- Joined
- Jul 14, 2004
- Location
- Oakland
- Moto(s)
- ...between bikes
- Name
- Heather
- BARF perks
- AMA #: 1028914
Mr. Crash and I ended up doing a little bicycle ride this afternoon. We decided to ride Calaveras and add onto it a part of the recent Tour of California: Sierra Rd. This ended up being a tough ride! (not shocking really...) Calavares wasn't bad and it was gorgeous at this time of year, but I was holding back a little on the way up initially to save my legs for later on. I'd heard too many things about the Sierra climb to dismiss it as a short wart on my overall cruise and I wanted to be ready for it. I was right. Sierra is a friggin steep hill! We came up from the "city side" and we were told that that way is most difficult which gave me a little solace since I was panting for 10 minutes after hauling my butt up it. I barely made it--the first part is the worst and then it evens out. It also has some breaks in it where it flattens out or has a brief down hill.
The entire ride wound up being a couple hours longer than it should have been. Both Mike and I got two flats each. We ran out of spare inner tubes and were hoping we'd have enough patches to last us. We also had our fair share of encounters with wild life. Mike had near misses with two turkeys on separate occasions and I ran over a ground squirrel. I looked past the little bugger figuring that as long as I held my speed and trajectory that he'd choose NOT to run under my tires. I was wrong there. R.I.P. little rodent. And, no, I didn't stop for him.
Final tally:
62 miles covered
a few thousand feet climbed
4 flats
2 close calls with game fowl
1 ground squirrel death
Here are some photos...
Just starting out in (un)Pleasanton
1st food break. Gotta fuel up for the big climb coming up!
This seemingly disgusting, half-eaten piece of fruit would be the most cherished treasure on the top of Sierra.
It looks benign here, but that little ribbon of road is a vengeful bitch. The small bit of orange at the bottom of the shot faintly reads KOM: King of the Mountain. It's the top of Sierra Rd.
No matter how unhappy I was riding up, this guy was worse off. 230 lbs. and a standard double. No, I don't really know what that means, but what I gather is that he don't have my granny gears and he's hauling the equivalent of two of me up that damned mountain. He gurgled something at me as I passed. He eventually made it up. [thumbsup]
It was purdy up there...
Rolling hills n crap...
The visibility wasn't great, but you could easily see Lick Observatory on top of Mt. Hamilton. [thumbsup] It's the gathering of tiny white specs at the top of the highest hill in the distance.
There's a group who calls themselves the Open Space Authority. It sounds very "Brazil" to me. I'm going to make up a group and assign it very unimportant tasks. And I shall be queen of this group. Yes. Queen.
....to be continued.
The entire ride wound up being a couple hours longer than it should have been. Both Mike and I got two flats each. We ran out of spare inner tubes and were hoping we'd have enough patches to last us. We also had our fair share of encounters with wild life. Mike had near misses with two turkeys on separate occasions and I ran over a ground squirrel. I looked past the little bugger figuring that as long as I held my speed and trajectory that he'd choose NOT to run under my tires. I was wrong there. R.I.P. little rodent. And, no, I didn't stop for him.
Final tally:
62 miles covered
a few thousand feet climbed
4 flats
2 close calls with game fowl
1 ground squirrel death
Here are some photos...
Just starting out in (un)Pleasanton
1st food break. Gotta fuel up for the big climb coming up!
This seemingly disgusting, half-eaten piece of fruit would be the most cherished treasure on the top of Sierra.
It looks benign here, but that little ribbon of road is a vengeful bitch. The small bit of orange at the bottom of the shot faintly reads KOM: King of the Mountain. It's the top of Sierra Rd.
No matter how unhappy I was riding up, this guy was worse off. 230 lbs. and a standard double. No, I don't really know what that means, but what I gather is that he don't have my granny gears and he's hauling the equivalent of two of me up that damned mountain. He gurgled something at me as I passed. He eventually made it up. [thumbsup]
It was purdy up there...
Rolling hills n crap...
The visibility wasn't great, but you could easily see Lick Observatory on top of Mt. Hamilton. [thumbsup] It's the gathering of tiny white specs at the top of the highest hill in the distance.
There's a group who calls themselves the Open Space Authority. It sounds very "Brazil" to me. I'm going to make up a group and assign it very unimportant tasks. And I shall be queen of this group. Yes. Queen.
....to be continued.
I crack myself up.
I *barely* made it up, so let's not get too excited. My heart and my legs pretty much went into auto pilot and took over the entire operation. Mike timed us. He beat me by 58 seconds, but I think I could improve on that. When I saw him climb off of his bike and lay down on the ground I knew that was the summit so I clicked it up a few gears and tried to shave off some time. He checked our "rankings" against some other race on the same climb and neither one of us would have finished last--but I think I can keep my day job. 
look and answered yes. The guy ate the damned peels. 
I've never seen anything like it. We bumped into him in the parking lot several hours later. I guess he'd bonked and was desperate.
