Pedestrian Adventures

35.5 miles, 3983 ft This is a ride that I have been dreading most copiously since conceived of three weeks ago.  The clue is in the name - literally Mount Satan.  A co-rider assured me there was a mistranslation from the Spanish; apparently it should actually have translated as "Satan Thicket" from the origin story.  Is that reassuring?  It does still have Satan in it, though considerably less Mount. Last week, I endeavoured to explain my Sunday plans to some co-workers.  Having this discussion out loud really served to highlight that riding up a mountain in the apex of Californian summer is not what most people consider to fall within the scope of fun weekend activities.  Apart from one co-worker who had actually done the ride in June and described it in particularly gruesome detail.  Ah well, I rationalised, this ride would be excellent training, and provide undoubtedly fertile material to delight the readers of this blog.  At that time, m...

62.2 miles, 3528 ft What a lovely jubbly ride!  Two team mates and I met up nice and early on the corner of Fremont and Foothill, and set right off for an ambitious day ride to San Francisco.  I had attempted this ride once before, at the beginning of my cycling career, and was such a perspiring, heaving mess even by lunch time that there was a touch of trepidation in my craw this weekend.  But the ride could not have gone more smoothly this time around. The ride entails a delighful sweep through the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, right along the scenic San Andreas faultline, poised to gobble the Bay Area into its gaping maw at any moment.  Cañada road is closed to traffic on Sundays as an extra special bonus, and even the Sawyer Camp trail was not overly heavy on foot traffic.  Lunch of course at the marvellous Lily's Creperie halfway, wherein I somehow devoured half a savoury crepe, half a sweet crepe, two scoops of gelato, and blue Gatorade, desp...