign up!

     

  • may 12:01 am on December 20, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    EL wire at Amazon 

    elWire.jpg Did you know that you can order EL wire from Amazon? Well I didn’t until recently and was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s also pretty cheap! at least cheaper than I remember it being elsewhere. $17.90 will get you 20 ft in red, green, or white and that includes the battery pack. I’ve been having some dangerously close encounters with cars while riding home from the train station at night so I just ordered some for my bike.

     

  • rajbot 1:40 am on November 28, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    Bike-riding Robot! 

    You can’t really tell, but this guy is ony 20 inches tall..

     

    • may 9:04 am on December 4, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      i don’t know how i missed this before but this is just wacky!!

  • may 8:00 am on November 14, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    veloswap 

    veloswap1.jpg Coming this Sat to SF, Veloswap is apparently *the* place to “see, swap, buy and sell every imaginable bike, part, and accessory.” Not that I need any more bike stuff, but I’m going to see if they’ve got a blinky glow-in-the-dark jacket that i need for wintery night-time-riding (cause there are drivers like me on the road!) and if it’s not there, then i guess i really will have to make my own.

     

  • may 7:42 am on September 21, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling, , ,   

    PARK(ing) Day 

    sf_parking_5.jpg
    Today is Park(ing) Day here in SF – a day to temporarily transform a metered parking spot into a PARK.…at least until the meter runs out! Here’s an email Arena sent about it

    Today I will be volunteering to help deploy the “Temporally Displaced Open Space” in the downtown area of San Francisco — part of PARK(ing) Day. Or, to put it more succinctly, I’ll be hauling dirt with my bicycle trailer.

    If you get time today (Thursday), check out some of the installations all around downtown (one near Axis Cafe in front of CCA(c) and one in front of Ritual Roasters on Valencia). This is a one day art installation to visualize the potential of parking spaces as green spaces.

    Consult the map:

    http://communitywalk.com/map/19478

    or the website:

    http://rebargroup.org/projects/parkingday/index.html

    and please pass those links on to anybody that you think would be interested …or make a PARK(ing) space of your own, it’s an open-source project.

     

    • Travis 6:28 pm on September 21, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      This is so awesome! I’m so doing it one day! Where are the animals in the park? I would bring some dogs and a few ducks…

  • may 7:01 am on July 21, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling, ,   

    Lotsa Biking Events This Weekend 

    Pedal Monster web flyer.jpg Starting on Friday night at Zeitgeist and running through the whole weekend, Cyclecide presents Pedal Monster! a gathering of mutant bicycle clubs descending on San Francisco for bicycle-rodeo-
    pedal-powered-sideshow-circus-madness! The weekend’s events will be at the Mission Village Market at 18th and Alabama

    fat.gifAnd on Saturday, there’s the Tour De Fat at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. “Two parts bike rodeo and one part circus you can expect fire-jumping bike acts, cycling games, a cruiser bike parade, live music, tasty eats and great beer….all proceeds benefit two nonprofits: the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition& the Bay Area Ridge Trails Council.” I don’t know why they decided to have both events on the same weekend because I can’t decide which one to go to!

    Lastly, a biking event that just passed, the butter lappers showed up en masse wednesday night for a wedding on wheels!

     

  • may 11:42 am on July 13, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling   

    bikr 

    bikr.gif

    Here’s a mashup I can get behind :-) My friend Mike made these stickers and you can order a set on cafe press. Speaking of biking, we’ve got a veritable peloton going on now for the butter lap (with a team of 8 showin up last night)! If you’d like to join, we meet every Wed at 6 pm by the Ferry Bldg for a lap around the city and then finish off with beer and burgers at Zeitgeist. (and if you’re not into the biking thing, you can also just meet us for beer :-)

     

  • peliom 10:43 am on June 15, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    LED Bike Wheel Thingies 

    These bicycle LED things are awesome! Way better than Hokey Spokes. You gotta make them yourself though, this is an instructables thing.

    Link to SpokePOV: LED Bike Wheel on instructables.com.

     

    • may 2:57 pm on June 15, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      neato! i need to come up with a way to light up my bike and helmet at night. thinking of using glow in the dark paint but don’t know how long it’ll last.

