There were several more (12) beautiful rides in November and December of 2010, including this
King Ridge Ride
The total tally of GPS-logged activities for 2010 looks like this:
2520 miles (~ 4056 km)
210,471 feet of climbing
196 hours in saddle
No races.... Let's hope 2011 will be at least this good but I hope for better.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Down for maintenance in November 2010
Not the website or my bikes, but my body. Actually just a small but quite important part of me: my nasal sinuses. These little buggers received a thorough cleanup during a 5-hour surgery. I was "down" for nine days but recovery was good and eventually I ended up with a renewed ability to breathe using my nose and not just my mouth, as well as an ability to SMELL (after 15 years of no smell), which is great but made me realize how awful car exhaust smell is - I hope the world will switch to electric cars really soon.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Fall Big-Wheelin'
After considering a road ride, I have decided to take the 29er on a mixed trails and roads ride. Starting at the bottom of Windy Hill preserve means climbing for the first 3 miles with no warm-up, from 600 to 1800 ft. Despite the recent cool down, it was warm (78F) and few of those really steep pitches were quite brutal. Once on the "ridge", I realized how beautiful fall riding is here. Despite the trails being dusty, the views were nice, the tall grasses are all either dry yellow or gone (means no pollen for me allergy sufferer), the poison oak is almost all red and thus easy to recognize, and mainly - no fog.
I felt strong and tried to climb in the middle ring standing up. To my surprise, that's where the big bike really came alive and the rough rocky trail was nice absorbed by the big wheels with 35 psi in the Kenda SB8s. The problem is that I can hammer standing for like 5 minutes at the time, so often I resorted to spinning the granny sitting. Also, the quite worn out rear tire was easily spun out, but not anywhere as easy as on the 26" bike.
Here is a picture from the Ancient Oaks Trail, it is my favorite place to stop for a gel or bar.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Mount Tamalpais MTB Ride
Going biking around North Bay always poses a dilemma for me, a Mid-Pen inhabitant: is it worth the trip through San Francisco? What is the weather going to be like north of the GG bridge? And no singletrack to speak of, are the fire roads really that interesting?
But the descriptions of "hot rides" on http://www.marinfattire.com/ sounded good, weather forecast for Fairfax was mid-seventies and a friend was interested in riding together, so we decided for a ride up Mt. Tam from Ross via Eldridge, Hoo-Koo-E-Koo and the Old Railroad trails.
The day began by driving to the meeting point through the 19th Ave fog and drizzle (I knew it, what the hell am I doing at this place, only the Scots and Brits may possibly like it here etc etc...), finding Ross Commons with all the GPS-suggested streets being closed for repairs, and continued by us reaching the trailhead just to learn the trail around Phoenix Lake was closed and the shortest alternative was a 10 mile detour on pavement. The other alternative was to sneak through the gates. Guess which one we chose.
The climb up was actually quite scenic, first through some redwoods with small creeks flowing, and then on exposed hillsides of Mt. Tam with views like this:
After a short break at the East Peak, we headed down to take the supposedly more technical way down Eldridge Grade. It was definitely rocky and steeper than the way up, with two lines to pick: one with the "death cookies" and the second one on solid but sharp rocks. Well, the loose small rocks definitely make steering above certain speed interesting, but I guess the author of the term did not ride some of the downhills at the MTB Himachal race. This downhill was over in no time and we backtracked the last portion of the ride the same way we started, for total of 32km (20km up and 12km down). There is no Garmin track for this ride as my Edge 500 was in my Camelbak in a powered down state.
Conclusions: this is a really nice ride, the weather in Ross and Fairfax is probably mostly really nice, all mountain bikers and even hikers said hello, and the views fromthe summitt are fantastic.
But the descriptions of "hot rides" on http://www.marinfattire.com/ sounded good, weather forecast for Fairfax was mid-seventies and a friend was interested in riding together, so we decided for a ride up Mt. Tam from Ross via Eldridge, Hoo-Koo-E-Koo and the Old Railroad trails.
The day began by driving to the meeting point through the 19th Ave fog and drizzle (I knew it, what the hell am I doing at this place, only the Scots and Brits may possibly like it here etc etc...), finding Ross Commons with all the GPS-suggested streets being closed for repairs, and continued by us reaching the trailhead just to learn the trail around Phoenix Lake was closed and the shortest alternative was a 10 mile detour on pavement. The other alternative was to sneak through the gates. Guess which one we chose.
The climb up was actually quite scenic, first through some redwoods with small creeks flowing, and then on exposed hillsides of Mt. Tam with views like this:
After some initial steep climbing, the road grade decreased once we hit the Old Railroad trail, which I guess is the advantage of all old railroad beds.
After a short break at the East Peak, we headed down to take the supposedly more technical way down Eldridge Grade. It was definitely rocky and steeper than the way up, with two lines to pick: one with the "death cookies" and the second one on solid but sharp rocks. Well, the loose small rocks definitely make steering above certain speed interesting, but I guess the author of the term did not ride some of the downhills at the MTB Himachal race. This downhill was over in no time and we backtracked the last portion of the ride the same way we started, for total of 32km (20km up and 12km down). There is no Garmin track for this ride as my Edge 500 was in my Camelbak in a powered down state.
