Day 4: Quite a Workout!

Phew. Today was an 80 mile race against the clock. The timing was driven by having speakers scheduled at the Sacramento State Capitol at 3:30 with everything working backwards from there. So the organizers wanted us to have breakfast at six and break camp and be on the road by 6:30. Right.

Yours truly thinks he did pretty well by getting on the road by 7:15. But it did put a premium on keeping pace, so my photo taking suffered and, in fact, was in complete abeyance until the end of the day when we reach the capital.

Oh, and did I mention that there was a Category 2 climb 5 miles into the route? (Category 2 being the next to hardest climb out of the five categories, measured on a combination of duration and gradient.) About 1200 feet of ascent over the course of 3.6 miles. Ouch. (Take a look at the profile below). I usually give myself the goal of trying to make such climbs without taking any breaks on the way up, but that thought was quickly abandoned in this instance (For the record, ahem, I'm going to blame my lack of a granny gear). Three "breaks" later I was at the top, switched to a dry shirt (essential) and enjoyed a fantastic almost six mile long descent. So it wasn't a bad trade off.

And it was a great scenery day for the first half of the day. Going through rolling valleys and lush fields. It just had to be taken in while whizzing by, without a whole lot of stops. It can be liberating in a way, not to think about photos, and instead just focus on riding and riding hard, but, on the whole, I prefer a day like yesterday, where I could dawdle freely and liberally (and, yes, sample some fine wines).

The last half of the ride was less interesting, as we headed into Sacramento itself (there is actually a bike path that abuts route 80 going against traffic - efficient, but not particularly endearing). And frustrating, as we blew through Davis, the biking capital of the world in certain ways, with barely a glimpse. I would have happily stopped there and spent the night!

I'm writing this entry as we sit in a park in Sacramento waiting for the bus to come and take us back to San Francisco. It's been a fun journey - again! - and I thank you both for coming along with me on the ride and for your support.

Yours, from the road, until next time,

Roger

And, of course, here is today's route and metrics (and a smattering of photos from the end)

Napa Valley is OK!

Today was a really fun day. The weather was perfect, the route was a little bit shorter and more forgiving, and, importantly, there were a boatload of Napa Valley vineyards along the way.

So this blog entry will be short, because I sampled a lot of them!

Today's route and a sampling of pictures:

A Hard, but Excellent, Day 2

Today was a hard, but pretty gorgeous day. It didn't start off too auspiciously. Due to some type of mix up with the caterer, there was no coffee delivered to camp in the morning. Instead, what appeared was some sort of pre-sweetened cappuccino, which is sort of like mainlining sugar (I drink my coffee without any). Fortunately, someone found a single half-empty jar of Folgers crystals, which at least managed to get me to the first coffee shop on our route.

Speaking of which, the route was pretty enchanting, taking us through first the Russian River Valley and then the Alexander Valley, both wine meccas of California. The rub was that we didn't have time to stop at any of the vineyards except for one that was pre-arranged to accept 150 bicyclists in sweaty spandex and cleated bike shoes:  Moshin Vineyards. Fortunately, their Pinot Noir and Zinfandel were pretty good and were fine accompaniments to dinner.

The route was also pretty challenging, and included more than 3500 feet of total ascent. But the challenge was well balanced by beautiful roads with canopies of trees and little traffic, as well as unbelievably perfect weather: sunny and in the 70's (although marred in spots by pretty strong headwinds).

The biggest climbs were left for the last 15 miles of the day, which was pretty intimidating when we were told this in the morning, but when I actually got to them, I found I had a pretty good reservoir of energy left and it was very rewarding to pound through and up them and reach the summit. And yes, I did pass my fair share of other riders! Some of them were even younger! (Competitive, moi?)

And then there was a very pleasant surprise at the end the day. We had been told that we were staying in cabins, which based on past experience on Climate Ride, I fully expected to be in the, shall we say, "rustic" category. Wrong. Luxurious in every sense, with individual showers (no lines, no waiting!), clean sinks and toilets (no....well, you know) and actual power outlets (no trekking to the communal charging station).

