Surf City Pie Cross

Last weekend me and a few friends stumbled into a van at the ass-crack of dawn from Oakland to head down to Santa Cruz for Surf City's second race of the year, Pie Cross. I tried to sleep in the car, but once we hit those mountainous Santa Cruz roads my stomach made that damn near impossible. The swinging left and swinging right turned my stomach was upside down. I just hoped that it wouldn't affect my race. I was so grateful to step out of the car at the Cal-Fire Training Facility on Empire Grade, but now I had something else to contend with, the cold. This is the mountains, it also made me feel no envy for those racing in the snow/wet rain on the East Coast (let alone if anyone is riding a bike in my former hometown of Buffalo right now; yikes!). We shivered at registration and once our names were on the list we ran to the car to get on our bikes and preride the course. A quick preride proved that this course would have some technical bits that could cost the fast people while also having long straight flats that could cost the technically savvy but slow folk. It was a mixed bag that I couldn't wait to race.

At around 10AM, the sun was out and the cold was gone. The B's lined up under the banner. I wanted to focus on fixing some things I feel like I didn't do well last time, the first one being the holeshot. At Sierra Point I got stuck behind a bunch of folks and spent most of that narrow technical race trying to find room to make moves. When I surveyed the course I figured the left side would be best as the course opens up to that side with room to pass and can also give an inside line on the first corner. At the gun I was off, I pulled around the racer directly in front of me and saw that I was somewhere near the front. Around the first corner I made my body big, threw some shoulders and elbows out there to maintain a good position. After the first few switchbacks I could only see about eight or so people in front of me. Considering I was on the second line at the start, I'd label that as a successful start. I kept the tempo up through the first lap. Fast people passed, but I crossed the line in 12th place, not so bad.

 Broakland!

Jortz!

The next few laps went well, I was happy with my choices and my lines. I was riding both smooth and fast. Then come the third lap something happened, as it should. Around the wide concrete 180 to the straightaway I could feel my front tire folding over. It somehow burped and lost a bunch of air. Shit. I focused on keeping the bike upright. Because I wasn't totally bottoming out the rim, I could keep bombing the straightaways, my tire wanted to slip out on the bends, so I took them slower and more deliberately. I finally made the pits, got a quick refill and was back on the course, but that silly move of trying a lower pressure was a bad idea, never trying something new on race day kiddos.

The race was held at the Cal Fire Training Facility; my dad (a volunteer firefighter) would have been excited.

I was able to pick up a few more spots during the final few laps and never once fell. I was attacking the straightaways and knew the sections where I was picking people off and focusing on taking spots there. Before I knew it the bell was ringing, final lap. I turned on what I had left, took some more spots and near the finish line I saw two people right in front of me. I took the inside line on that same concrete 180 and took one. Then around the gravel final bend to the straightaway I tried taking the outside on the final racer in front of me. Bad move. The racer in front of me took the whole course and nearly ran me into the barriers, I squeezed my brakes and had to cede the sprint over to the two other guys.

This wooded section was a blast.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my race, I did much better than Sierra Point, I was aggressive on the holeshot and kept my tempo up for the whole 35 minutes. Surf City had some struggles with their scoring so I'm not sure how I did, but I believe it was somewhere around 16th place out of 35, which is way better than the near basement I finished at BASP. I'm already pre-reged for Candlestick Sunday, hope to see you there!

On the Up and Up

I left my empty apartment around 9AM to meet Brittany at Fremont BART to return back down to Santa Cruz. The beginning of the ride felt like every ride from a BART station, endless suburbs and it was expected to be the hottest day of the summer. We didn't exactly get out early that by the time we were entering towards out climb the heat was wearing on us, so we decided to take a dip in the reservoir to escape the heat. It was the kind of stop that makes bike touring worth it. After the swim we attacked the climb. It was great having a buddy to work the climb with, rides always feel shorter when there is someone along for the ride. After the summit, it was all downhill to Santa Cruz to Brittany's parents beach house. It seems silly how I spent the first day to Santa Cruz, then spent a rest day, but it was my first time really checking out Santa Cruz and it was well worth the added trip south, especially with the added company.

Loaded up at BART

Brittany leading the way up. 

Mid day swimming hole.

