# Memorial day weekend rides - how was yours?



## Francis Cebedo (Aug 1, 2001)

After a ton of mtb riding in May, I got the road bike miles back in my diet.

On thursday, an mtb ride with some mtbr folks :http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=103670

On Saturday, the spectrum ride
Wow, this was crazy. While waiting at Starbucks at Homestead. Two guys got in a fight over a girl. Actually it was more of a beat-down since the other guy was not fighting back. This guy Dirk is a nutcase and was pummelling a Sycip rider until it was broken up.

The ride was a beat-down too. Going up Foothill and left on Page Mill was sooooo slow. Then on the right turn to Arastadero, it was a full-on sprint. I mean full-on with Eric Wohlberg pulling hard! The pack instantly broke up. I hung on but was pretty much in pain after that. (see graph below). The pace on the way back was a cruise.


On Sunday, my first ride in SF-Marin
I've never ridden in San Francisco and it was a treat. We started right under the Golden Gate Bridge and crossed over to Sausalito and Stinson at 8am. It was incredible. The place is crowded though and it was unbearable by noon, on the way back.

Here's a description from my bud: " From there will head West on Old Mason St to Crissy Field Ave to 
Lincoln Blvd, under the Golden Gate South entrance via bike path and 
head across the GG on the West side walk. At the North end we'll circle 
under the North entrance down past Fort Baker and on into Sausalito. 
This should give Dirk plenty of time to get his legs warmed up. Through 
downtown Sausalito (on Bridgeway) to Hwy 1 towards the coast. Following 
Hwy 1 (Shoreline Hwy) over to Stinson Beach, not by way of Mt Tam (we 
hit that coming back). Rest stop in Stinson, bring some money if you 
want to buy food. Continuing North on Hwy 1 (very flat) to Fairfax 
Bolinas road (right turn and a steep climb up to the lower saddle of Mt 
Tam. They do a hill climb on this road every year. You'll love the 
climb. Once we reach the top, we take a right and proceed up the back 
bone of Mt Tam on West Ridgecrest Blvd. You'll love the views you get 
of the Pacific and Stinson beach below. At the junction of East 
Ridgecrest and Pan Toll Road, we'll need to make a decision if we 
should continue back to SF, or do a quick climb to the East peak of Mt 
Tam. At this point I may not join you for the up and back to the peak, 
but will wait if others want to. Then it's down Pan Toll road, left on 
Panoramic Hwy, some un godly down hill S curves to meet up with Rte 1 
and retrace our route back to SF."

Graph is below too. Anyone do this awesome ride regularly??

Both these rides got me home by 1pm with enough time to do lunch and watch the awesome Giro d Italia on OLN at 2pm.

How was your weekend??

fc


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## sitzpickel (Nov 10, 2003)

*Savage*

One of my last rides in the BA was in Marin. It was great.
I've moved to Delaware early May and did my first ride this weekend. Not knowing of any good routes, I followed the yellow squiggly marks of the Savage Century which is held here every September.
Now, they might not have the long, sustained climbs you get in the Bay Area, but the short steep hills in southern Pennsylvania can definitly wear you out.
I barely made it home just before a big thunderstorm rolled in.
I didn't bring a camera, so I can't post any pictures of the nice views along the way, particularly Susquehanna(sp?) river and Lancaster county.
Good bye NorCal board, and welcome Mid-Atlantic board for me.
Michael
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Ride, rinse, repeat.


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## Francis Cebedo (Aug 1, 2001)

sitzpickel said:


> One of my last rides in the BA was in Marin. It was great.
> I've moved to Delaware early May and did my first ride this weekend. Not knowing of any good routes, I followed the yellow squiggly marks of the Savage Century which is held here every September.
> Now, they might not have the long, sustained climbs you get in the Bay Area, but the short steep hills in southern Pennsylvania can definitly wear you out.
> I barely made it home just before a big thunderstorm rolled in.
> ...