So a very good end to a challenging, but invigorating day. And did I mention that I just got a 30 minute message from the three masseurs who travel for the week with Climate Ride? Not as good a bargain is it used to be (each 15 minutes session is $25), but still well worth it!

And what would the day's blog entry be without the route metrics and some photos?

Lovely Day 1

Notwithstanding my significant reservoir of biking experience, I actually was a tad nervous before today's ride. I did not do a lot of training beforehand and, when I did manage to do longer rides, I was...well..exhausted. So a "mere" 250 miles over 4 days actually had me feeling a bit tentative.
And yet...There's something about being with 150 other people, all raring to go, on the West Coast, with the sun shining and the temperature in the 70's. It turned out to be a good day of riding and I handled it with relative ease, including about 3000 feet of total ascent. Tomorrow's another day of course, but today was good.
This is a new CA route for Climate Ride, and they did a really nice job of laying it out, easing us out of SF, across the Golden State bridge, through Marin (where cops eagerly wait to ticket bikers who go through red lights), into Petaluma and then, finally, into a massive KOA campground (fortunately, we had a nice secluded corner).
I don't have a lot of insights to share from today's ride, and I'm about to be one of 25 people giving 3 minute "speed" presentations about their beneficiary organizations (I Challenge Myself, in my case), so I will leave you with today's route and few select photos.
Thanks, as always, for reading.

This is what a Climate Ride break looks like.

At the Lagunitas Brewery, 2 miles before camp.

San Francisco!

OK, this trip is now officially under way. I flew from JFK to San Francisco yesterday, arriving a little after Noon, only to find myself in the midst of a heat wave the sort of which SF rarely encounters. Sunny and in the 80s. Seemed OK to this New Yorker!

I'm staying here, until the ride starts on Saturday morning, with my niece, Emily, and her spouse, Christina, and their 14 month old son, Elliott. As much as I love Emily and Christina, they know that Elliott is the main attraction. Yes, almost all babies are cute and adorable, etc., etc., but Elliott really takes the cake in my unbiased view.

I arrived somewhat jet-lagged, and also not feeling all that energetic for someone about to undertake a 250 mile bike ride. Emily and Christina helped cure that by taking us all down to the Presidio for dinner catered by about 20 different food trucks, lined up at the edge of a beautiful grassy lawn littered with families and their young children enjoying the Summer-like weather (actually, that's inaccurate -- I'm told Summer in SF is not generally like today -- it remains cool, wet and windy). There was a band playing, and the entire scene (known as "Off the Grid") was invigorating and rejuvenating. And Elliott definitely got into it:

So that was a very nice way to arrive and adjust, and take my mind a bit off the ride itself. I admit, I'm a tad nervous about my stamina and how little I have really trained! If you don't see a blog post tomorrow, it means there's an exhausted Roger flopped out in his tent!

Today, I went to pick up my rental bike and fine tune it for tomorrow. And by that I mean put on my own pedals and seat and swapped out the handlebar stem for one that is shorter and angled higher. I do the latter because I have long legs and a shorter torso, so my seat always needs to be set pretty darn high and, on road bikes, the handlebars then end up being too far away and too low. So I adjust it all as best I can.

The bike is pretty nice: a Cannondale with a carbon frame (I've never had one). I took it for about a 12 mile test run and mini-sight-seeing trip around SF, and it rode beautifully. It's much lighter and more responsive than anything I've been riding in NY. The only con is that the lowest gear on the bike is only a 34 front, 28 rear ratio, which makes me a little nervous for when we hit real hills (OK, San Francisco has real hills, but as you'll see from the route below, I managed to avoid the worst of them today). I'd rather have a 32 tooth gear in the rear, or something to make the ratio closer to 1 to 1 (i.e., one pedal stroke = one full wheel revolution). To be continued from the road, I guess....