    • Eryq 9:48 am on February 24, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Well it’s only 7 months after you posted this, but… Neonstring or “el wire” (electroluminescent wire) would be a great choice for lighting up your bike and/or helmet.

      http://www.neonstring.com

    • rajbot 1:02 pm on February 24, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      While we are being spammy, I should point out that when we need to buy hundreds of feet of EL for the AMB, we go with http://coolneon.com/ and their phat discount for burning man projects.

    • Eryq 9:12 pm on February 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      While Coolneon is a competitor, I will say that they are a good company to deal with, and even I endorse them. I also endorse NeonString though, since it’s me!

      Rajbot, do you ever buy el tape? I am considering carrying it, and was wondering if you knew a good source. The only one I know of is Californeon…

  • may 11:50 pm on June 4, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling   

    tomales bay cheese factory loop 

    tomales bay

    Today I paid another visit to the marin cheese factory but instead of starting the ride from SF (and putting up with scary cars most of the way) I started my ride in Novato and spent most of it on nice peaceful country roads. much better. I stopped by the Tomales Bay Oyster Company on hw1 and ate a dozen oysters (yum!) and sampled 7 different kinds of cheese at the cheese factory. (something to remember for next time – you have to bring your own shucking knife to the oyster company since they won’t let you borrow one…which makes it kinda hard to eat the oysters…luckily a nice family let me borrow a screwdriver which also worked).

    The ride is 46 miles with about 1800 feet of elevation gain, most of it happening along 2 hills – a pretty steep one at mile 16 and one that begins right after you pass the nicasio reservoir.

    tomalesbayloopMap

     

  • peliom 12:46 pm on June 2, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cycling,   

    Knee Research 

    After riding my new bike a little bit I felt a teeny tiny bit of knee pain. It’s built up now to what I would call “moderate, chronic pain” and since that freaks me out I’m trying to learn more about it.

    First off my bike seat was too low so I got that adjusted. Make sure your bike fits people! I haven’t ever paid attention to this kind of thing in the past (I just adjusted my bike myself until it “felt right”) but I guess it’s pretty important. Getting all the measurements right is pretty hard and reason enough to buy your bike at bike store with good service that knows how to do the fitting. I’ll be sure to get properly fitted for bikes in the future. A quick shout out to the Pacific Bicycle Super Store at 4th and Folsom in SF. They are awesome.

    Then there is the actual pain itself. I find the medical system to be phenominally unhelpful for these kinds of problems. If I say “my knee kinda hurts all the time.” I find I rarely get resolution. It’s a major problem though….even though my body is 99.99% functional my day to day life is about 75% OK and 25% Sucky. For example, a couple months ago I exacerbated my tendonitis for a Slide release and I was suprised at how depressing it was to have that constant, gnawing forearm pain….

    I read a description of Iliotibial Band Syndrome and it sounds pretty familiar:

    The symptoms of ITB syndrome commonly begin with pain over the outside of the knee, just above the knee joint. Tenderness in this area is usually worse after activity. As the bursitis grows worse, pain may radiate up the side of the thigh and down the side of the leg. Patients sometimes report a snapping or popping sensation on the outside of the knee.

    I feel that snapping and popping sensation :-(

    But I could also have Runners Knee.

    The resident triathlete at work says I should ice it. I’m also taking ibuprofen, staying of the bike, trying to minimize walking and standing, and thinking about doing some quadriceps exercises at the gym. I’m sure I will be better in a few days but just a little reminder to stay healthy!

    Link to IBS page at Montana Spine Center.

     

    • may 12:20 am on June 5, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      so bummed that you’re injured! I didn’t realize biking could be bad for your knees! hopefully the rest has done it some good and you’re feeling a little better.

    • rajbot 4:15 pm on June 5, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Yeah, my knees got hurty from riding my rusty bike up our steep hill every day. I stopped riding and they are slowly getting better..

      I’m starting to do leg press + leg extension at the gym. Having stronger quads is supposed to help remove stress from the knee.. hope it works, cause i would love to ride again..