Moved out!? Dang. What the heck for? For work I'm sure. Maan, you seemed pretty happy here with all those epic miles you were putting in.

regards,
francois


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## Fogdweller (Mar 26, 2004)

I rode to the East Peak of Mt. Tam with my friend Mark and his friend Warren who was in town from LA. Warren, as it turns out, is a long time lurker here. So if you're reading this Warren, time to pick a name and start posting... ;o)


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## Number9 (Nov 28, 2004)

sitzpickel said:


> Good bye NorCal board, and welcome Mid-Atlantic board for me.
> Michael
> ----------------------------
> Ride, rinse, repeat.


Sitzpickel, sorry to hear that you've left NorCal. We'll miss your wit and sometimes wry sense of humor but I suppose you won't miss the housing costs out here. Best of luck to you.

Francois, that fight breaking out at the Spectrum Ride is just about the strangest thing I've read here. Somebody needs a timeout.

--twc


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## sitzpickel (Nov 10, 2003)

*Work is the reason*

The sweet "working from home" deal I had in the BA just wasn't sustainable in the long run. So, I got a new job, bought a house (with enough land to ride a bike on ;-), and for the first time, I saw gas prices under $2. I'm just starting to assess the biking situation here, and it seems pretty ok, but working does really cut into your riding time ;-)

In a few years, I'll head out west again, maybe some of the many bubbles (real estate, Hayward fault etc.) will have burst by then.
Meanwhile, if you happen to be anywhere from Philly to Baltimore, let me know.

Michael
---------------------------
Ride, rinse, repeat.


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## bc165 (Aug 5, 2003)

*4 rides in 4 directions*

Actually this is for the week... 

Tues - NW - Left Santa Rosa heading north on Westside Road toward Healdsburg. Took Sweetwater Road over to Guerneville and circled back to SR on Green Valley, Harrison Grade, etc. Sweetwater is a great road with both gentle and steep climbs, and some scary fast hairpin turns as you descend toward Guerneville... probably saw three cars in an hour.

Thurs - NE - It was foggy throughout the Sonoma Valley as I left Healdsburg to do the Geysers from the south. Perfect weather for a climb. About 15 minutes up the Geysers the fog is starting to thin, bits of blue sky showing through here and there. Better than anything you've seen in 9 hours of the Lord of the Rings, but then you norcalers know what I'm talking about.. Wished I'd had my camera. A short time later I'm above the fog and grateful for the cool air and beautiful valley/vineyard views. I'm thinking that this must be a lot like a tdf mountain stage. About 3000' of steady climbing with no steep pitches. The descent is great fun as there are so many long, sweeping turns. What a delight. Again, about three cars. If you ever ride it - and you will if you do the Terrible Two - just be careful on the descents. There are these swaths of massively uneven pavement (and gravel sections on the north side) and every so often there are sections where the road can drop by as much as several feet... lots of earthquakes up there. 

Sun - SE - My buddy David and I left Santa Rosa and rode down the Valley of the Moon on Arnold Drive toward Sonoma and did the climb up Cavedale with the descent on Trinity. One car passed us on Cavedale. Great views of Marin and the SF Bay. If you ever do this loop, make sure to do it in this direction. Cavedale has crappy pavement and would make for lousy descending. Trinity, on the other hand, is great for descending - with a few bumpy, off-camber hairpins to go easy on - and climbing. Again, if you do the TT, you will climb Trinity. 

Mon - W - I love holidays because the mornings are always so mellow. What else to do but go for a ride... Left SR and went out to the coast via Coleman Valley. Coleman Valley isn't the smoothest of roads, but when you come out of the redwoods into the open areas you get great vistas of Sonoma and Marin counties until you get to the beginning of the descent to Hwy 1. Then you get the cool breeze from the ocean as you scan the coastline before doing a fast, fun descent to the highway. Too much traffic to head north or south on Hwy 1, so I just turned around and went back up Coleman Valley. Great climb that is fun to do because you get about 800' feet of climbing in the first mile, then look back over your shoulder and say goodbye to the ocean as you head toward the redwoods...