On Monday, I departed once again heading back towards the direction I came, but this time I was riding solo. I headed straight for the Santa Cruz mountains to head north towards San Francisco. The first climb of the day was a beautiful one up a shaded road in the fog; a picturesque scene straight out of a glossy cycling magazine advert. An arduous climb from sea to summit, gaining nearly 3,000 feet, but once on top, it was a thrilling descent zipping back and forth through the redwood trees. But what goes down, comes back up, once again. I took China Grade Road through Big Basin State Park, which was empty of cars, but another straight up. Only to find myself on CA-9 after, which you guessed it, went up. I was also running out of water at this point, and could only just put my head down and ride and so I did. The sun beat on me as I climbed the west side of the slopes. There were occasional viewpoints devoid of water. Great spots for photos, good thing my camera was broken (more to follow). I finally reached the top at Skyline Blvd, where a fire station was empty, but thankfully had a spicket. I filled up on food and water, then headed north towards the city. Skyline had some downs, but for every down was an up. It's a roller coaster road with occasional escapes into the peninsula. I wanted to push on to BART at San Bruno, but as the hills kept coming, I eventually popped down to Redwood City, where I took the Caltrain north to the city to meet up with Dave for another night indoors.

Empty bike paths on a Monday Morning.

Speeding away.

Living in the Bay Area, I didn't afford myself time to be a tourist (I'll have plenty of time for that in the future), but having a broken camera, I decided to try and get it fixed in the morning. I headed to North Beach where a friendly camera shop hooked me up with a new camera as opposed to fixing mine, well it's a fix at least. So on I went snapping some nice photos of the bridge and the city on my way out. My goal was Mt. Tam. Too bad my GPS decided that I had had enough climbing, or maybe not enough, as the GPS pointed me toward dead end roads and demanded I take a right up the stairs...uh, no. It was getting late, and I felt if I had gone nowhere, so I pointed north towards Samuel P. Taylor park and Petaluma, my hopeful goal for the day. I stopped for lunch in the park, which was beautiful again taking great photos. Then I found a nice hill to push my bike up for a great shot hopefully of the area. When I finally crested I reached for my camera and realized it was missing. Oh great. I backtracked and retracked to no avail. It was lost and so was my time. With the day closing and my stress levels high I decided to call it a night at the park's hiker biker site.

Sleeping on the stress helped. In the morning I took the short ride to Petaluma where I had a great lunch and relaxed some. I called the credit card company and Best Buy to find that my old camera was replaceable and my new camera was covered - brilliant. With new sails in me it was a rapid ride to Santa Rosa where I hit up a coffee shop I really enjoyed last time I was here. Now to stock up and hopefully find a quiet place to camp for the night. As doomed as everything seemed yesterday, today has been brilliant and it reminds me of why I like being on the road as I can feel like I've gotten away from the true stress of real life by just mashing those pedals towards a new destination.

Forget Work: I'm Riding

Memorial Day, the unofficial kick off of summer, as May rolls over into June and the bike tourers see the sun and put rubber to pavement and hit the road. My big one doesn't start for a couple more days, but last weekend was an absolutely great kickoff for another adventurous summer. I came across this bike ride through social networking, legimitely social networking, as I saw the Facebook event and figured, I love bike camping and am always down to meet people who are into bike camping as well, so Saturday morning I loaded up my bike and headed off for BART to catch up with a group ride down the coast and some camping.

Getting set at San Bruno BART

The top of Sharp Park Road.

After some final preparations and introductions at the San Bruno BART, the 14 of us set off around 10 AM, for a week of bikes and camping. As with any BART ride, the beginning was ugly suburbs, and required a heavy climb out of San Bruno with traffic and the gray only made the scene bleaker. We regrouped at the top then dropped down the sweeping descent of Sharp Park Road to the coast, where the sun was waiting to greet us. From there our ride leader, Woody, took us to the Planet of the Apes, sharing it with some people for the first time. There was concern about skinny tired road bikes, but I was the only one to blow a flat on here, way to go me (bad time to experiment with lower tire pressure, oh well).

Descending Planet of the Apes

From Planet of the Apes it was onward to Half Moon Bay, unfortunately, this meant sticking to CA-1, the popular bike touring road, but always heavily trafficked (and thankfully, continually expanding shoulders, but I still think work needs to be done). Half Moon Bay was a longerish stop for lunch and groceries. It was a little tough getting 14 people on the same page, but we finally started out from there. This was where our pace really picked up and we cruised along the coast, despite some rack malfunctions and ingenious tube latching, we made real good time that we made it to our campsite with hours of daylight to spare.

The bikes lined up at Half Moon Bay.

The boats in the Half Moon Bay Harbor, surprised to see so many docked on the three day weekend.