Here's today's route, as well as a smattering of photos of and around this gorgeous coastline.

Tomorrow -- Climate Ride starts. We have about 150 riders in all, who have broken Climate Ride records by raising over $500,000 to date. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to it! Thanks to everyone for reading and for their donations.

LaGuardia and Citi Field

Today (Saturday) was a gorgeous day and screamed out for a training ride. Even to me. The only fly in the ointment is that it probably also screamed out as well to about 99% of the Manhattan population that owns a bike. No way was I going near the Greenway or Central Park if I could help it -- they would be way too crowded. I try my best save those locales for weekdays (the benefit of having your own business and a flexible schedule).

So I fell back today on an old favorite -- Queens. Yes, Queens. Really. It's amazingly nice, with a ton of bike paths and very little vehicular traffic -- either of the self-powered or gas engine kind.

Of course you do have to get there, which involves taking the aforementioned Central Park loop down to 59th Street and then going crosstown on 58th Street to pick up the Queensborough Bridge (yes, yes, I know, it's actually the Ed Koch Bridge these days, but I'm a hold out). The Bridge has a great pedestrian/bike path, which even has been repaved since last I traversed it. And, then, once out on the Queens side, you have a wide choice of bike paths on fairly untrafficked side streets.

The paths are not the segregated kind that we're now seeing in Manhattan, mostly just the painted lines on the street kind, but I actually kind of prefer these -- primarily because pedestrians are acclimated to them and don't habitually step in front of you without looking! And, I admit, I kind of feel guilty (although I really shouldn't) about a segregated bike lane, like the relatively new one on Columbus Avenue, taking away an entire lane of traffic. If any traffic planners are reading this, how about giving us a painted bike lane up Amsterdam Avenue?

Anyway, back to the training ride. I went as far out as Citi Field......

....and then swung by LaGuardia to watch the planes take off and land. I admit, I'm kind of like a 10-year old kid in this respect -- it just never gets old to see these huge mechanical behemoths float overhead on the way to landing. You need a wind out of the North for LaGuardia to have the landing pattern that takes the planes over my route, and I was desperately hoping that would be the case -- but, alas, it was mostly ESE, so no go. So I, and you my dear readers, must make do with my video from the last time I rode this route.....

 After LaGuardia, since I don't like to retrace my steps, as it were, I came back into Manhattan (or, more accurately, Ward's Island) via the RFK Bridge (that's a name I can accept, although Triborough still escapes my lips as well), where the view is quite spectacular from the elevated bike path...

Here, as always, are the route and metrics if anyone is interested in following this path themselves. Sheesh. It's only 12 days until I fly out to California. I'd better get back on my bike!

A Short Spin across the Top of Manhattan

Well, the forecasters were pretty accurate for once, and the past three days really weren't very conducive to riding, so I'm glad I pushed myself to ride this past Monday. Which is kind of the story for today (Friday). I sort of needed a push to get going today -- which, I'm worried, is becoming a recurring theme in my training efforts.

The sad truth is that it's much more fun actually to do a ride like Climate Ride than to do the training for it. The conundrum, however, is that without at least a modicum of training, Climate Ride becomes more difficult to do and, hence, less fun. Go figure.

The push to ride today came in the form of Laura's cousin once-removed (her father's brother's daughter's son, if you must know), Greg, who lives in our building with his wife Heather and two young boys. Greg is an excellent athlete and he emailed me this morning saying he wanted to get out on his bike for his first ride of the season. How could I say no?

However, as a concession to it being his first ride and my feeling less than energetic, we kept the ride short and simply looped over the top of Manhattan, across Dyckman street, taking the West Side Greenway North, and the East Side Greenway (yes, there actually is one up there) South. But to our surprise, when we got back down to our neighborhood, we were still raring to go, so we threw in a Central Park loop for good measure.

The total was 20 miles on the day (see below), which really isn't going to do the job, training-wise. But it was fun keeping it short and sweet, so some times you just have to balance competing interests!