Must be time to go out for another ride... one of the plusses - temporary I hope - of unemployment..


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## dlbcx (Aug 28, 2002)

francois said:


> After a ton of mtb riding in May, I got the road bike miles back in my diet.
> 
> On thursday, an mtb ride with some mtbr folks :http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=103670
> 
> ...


Sounds like Dirk was fighting over Stacy again...thought she was getting married to someone, maybe the Sycip guy? You should have been on the ride where Dirk got into it with another rider over Stacy (again!) then they both crashed, while taking down Stacy at the same time. A bit of advice...don't talk to Stacy if Dirk is in the vicinity!


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## Francis Cebedo (Aug 1, 2001)

dlbcx said:


> Sounds like Dirk was fighting over Stacy again...thought she was getting married to someone, maybe the Sycip guy? You should have been on the ride where Dirk got into it with another rider over Stacy (again!) then they both crashed, while taking down Stacy at the same time. A bit of advice...don't talk to Stacy if Dirk is in the vicinity!


Dood. It's still ringing in my head:
"YOU HURT STACY."
"YOU HURT STACY YOU MOTHER----"
"YOU..."

Maan, the families at Starbucks were freaked! Just a bad display of bikers... of humanity.

It was weird, Stacy got pushed and fell over and that started it. But I knew there was a bit of history there.

I've chatted with that Dirk guy a couple times before. Is he a lover or a fighter?

fc


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## dlbcx (Aug 28, 2002)

francois said:


> Dood. It's still ringing in my head:
> "YOU HURT STACY."
> "YOU HURT STACY YOU MOTHER----"
> "YOU..."
> ...


Dirk is definitely a fighter...but he has cut me some slack since I helped her out by lending my front brake, from my bike, to her for a race, which Dirk installed. Guess the return spring on brake broke somehow and she only had an hour before her race.


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## johngfoster (Jan 14, 2005)

*Oakland hills*

Got a ride in on Monday (Memorial Day) with a buddy of mine from work. We started out from his folks house up in the hills off Joaquin Miller, rode up over the hill and then down, turned left (sorry, don't remember the names of the streets--my 1st ride in the area) toward Moraga. The fog cleared and wow, it was a beautiful day. Our first descent had some really nice windy technical turns which was great fun. 

Once in Moraga, we turned left again and headed for Orinda. This was the worst part of the ride: I had my 1st crash! We were doing about 19 mph on the shoulder ( I was in the lead) and these 2 kids on BMX bikes were coming toward us the wrong way. I started to drift left out into the road to go around but I guess I didn't make my intentions plain enough. The front kid got this panic look in his eyes and at the last minute turned to go around me on the road side. I hit his front wheel full-on, flew out the front and did the duck, tuck and roll maneuver. I musta had someone looking out for me, because all I got was some tiny scuffs to my right shifter, bar tape, rear deraileur and some scrapes on my knee and shoulder. My jersey and shorts were fine. Neither of my wheels were out of true, although I did have to adjust my front deraileur afterwards. The kid was a bit shook up but OK and very appologetic. His front wheel was bent pretty badly. He and his buddy hung around until we were back on our way, which I thought was pretty cool.

The rest of the ride was great. We turned left again up this long hill up to the "Brazil Building", wound our way around and eventually hooked up to Grizzly Peak blvd, ending back on Joaquin Miller for a nice short descent back to my buddy's folks house. The views were spectacular--OK, I've never ridden there before, but it really was a beautiful day.

This was my first real hill-ride. I live out in Stockton area and do all my riding out on the Delta (read flat and windy), so this was a real treat. It was also great to see so many other cyclists out. We must have seen over 100. It really does afford a great sense of comraderie. Out on the Delta, I've seen 2 other cyclists while riding since Feb. this year. Anyway, it was a wonderful ride. 

PS: took my bike in to the LBS to have it checked over and no other injuries to the frame to report, just the front deraileur needed some fine-tuning.


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