Conclusions: this is a really nice ride, the weather in Ross and Fairfax is probably mostly really nice, all mountain bikers and even hikers said hello, and the views fromthe summitt are fantastic.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Tahoe Classic
On Saturday 9/11, after three years of planning this ride, it finally materialized: The Flume Trail at Lake Tahoe got to feel the touch of my bike's tires. My two Czech friends and me did the classic, one way ride from Spooner Lake to the shuttle pick up on Hwy 28, for the total of 16.8 miles. All I have read about this ride was true, it is not very technical, except the occassional exposure and deep sand in turns, it has fantastic views and after the initial climb to Marlette Lake, it is quite flat.
Lots more pictures are here:
Lots more pictures are here:
And the Garmin track and ride stats (nothing to brag about, this was mainly sightseeing!) here:
It was well worth the trip from the Bay Area, I am already planning the Mt. Rose to Kingsbury 45 mile ride, but this may have to wait until the snow thaws in 2011.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A week of mountain biking at Whiskeytown - Weaverville
There were several reasons for this trip, whose primary purpose was a relaxing vacation, not a strenuous mountain biking: getting sick of this year's cold summer (a fter all, having sun in summer months is the reason we DON'T live in San Francisco!), desire to get away from people and all the Bay Area BS, have a chance to swim in water without a wetsuit, and finally the rich mountain biking history of the area.
For a few weeks before going on this trip, I read ride descriptions in Max Walter's book North State Singletrack and I got excited: lots of singletrack, steep hills, remote creeks and waterfalls, the famous Lemurian race course etc etc.
It all proved true, I found the ride descriptions very accurate and directions easy to understand. Two things were a bit off in my opinion: warnings about technical difficulty usually turned out to be a little exaggerated (or has my 8 years of mountain biking in New England made me a very skilled rider? I don't think so...), and warnings about how steep the climbs were going to be proved a little too mild. For the Boulder Creek Falls ride the book says: "Top of the climb! You've GOT to be glad that is behind you". Well, I ended up pushing my bike for a mile up steep, dusty fire road in 100F heat, hating myself for being such a sissy and not being able to spin my granny gear up the hill. But I couldn't, every time I tried, my heart rate spiked to 1000 bpm and the liters of electrolyte water sloshing in my stomach wanted to depart me. But the falls were pretty and the downhill from there back to the lake was fun.
The following rides (The Chimney, Weaverville trails and the Whiskeytown Lemurian) went much better, mainly due to proper pacing myself at the early parts of the rides and perhaps me getting used to the hot weather.
One of the highlights of these rides were the Rich Gulch Trail, where the locals must have spent countless hours shaping the jumps and berms. It was more sandy that I am used to but a super nicely flowing downhill trail. Another gem is the whole Weaverville Basin Trail system with all kinds of trails, super smooth winding singletrack, rocky trails, beautiful forest scenery and the La Grange mine ditch trail, which was something completely new to me.
For a few weeks before going on this trip, I read ride descriptions in Max Walter's book North State Singletrack and I got excited: lots of singletrack, steep hills, remote creeks and waterfalls, the famous Lemurian race course etc etc.
It all proved true, I found the ride descriptions very accurate and directions easy to understand. Two things were a bit off in my opinion: warnings about technical difficulty usually turned out to be a little exaggerated (or has my 8 years of mountain biking in New England made me a very skilled rider? I don't think so...), and warnings about how steep the climbs were going to be proved a little too mild. For the Boulder Creek Falls ride the book says: "Top of the climb! You've GOT to be glad that is behind you". Well, I ended up pushing my bike for a mile up steep, dusty fire road in 100F heat, hating myself for being such a sissy and not being able to spin my granny gear up the hill. But I couldn't, every time I tried, my heart rate spiked to 1000 bpm and the liters of electrolyte water sloshing in my stomach wanted to depart me. But the falls were pretty and the downhill from there back to the lake was fun.
The following rides (The Chimney, Weaverville trails and the Whiskeytown Lemurian) went much better, mainly due to proper pacing myself at the early parts of the rides and perhaps me getting used to the hot weather.
One of the highlights of these rides were the Rich Gulch Trail, where the locals must have spent countless hours shaping the jumps and berms. It was more sandy that I am used to but a super nicely flowing downhill trail. Another gem is the whole Weaverville Basin Trail system with all kinds of trails, super smooth winding singletrack, rocky trails, beautiful forest scenery and the La Grange mine ditch trail, which was something completely new to me.
With the exception of the first Sunday ride, I have not met another mountain biker on these trails during 4 days, 65 miles and 10 hours of riding. In fact, I saw perhaps 3 people alltogether on trails, two equestrians and one lady picking blackberries. Those were the best trailside refreshments (blackberries, not the ladies) and beat the GU gels any time!
The Garmin tracks, elevation and all the other info for these rides is here:
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