Here’s early ‘word’ and some pics of the 3 big rides I did last weekend in the Bay Area with old pals. I haven’t ridden big heels in years and rarely fly but I’m glad I did this getaway. (Tickets from Chi to SF were only $80!) My flatlander pal and I gave 110% on these rides to keep up with our mountain-goat host, but it sure felt good! I’ll write a report, but for now I’ll let a few pics do the talking:
Ride One: 60 miles in East Napa where there weren’t any cars and the roads were tiny and twisty. We did an hour-long climb. Flowers everywhere. 5 hours. Yeah!
Ride Two: Up the east side of Mt. Tam from Fairfax. 45 miles. Glorious. Views of all bays and cities. 4 hours. –No pics! Someone locked key (and camera) in car… (Not me!)
Ride Three: Up Mt. Diablo with the Rivendell Bicycle Works crew and 30 new friends. 30 miles, 3 hours. The most beautiful bikes I’ve ever been on a ride with! (The people were stylin’ too!)
…Took two naps after that one. Then went and partied in SF! (Then got up at 5am and flew home. Whew!)
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The Big Trip Report
To travel or not to travel?
I just got back from my first big bike trip in ages. Actually, I’ve never done one like this. My longtime pal Chris is a busy guy. He got the idea to go visit our pal Randy in the Bay Area and do a few days of spectacular spring riding as a way to bounce back from winter and usher in a new riding season, and to hang out like we hadn’t done in years.
The plan was to do 3 big rides. The first day we’d ride all over the hills of Napa with another friend. The next day we’d meet Randy and ride Mt. Tam in Marin. The third day we’d do a group ride with Rivendell Bike Works people and friends up Mt. Diablo. Then we’d hang out for a day and go home.
A decade ago, before we had crazy jobs and kids, we three did a long weekend of XC skiing at Stokely. We hadn’t done a guy-trip together since. Good idea, Chris!
–Except I was swamped with getting my Catazeen to the printer and I didn’t know if the whole OYB thing was making it or not and darn I’ve flown twice in 20 years and darn I just hate crowds and steel sausages in the sky. But then a month ago it looked like I was sweeping in on my deadline nicely and Martha and I realized that our micro-press/art efforts were actually supporting our family and I decided to just think of a plane as being like a bus, so I said “Darn it, I’m in!” and bought tickets…about an hour before the cheap fares disappeared. Close call!
(Man, when you buy airfare out a few weeks it can be cheap! Chicago to Oakland: $80. The train from Lansing was also only $20 bought well out.)
On the road
The family was fine with me taking off for awhile, so I jumped that train for Chi. I got into town, caught an El to Midway Airport and met Chris at the gate with a minute to spare. He was a bit concerned. He also had changed his plans and cut his trip a day short and would skip the last group ride. I’d never been through a Post-9/11 airport before. It took 5 minutes. –I had a slight balk when the detector didn’t like my whisky flask. Are those legal? I was probably pushing it by bringing it. (As it was, I was constantly reaching for my missing clipknife on this trip.)
We had a perfect flight. Randy is so busy that he was out of town when we arrived so Chris and I had a nice sushi dinner down the street, enjoyed the warm weather and flowers, put our bikes together, and hit the hay.
A note on shipping bikes: airlines charge $80 each way I’m told. FedEx Ground is $35. So I sent my nice old red Bridgestone RB1 that way. On the last day possible. It arrived in the nick of time.
Day one: big Napa ride
The next morning we got rolling early, drove to Napa and found Randy and his wife. Then our riding host showed up in his Corvette. Mike is the father of an old friend of ours. He’s been riding and training for full-Ironmans for hours every day since retiring. He’s 66 and it was going to be fun seeing how bad he’d kick our butts.
Randy was busy for the day but would meet us the next day to ride Mt. Tam. Mike, Chris and I rode off into the lonely, gorgeous hills east of Napa.
It turns out that Mike grew up in a remote part of Napa, so we headed that way.
