Lighthouse Solo Brevet

I've been really aching to get my first brevet under my belt. I've knocked out two populaires with relative ease and wanted to get the next level. Unfortunately, the first brevet of the New Year for the San Francisco Randonneurs happened while I was in the not so great state of NY. That doesn't mean the route is still open to ride. So I mounted up and ventured out on this route alone, which I'm sure made it six times harder, wish I could have done it with a group.

I love watching these cargo ships. Was glad to catch one coming right through the gate.

Sir Francis Drake, one of the most scenic boulevards in Marin.

Tomales Bay.

The lighthouse was closed, being a Tuesday. So sad. I found out that the actual SFR ride only goes to the loop and turns back, so I at least got closer, I suppose. 

Pt. Reyes roads. The park protects this land has historic pasture ranches, despite some cruel veal boxes, it's quite scenic.

The fog was too thick to see the lighthouse (unlike the day of the event). It seems the randos only made it to the parking lot before heading back toward Iverness, I guess I at least got closer. Being closed I guess it's an excuse to go back. The road in really was incredible.

My favorite part of riding to Pt. Reyes Station, vegan baked goods from Bovine Bakery.

We all have weird obsessions with our machines, this is my favorite angle of the X-Check.

Marshall Marina. Riding on Tuesday meant that the Marshall Store (which is what the checkpoint is) was closed. It didn't seem to be too vegan friendly, but I guess I don't really know.

Tomales Bay looking West. The sun was shining on our side of the mountains.

Highway 1. Thankfully being Tuesday had light traffic.

Nicasio Ranch. Somehow I'm starting to think that the SF Randonneurs have stock in this store, or maybe they just like it. Hey, I like it.

Coke to me, is what the sun is to Superman.

I finished in the darkness as I left at 8 30ish as opposed to the intended 6 AM. I finished at about 10.5 hours, within three hours of the cutoff for an actual event. Hell yeah. 

Some sad news about the Lighthouse 200k. Word is that because of an accident during the ride this may have been the last year for the ride. Either way, this ride is beautiful, especially the last bit to the lighthouse and is worth doing with some friends (and the road felt very safe for cyclists with low traffic, at least on a weekday).
 

Plans! Plans! Plans

 

 It's 2014. It finally feels like 2014. January was a hectic month of staggered holiday traveling for me. Now I'm back in the Bay and back into my normal regiment of riding and waiting for phone calls from a job, which is always questionable if I even have. With 2013 kindly in the bag, my second best year in riding (sorry riding cross country knocked 2012 over 2013, oh well), I'm pumped for a 2014 I hope to make even better. Here are my plans.

I'll be crossing my 2012 route in Yellowstone, if I manage to make it on the TransAm.

First and foremost there is the most obvious and the most stupid. The Trans Am bike race. Starting June 7th in Astoria, OR the race ends in Yorktown, VA, completely, totally, and moronically, unsupported. If you are wondering, yes, I think this maybe the dumbest thing I have ever signed myself up for in my brief quarter century on this planet, but something about it lures me to it. After finishing in 2012 in 80 days, what some people called a fast pace, I had mixed feelings. My first thought was that I went too fast and missed a lot, but the other thing, was that I was curious to see how fast I could get from coast to coast, fully aware of the RAAM solo record of just under 8 days. I want to say I have a chance to compete at a high level of this thing, but most of me is just curious to see how fast I can go from coast to coast. This will most likely take over the blog in training, gear, and what not in the course of the next six months (and of course the writing on the road).

(Not my photo) Old Cazadero Road part of the SFR Adventure Series.

One of the early unsupported attempts for time across the country was Canadian Wayne Phillips, who competed in the 1985 Race Across America, who was tragically struck by a truck early on in his race. Wayne Phillips was a highly accomplished randonneur before racing in RAAM. Randonneuring is another way in which I can challenge myself in 2014, that being said I am hoping to complete my first full series, which is a 200k, 300k, 400k, and the daddy of em all the 600k. Living in the Bay Area I have plenty of opportunities to ride randos with four clubs in the area. I am already looking forward to trying these.

Nestled within those goals are some more loose goals, my first double century, my first twenty four hour ride. I'm sure if I do join the aforementioned events I will most certainly get some of those out of the way. Some maybes, are racing in cyclocross in the fall (I'm usually too broke to say no to work) and maybe some gravel grinders this year, but that might be even harder to do.

Here's to a killer 2014.

Jortz CX Outlaw Race

Thus far this year has been one of the driest Caliornia winters, meaning that late year cross races were as bone dry as the early ones, meaning no mud. Cross without mud is hardly a cross race. With the first rains dumping three straight days, Team Jortz put together a muddy course. In my continual DNF fashion, I flatted on the first bend, raced back to change the flat in record time. I threw on the rear wheel hopped on and realized, it was a double flat. Spectator time. The three up front all had one gear, Kell and Morgan respectively first and third had fixed gears and Jonathan had a single speed in second. I got to ride the course once, it was a messy one (wish I could have raced it, maybe again soon). Despite a consistent rain, we still found time to hang out at the keyhole. In fear of the rain I left my camera home, but Pamela took some great photos. Check em on her Flickr. I can't imagine paying 70 dollars to race and have half as much fun as these outlaw races.

EDITED: I originally had it posted that Jonathan was fixed and not Morgan.

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.