  • may 11:02 pm on May 29, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    Half Moon Bay Loop 

    halfmoon bay loop

    Here are pics from Saturday’s early morning ride (that’s jesse on his sweet new bike in the pic on the top left!) This was a really nice ride that runs along hwy 1, up tunitas creek road, and then along the idyllic backroads of half moon bay. There are some moderate climbs, rolling hills, and super fun fast descents! 24 miles with 1,500 ft of elevation gain and almost no cars except along hwy 1.

    Here’s the map for anyone else wanting to go on the ride.
    half moon bay map

    I also went on another ride today from SF to Nicasio and then to the Marin Cheese Company, but have no idea how I got there unfortunately since others were leading the way so will have to depend on arena to draw a map. (and have no pics either since most of my time was spent trying to catch up with speed demons kathryn and alon!)

     

  • may 4:16 pm on May 16, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    Coleman Valley Loop 

    coleman valley loop

    Here are a couple pics from my bike ride on Sunday! I started in the tiny town of Occidental and did a loop through Coleman Valley and Bodega Bay. About 32 miles of riding with 2,100 feet of elevation gain through picturesque countryside and some coastal cruising along Hwy 1. More mellow than last week’s ride but I was still plenty pooped at the end.

    I hadn’t been on this ride before so I followed directions (from this really great book) and started inland…but next time, I think I’ll start in Bodega Bay at the Bodega Head Trail so I can get some oceanside napping in. (No afternoon nap meant that I got hit by sleepiness on the drive home and had to pull over.) Nonetheless it was a glorious ride!

    Here’s the map (and a larger version here).

    map

    Directions to Occidental:

    Take the 101 North across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Rosa. At Hwy 12, drive west for 5 miles to Sebastopol. At Hwy 116 continue straight on Bodega Hwy for 5.7 miles. Make a right on Bohemian Hwy and drive west for 3.8 miles to Occidental where you can park.

    Bike route:

    From Occidental head west on Coleman Valley Road
    Left on Hwy 1 to Bodega Bay
    Right on East Shore Road
    Left on West Shore Road (it later becomes Bay Flat Road) until you get to the parking lot at Bodga Head Trail.
    Hang out at the beach a bit, then turn around and head back
    Left on East Shore Road
    Left on Highway 1
    Right on Bay Hill Road
    Left on Bodega Highway
    Left on Bohemian Highway
    Pass through Freestone back to Occidental.

    Something for Hitchcock fans – The Birds was filmed in this schoolhouse off Bodega Lane in the town of Bodega. You’ll pass by it on the ride down Bodega Hwy.
    bodega lane

     

  • may 11:05 pm on May 7, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cycling,   

    Happiness is… 

    a Sunday spent on my bike! yay!
    pescadero loop

    Today I woke up early and went on a really great bike ride. I started in Pescadero along Old Stage Road and did a loop up Tunitas Creek to Skyline Blvd and then down Alpine Rd back to Pescadero. It took 6 hours and was 50 miles with about 4000 feet of elevation gain…definitely a butt kicker (and mine really hurts right now) but it was beautiful! Especially because the hills were lush and green from all the rain and the wildflowers were out in fine form.

    The best part of the ride was Tunitas Creek Road (which I’m pretty convinced is where bicycles want to end up when they die and become reincarnated). it’s not an easy one (9 miles up hill) but it runs along a creek and is shaded most of the way by towering redwoods. And because it’s a single lane, there are virtually no cars! My second favorite part was riding west along Alpine Rd. More redwoods, but this time, downhill 2000 feet over a 7 mile stretch. You definitely need steady hands on your brakes for this one and even still, you’ll be flying. scary but lots of fun!

    I think most people start and end this ride in Woodside, but I like starting and ending it along the coast even if it requires a longer drive. That way, you can go to the beach afterwards, lay your sleeping bag on the sand and curl up inside for a long nap with the ocean at your back.

    Here is a map of the ride (and a larger version over here)

    pescaderoLoopMap

     

    • Arena 2:49 pm on May 9, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      wow!! I really want to go on this ride too!!
      BEAUTIFUL!!!!

    • mang 7:49 pm on May 11, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Oooh, I love those roads. Used to ride them on my motorcyle :)

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