Pedestrian Adventures

38.8 mi, 4,908 ft Owing to Monday's fortuitously being a holiday, the ride was somewhat more interesting than the typical bike commute.  All the responses to my solicitous team email pertained to travel plans for the long weekend; the route was therefore selected on the merit of solo-ride excellence.  Not, for example, a ride wherein one could collapse alone on the coastal side of the Santa Cruz mountains, unable to muster the energy to return.  This ride was Mt Hamilton, on naturally the hottest day of the year so far. For those whom have not yet had the good fortune to ascend Mt Hamilton, some information.  It is a rather tall peak east of San Jose, with a long but relatively un-steep climb (~6% grade), culminating in splendiferous views from the parking lot of the Lick Observatory.  The ascent comprises three stages: six miles up then two miles down, three miles up then 1 mile down, and finally seven more miles up.  It is imperative not to consume a...

30.6 mi, 2,740 ft Two of the team commenced the ride early in Santa Clara to log some extra miles and thus points for bike month.  Commencing a climbing ride with a few miles of flat provides the added bonus of an intial warm up prior to the steep shock.  In this event, the initial warm up may have been overkill, due to again-ferocious headwinds. Indeed, for a full fortnight thus far, the South Bay winds have cruelly and inconveniently reversed direction, adding several daily unwanted commuting minutes and much extraneous psychological disturbance.  My manager, after several days' exposure to my moaning on the topic, motivationally suggested that we work harder to develop more and better versions of our product, so as to reduce fossil fuel viability and mitigate climate change, thus returning the Bay Area winds to the prior orientation. After scooping up the third rider, the Montebello climbing portion began.  Feeling gratingly self-congratulatory on a good inti...

47.4 mi, 1,367 ft The 2018 training season kicks off with what promised to be a gentle ride along the Coyote Creek trail to Morgan Hill, followed by some pleasant rolling reservoir hills on the return.  Five riders convened at the unseemly Saturday hour of 9 am.  Apparently there had been a request to start even earlier.  It is of course important to embrace the weekend, but not overly strongly. The gentle Coyote Creek trail transpired to be unexpectedly gruelling, owing to vigourous buffetting headwinds.  At the rest stop just 18 miles in, I was thus... deflated.  Various of the riders proceeded to guess at the distance traversed thus far.  "Ten miles" was the first punt, resulting in general nodding.  Apparently riding for a significant portion of the morning in ghastly headwinds was such a breeze for everyone else, that it felt like a mere 55% of the actual distance had been consumed.  This transaction was then followed by the remark that ...