Just before the trip I caught a bad cold. Usually I’m floored by colds. “See? –This is why I don’t do vacations,” I told Martha. I had no idea what would happen when I started riding. I’d never pushed it hard with a cold. I’d never been able to. I was ready to call it a day if the bottom hit me after 10 minutes of effort like it usually did. I could sit and enjoy the view or go find a bookstore. Well, my throat was harsh but otherwise I was fine! Another bullet dodged!
After a half hour of hard, fast climbing a glitch in my bike-assembly became apparent. I didn’t throw a socket wrench in my bike box when I shipped it, thinking Randy would have plenty of tools, being Mr. DIY. Well, I couldn’t find his sockets and he wasn’t home so I couldn’t install my cranks tightly. I got them on OK, so they had no slop, and thought I’d tighten them more at a bike shop before riding. With the day rolling so fast we forgot about the cranks til we were riding. Gulp. I hoped for luck. That first half hour of climbing said there’d be no luck as the cranks started creaking badly…and falling off. Before we left Mike had said there were no stores in these hills. Gulp. Hardly any cars passed us. We didn’t even see vineyards. But Mike said a vineyard was down the road a ways. Sure enough, and it had a shop. A guy said Sure, fix your bike. I quickly cobbled 3 tools into the exact tool that would do the job and we were rolling in a few minutes. Whew! Yet another close call.
So we rode up and up for HOURS. Mike had said that at the top we could see how we felt and return to the car if we wanted but that he wanted to go farther. Fine by us. At the top it turned out there was nothing we’d rather do than keep riding so we did. He had ideas of places to explore. We rode out to the old abandoned Aetna Springs Resort through field after field of wildflowers. Mike said he’d never seen it so lush. In another month it would be brown. For now, though, it was heaven everywhere we looked across rolling hills or down to lakes and tumbling streams. Then Mike suggested another detour. He was good! He kept saying “It’s only another 3-4 miles…” And we kept hankering for more. So we did Ink Grade. Chris said Mike’s son told him “Watch out if Dad suggests Ink Grade.” It was a lovely 10-foot-wide road, like in France, shaded by live oaks and flowers. And it went winding up steeply for an hour more. Oh yeah! We ate it up. We rode at our limits and beyond. (I noticed that Mike was hardly breathing.)
Chris and I had only been riding bikes again for a few weeks since the snow melted. And for a half hour at a time. On flat ground. But we were psyched! And, yes, Mike kicked our butts at will. He had a 15-lb carbon bike and left us when he pleased. But we always came scrapping back. Chris has a very good spin and goes best that way. I can’t move my feet fast until I’m fit, so when I spin an easy gear I go slower. I found that I could go best, and sometimes leave the others behind, if I used my big chainring on the shorter climbs. Crazy, but it resulted in a gear that was manageable and fast.
After 5-6 hours of riding we plummeted through moist, shady Redwood valleys and found ourselves back at the cars and headed off to spend the night at Mike’s in Inverness before meeting Randy at Mt. Tam. Mike drove back early but said “Don’t eat too much, there’s dinner waiting.” Ha! We immediately gorged on big sandwiches and shakes then drove a gorgeous winding road that finished with a tiny driveway pointing straight into the sky that led to Mike’s ridgetop home.
Home on the ridgetop
Their place is a rambling oldish wood-shake cabiny house that fit in perfectly with the ridge and had a view of a bay below, with basically no other houses in sight. It was as beautiful as the ride we just went on. I was feeling a little taken away. We slept with a view of the stars. When we woke we felt as limber and spry as, well, 66-year-olds! Actually, we felt fine. I know that I did for sure. Ready for more!
I dialed in my bike further with Mike’s few tools and we headed out again. I’d dodged yet more bullets by having a great ride yesterday: on a new bike with new shoes! Two easy places for disaster. In fact, the clipless pedals were acting up badly with the shoes but I squeaked by.
Another challenge was with the clothes, food and water. Chris and I aren’t mountain people. What to wear? To eat? I’m not used to riding for hours straight. I’d only brought one duffle as airline carry-on, same for Chris. Our trip was rolling so fast there was no time to stop and shop. Thankfully, we brought enough food bars and energy-gels, and also that they worked good. Getting prepared for a light-load, super-intense, yet fast-acting trip like this was quite a challenge, not having done anything like it before. When I go away for weekends I usually load up a whole car with junk.