Then the best part about group bike camping began, the cooking, hanging, and chilling at camp. This was something I never really had a chance to enjoy during solo touring, for me, it was mostly about riding, but the campsite, located at Green Oaks Farms outside of Pescedaro, an organic farm with full outdoor kitchen and outhouse (handicamping is what someone called this, I find that fitting). We had some great cooks help out with dinner as well as some vigorous games of Cards Against Humanity. A 55 mile day for day one and everyone had made it with little wear.

Day Two was the off-day, the day to go out and adventure. There was very little plan of what to do. I had found some light trail that I wanted to hit, but wasn't sure if anyone would be into it after the day before's long ride. Originally it seemed as if people were going into town to Pescedaro, but there was only one member of our group who did that, instead it seemed that the trip to the trail and waterfall was the most popular choice, with the rest choosing the beach.

Meadows and bikes.

The trail was the Skyline to Sea trail, a rough hiker route that is an 8 day backpacking hike from the mountains to the sea, but the section near the sea is open to biking so that's where we hit. The ride was a great introduction to mountain biking for some who had never been before, one of our members, Jessica, was even on a Fuji road bike and was able to manage most of the trail (there were a few technical sections that only the experienced Woody was able to tackle). It was the perfect introduction to trail for a lot of our group, then it was a short hike to a waterfall nestled within the redwoods, where some of us bravely faced the chilly water to cool off from the ride.

The group on the coast (early photos because my camera died outside of  Half Moon Bay, d'oh!)

After the falls, we saddled up and raced back to our campsite for pie from the Pie Ranch, an organic pie shop on Highway 1 that grows everything they put in the pie on site. Busting out those trails made our crew hungry for sweets and we all made it back in time for pie (I opted out, but man those pies were tempting me  to break vegan). The second night had another great dinner and great fire to sit by before calling it a night.

The third day our group shrank some as some members decided to catch rides back into the city, while the rest of us chose to bike down to Santa Cruz and figure it out from there. Once again Highway One shared some brilliant views on the way south. We stopped at Swanton Berry Farms (10 percent discount for cyclists and a nice touring bike log) for some more pastries that I could only watch people eat as I stuffed my own face of peanut butter (these are the things I miss from a less restricted diet is these neat little places that I can only marvel at as an outsider, but alas, it's my decision and I am sticking with it). From there we hit some more trail along the coast, zigging and zagging along the bluffs overlooking quaint little coves. The trail brought us right into SC.

Rolling along.

This was now my first time in Santa Cruz, unfortunately, I can't say that I really got a good look at it. We stood at the base of the pier and Woody pointed out the boardwalk and the pier, but people were anxious to figure out how to return. I wasn't. I planned to ride. We had one last meal together at a diner (where I could get vegan food, yes!). Then we all parted ways.

There was a small group that stayed in the Santa Cruz area to ride back tomorrow, there was a group taking the bus home, then there was me and Jessica. We were the only two who took up the challenge of riding to San Jose then taking Cal Trans home. Woody once again pointed us in the right direction and off we went. I had always been wanting to ride these beautiful mountains so was completely excited and now with a group of two we set a good pace climbing the mountain. It was a long sustained slope, not a steep one, but a noticeable one. The best part of the climb was having a climbing partner, we chatted the way up and before we new it we made our turn near the top. We cut north and began the fabulous descent down Old Santa Cruz Highway. The road was the perfect grade with the best bends, I hardly fluttered the brakes as the road swept around the redwood groves and before I knew it we were sitting next to the Los Gatos Reservoir, coming up on our final destination.

The last leg was the peaceful Los Gatos Creek Trail, with plenty of day light to go we gently crushed the last bit and pulled into San Jose. Now it was my turn to eat as we ventured over to the Veggie Grill. We took our time in San Jose and around 8 30 we finally packed in our food and hit the road for the lest leg towards CalTrain. When we got to the Santa Clara CalTrain station we checked the schedule and 9 : 05 was our train, and the last one! We were that close to missing the last train thanks to our complacency at the end, go figure! Thank the heavens we made that train and were able to relax on the way home.

All in all the weekend was about 145 miles, but the miles don't matter, the people mattered. Being a foreigner to their group I was very pleased to feel at home with these people very quickly. No one was snobbish, no one was uninviting, no one was unfriendly. There were multiple levels of riding (as to be expected) but no one felt like they were holding back the group or being held back, everyone was glad to be riding along with people, taking the weekend off to ride some bikes. This is planned to be an annual event (this being year two) and I really hope I can make it work again next year.