Oh Yeah, Snow

People always ask me about starting out as a cyclist in Buffalo, NY "Did you ride in the snow?" "How was the snow?" "Wasn't it cold?"; my answers "Yes", "Cold," "Yes". But I did it. I bike commuted through two winters, although doing stupid things like daring the 6 inch poweder on a cross bike (yeah I was late for work that day).

Gearing up. It took me a long while to motivate myself out the door.

The trail had lots of hiding slippery leaves.

It's strange, I've been in Cali looking at all the snow and been thinking about riding back on the white stuff, but usually, thanks to global warming, when I come back East there is no snow (NY in my lifetime has had less snow than it should). This year, for whatever reason, has been wet and cold. When I got here, it was in the 50's, but the temperature has dropped and I woke to the white stuff falling from the sky so I went out and touched some local trails.

This was my bike in high school. Still works.

It's hard to imagine this is nestled in Patchogue, NY, a sprawling suburb on the south shore of Long Island.

Fish Thicket Preserve is not exactly a great place, it's mostly a wide lane (looks like for ATV's? but what kind of preserve would let those on), but with the snow who could tell the difference? I got out before the accumulation picked up and trolled around for a bit. My toes got a little cold, but for the most part moving kept me warm and despite some slips, I failed to eat shit (go me).

Snowy treads.

Tracks on a bridge that went nowhere.

After some exploring (everything looked the same, except maybe the bit of Swan River) I headed back. The snow as big fat flakes by now and the streets were covered. The passing cars gave me looks in this suburb that hates the outdoors. When I got home I made a big cup of coffee and watched the rest of the snow come down.

        

Long Island Bottechia Ride

After a miserable sleepless 8 hour flight, I've made it to the older country of NY. I made it just in time to send off my younger brother to the real old country. Nevertheless, I slept til 2 thanks to a sleepless nights and was able to dial in my dad's bike in time to venture out into the 50 degree fog (great weather for this time of the year, although it was 65 and sunny in SF, damn). Here's some pics of the bike I'll be tramping about on for the next couple weeks.

It's a mid-80's Bottechia mid-level racing bike. My dad put some Cat-5s into it, it is faster than my Cross-Check for sure.

Columbus SL tubing, yum.

Cinelli bars, my dad had some profile aero bars on it at first, but I took those off. No need for them.

Full campy drivetrain.

12 speed, some say that's 11 too many.

The sexiest brake levers ever. I love vintage Campy brakes, but they were tough to reach on this setup, I think they need to be pushed down some on the drops.

Low angles.

24mm! Yikes! The rear was balding and cost me a tube .

Building at the end of the block.

Gazebo.

Curbs.

It was a quick ride to the docks and then back home. I wanted to get the coffee shop and liquor store, but a flat cost me. Oh well. Looking forward to logging miles on a different style bike in a new place.

An Update of Some Sort of Sorts

I created a new blog, then got really bad about writing in it. Not because I haven't been doing anything, but because I've been bad about taking my camera places. Since the New Years I raced in an Oakland alleycat and won something for the first time since that spelling bee in 4th grade (that's a lie, I lost because of fucking 'principal', not 'principle'). I participated in the first San Francisco Randonneurs event of the year, where I got soaked (still not used to riding in the rain) and ran home instead of hanging. I have done a pretty good job of floating my mileage over 200 miles a week (fell short this week). I have one day left til I fly back to the chilly enclaves of Long Island, NY, where winter will really set in. Maybe that means it's time for a break? Or maybe it just means it's time to rule 5 and prove that cycling is not a fair weather sport.

Hope the first two years of your New Year have ruled too.

King's Ridge

 

A couple months ago I threw out the idea on the social channels of a Thursday or some other day midweek ride. The major consensus was that Thursday was a good day for this, but I had one other friend who said Mondays worked better for her. I told her to let me know if she wanted to ride on Mondays. As a retail manager she had a hellish December, but wanted to catch up the miles on Mondays in January, hence Mile Mondays were born.

We've got some rides planned out (unfortunately I'm a jerk and am leaving for pretty much the whole month of January and ruined the idea, hopefully we can just get them together at a different time), but for a prologue Jillian suggested a Sonoma Coast ride, as she got her hands on a motor vehicle. Labeled as one of the most beautiful rides by the Santa Rosa cycling club, I couldn't resist.

7 AM pickup, two hours in the car, 40 degree unload in Jenner, mount, and we're off. We chose our own adventure starting in Jenner as opposed to Monte Rio (which would be the right decision after driving back up River Rd after, too much traffic on narrow shoulders). We rode out from the coast to start, battling a ferocious headwind before switching out to Austin Creek road, a scenic country road leading into Cazadero Highway then Cazadero itself. Once beyond this one horse two church town we hit the split, Fort Ross Road shot straight up to the left and Kings Ridge eased up on the right, we picked right and began.

Our only flats.

50 year old mossy bridges.

Moss surrounded the road up the climb.

After Cazadero we saw no more flats. At first they were gentle and we thought, maybe this won't be so bad? But we spoke too soon. The road dramatically shot up and narrowed down to a single lane enshrouded by moss covered trees. I was fortunate to have my touring gears, Jillian on the other hand, just beasted through on her race cross gearing (not even road gearing, badass).

Breaking at what we thought was the top.

Jillian's off.

We rode all the way back bare foot (okay, not really).

We fought hard up and up and up. We reached what we thought was the top, we rested in success. Of course it was preemptive, the road continued to sink and rise, endlessly rolling along the ridge. This narrow stretch of road held epic dropoffs and scenery around every bend, so we kept stopping to take pictures. Every time we told ourselves no more pictures another stunning view was there to greet us. It was absurd.

Such tough climbing.

Always hard to capture the grandeur of these trees in photos.

How we got there.

Detail

We crawled our way through on the hills taking photos only to find ourselves on a steep narrow descent down toward Seaview, only once again to shoot back up and down. This ride has no flats. By the time we hit the final Meyer's Grade descent we had had enough climbing and were excited to drop back into Jenner for one of my favorite off the beaten path cafes, Cafe Aquatic. No better way to cap off an epic day than an almond milk latte.