Day two: big ride up Mt. Tam
We met Randy (and his nice M3 convertible) in Fairfax, parked, watched several turkeys cross the road, then checked out his bike. He borrowed it from his brother and had been riding for a few weeks on their flat Alameda island streets. But he’d been swimming hard and often all winter before work, so he was in fair shape. His bike was old but in mint condition. We did have to raise the seat an inch right away so it fit him. It still had one big problem: its lowest gear was still for racy purposes: 42×24. I tried riding that same gear on a supersteep Flagstaff mountain in Boulder a couple years ago and had to walk sometimes and also experienced the greatest suffering ever. I didn’t tell Randy this. He would’ve been much better served with a 40×30 like I had, or something even easier. We decided that we’d just see how he did and whenever he’d had enough he’d take a break, sightsee or turn back. We’d be returning the way we went anyway and so could easily find him. The first rise of the long day found Randy in his first gear. But he was game and trying to figure out how to ride right. We gave him advice on relaxing and avoiding strain. He did fine! We powered through the lower neighborhoods up the mountain.
These little Bay Area mountain towns seem totally dandy. Lots of nice, small shops. However, each civic area also seems to have a hideous, full-on mini-mall section of bumper-to-bumper traffic and sun-soaked blinding pavement. Overall there are enough close-in, homemade, ramshackley neighborhoods and old town centers to give the whole Bay Area a great feel wherever we went. Lots of bikes and dogs, with small boats by the water. Shady grocery stores with old wood floors. Ah, yes!
I was feeling stronger than yesterday, but everyone was going good. We had a blast on the twisting downhills between ridges as we got closer to the main mountain. After a rest at the first hour Randy took off ahead of us. It took us a long time to reel him back in. At another break spot Mike said we’d done half of the work but in a few minutes we would get nearly all of the payoff. We then rode up and out of the forest and into high rolling vistas which showed us crashing surf and blue water in fine detail miles below. Then soon enough we popped into view of the whole Bay Area cities and bridges sparking in the blue, miles away. It was breath-taking. Flowers and rolling green grass, a swooping perfect road, and views of Paradise on every side as we closed in on the peak of Mt. Tam. (This is apparently where many car commercials are filmed.)
Randy had enough before the last big, long, steep push and headed back down to the cars. He did extra-super for a beginner with the wrong gear. I then rode up alongside Chris, looked at him, threw my chain into the big ring and took off. Yeah, I gave him “The Look”! That was funny. We were clowning around, just having the greatest ride. A Porsche came swooping at us through a twisty rocky section a half mile of blue sky away and that sparked us into race mode for the last miles. Chris kept catching up to me and passing. I called him The Punisher. Then I’d pass him back with another “Lance Look.” It was rolling with ups and downs as we jammed along the twisting ridge. It seemed like we were going car-speed even on the flat sections sometimes. Mike caught us at the top. Then we bombed and swooped for over an hour all the way back down. The corners in the deep, shady Redwoods were often steeply banked and tight—I’d just dive right through them, full tilt.
We don’t have photos of that glorious old-pals ride because someone locked the keys in the car along with the cameras. But we were at fault for having to keep unlocking the car repeatedly for forgotten items. It’s hard when you’re new at this stuff! We were all swiftly rescued by a patient wife.
So after 4 hours of glorious riding, we said goodbye to Mike and zoomed off to the freeways and an Oakland A’s game in the big city. What a change! I was nearly overwhelmed. First by the beauty and neighborliness. Now by the crushing mayhem. But a neat thing was that all the various area stadiums are only 10 minutes from Randy’s quiet little neighborhood, so there was still a calm in the storm. Their school had a fundraiser with tickets that night so the section we sat in was full of people Randy’s family knew. There were kids everywhere and nice people to meet. So it was like a picnic outing after all. Especially since Randy’s wife brought a hamper of homecooked dinner!
Day three: group ride up Mt. Diablo
The next morning I hopped a BART to Walnut Creek to go on the Rivendell group ride up Mt. Diablo. Chris hung out with Randy before going back early to the airport, also only 10 minutes away. Rivendell is opening a retail store so this was part of their Grand Opening. It was great to see all their gorgeous bikes and to buy a few goodies. Then riders started showing up with more and more bikes that were the prettiest I’d ever seen. Then we took off for the mountain.
Man, what a ride! I’d never ridden around so many gorgeous bikes. The people were totally nice, too. About 30 of us went. I’d ride along, visiting. Then the hill got really steep for a long time. (This is also a road that many car commercials are filmed on.) Rivendell advocates a spirit of riding to enjoy life rather than to just ride hard so I had mixed feelings about wanting to just hammer as hard as I could again. I love going hard up hills! I don’t know why. But it occurred to me that I was tired the night before and that it might be nice to spend time with friends and be chipper, too. So I just had an enjoyable ride up the hill! It was dandy. I still went 100%, just not 110%.
(Actually, I don’t know why I love riding in a smooth, flowing way up a hill more than riding smoothly anywhere else. I suppose that after one does it a hundred times it becomes like riding anywhere else, so why the fuss. Novelty really doesn’t have a value, does it. If you have a good strength/weight ratio going up fast isn’t that hard. Is ‘hardness’ a value? Is ‘fast’ a value? They seem a bit relative to me. My instinct was that it would be better to live in the hills so that I could get so I could ride up the hills really easily. Then what? So I could do a tour? I can tour on the flats, too. So I can win a race? Which one? If you win one and look at the next level up you’re off the back again. Unless you win until you’re world champ, and then it’s only a matter of time. Time, time… I suppose it all relates to some very thin illusion of cheating time. Or, as my teachers say, speed gives us the illusion that we’re changing or growing.)
We all met up at the top and visited and tried bikes. There were another few really steep miles to the very top but the ride leader said we’d be on our own, and again I thought, Why go to the max? So I just hung with the main group and cruised back down the hill. I did get a chance to let it hang out on the descent more than before so that was a smooth thrill. Then we regrouped again and toodled back to town, after a perfect 3-hour ride. We had a picnic at the shop, I swooned over more bikes, test-rode a few and visited. It was nice saying Hi to people I’d only met on the Internet. One guy mentioned liking a bluegrass music depiction he’d read on my website. That was nice. Several people said “Oh YOU’RE that guy!” Then I took the BART back again. Randy said they’d pick me up in Oakland, but I made my own way through the tunnel to Alameda and rode up to their house. That was nice. No car assist, no hassle, fast. (I then showered and zipped over to Stone’s bike shop, but, rats, they’d just closed and wouldn’t open for 2 days. I window-peeped and saw many gorgeous bikes. It’s a famous old retro-style shop.)
Winding down with a little partying
Then I took two naps, one before and after dinner. Then Randy phoned a neighbor and I heard him say “Yeah, let’s go to pinball.” So we met up and went to downtown Alameda, a mile away, to a guy’s shop. He’s sitting outside in the warm night in a folding chair and people are filing in to play his dozens of perfectly restored classic pinball games. He’s a leading pinball guru. Donations accepted. I gladly donated and joined the fun. He’s also a rare-rock DJ. The place had a super soundtrack. And there’s a fridge for your beers. What a gas!
The next day Randy is getting some family time, so I box my bike and call for a pickup. He then drives me into The City and drops me off at another old pal’s for partying and dinner. My only goal is to explore stairways. David has about a half mile of lovely, gardeny, shady, twisty, quiet stairways right near his house. Heaven! We stroll and chat away on the stairs, with mixed drinks in hand. Then we hit the Mission scene for a super, fancy dinner. Then I catch the BART back just in time to get a decent bedtime.
Home again
Because then I’m up at 5am and off to the airport. And before I know it, I’m off the plane and back on the train rolling home. Of course I also catch the train with just a minute to spare. Then we’re rolling past apple trees bursting in bloom. (Which reminds me, I have to spray mine!) Then it’s home-sweet-home. Home never seemed so nice, so cozy. Our kiddy kids are snoozing. Pajama wife is waiting. The airplanes worked! My body worked! We rode through fields of flowers! I saw the surf, the mountaintops, and had 3 great rides with great friends.
A dozen more pics for those who didn’t get enough:
