California Ridn, Part Deux

Work in Sacramento area was combined with a re-visit to San Fransisco on bike and a club ride in the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada's. After returning home from Reno when I combined the Western Dairy Conference with some great snowboarding in the Tahoe area, I returned home expecting to get some road riding in to prepare for the upcoming Battenkill-Rubaix. However, the winter would not quit and the work piled-up, so bike riding was limited. I did get in some great season-ending runs in at Killington, enjoying the soft bump riding on the deep powder.

At first Russ and I planned on doing some skiing/snowboarding on the weekend before our week of seeing farms and working with the Pac Coast consultants. However, I saw how little snow they had in Tahoe and decided we would bike instead. We rented Trek 1500's from a huge bike store in Folsum, CA which is at the heart of the American River trail system. There were plenty of bikes available - these cost only $20/day. We got up Sunday morning and took the bikes to Sausillito near where I had stayed last year during the Tour of California trip. We rode in over the Golden Gate bridge on a crystal clear, windy, but not too cool day. Russ did not pack a wind jacket so he suffered some going into SF, but when we got to Fisherman's Wharf he bought a tourist jacket for the return trip. After about 4 hours we returned to the car and toured the Presideo by car and then had dinner at a restaurant overlooking SF Bay as the moon rose, the sun set and the lights came on in the city (Otis Redding and Journey songs came to mind).

Monday we worked with Joey and returned back to our Stockton hotel in time to take the bikes out again on the local trail system. This was fine for a spin until we hit the poorer section of town. The glass in the bike path made flatting an inevitable risk, so we turn around before we got to the end. In all a little over an hour ride.

I searched the Internet for local club rides and could only find morning rides during the week. I did not give up easily, however. Going through the usual password / user name nightmare of joining Yahoo Groups in order to get into the Stockton Bicycle Club message board to search for any chatter about routes that I could locate on Mapoint. About 20 messages down I see "New Tuesday Evening Ride" posted. After reading the announcement, it appeared that I had my ride! It started from Valley Springs, which I knew would only be about 20 miles from where we would be at the end of the day. So, we dropped our car with the bikes at Farmingdale and then picked it up at the end of the day. We had a great day of farm visits with Joey. Then it was off to the ride. Joey and Russ decided to golf. We found the start of my ride and the golf course was right next door.

After resting for about 45 minutes, the first riders arrived in the parking lot. We chatted as we geared up and before long the others arrived. In all about 7 riders headed out on a moderate hilly ride in the beautiful area around Valley Springs. We rode about 25 miles in all with great views and a curvy descent that got interrupted slightly by a group of turkeys. At one point the ride leader and I were at the front when a Jack Rabbit darted out in front of us. He said it was rare to see them in the non-roadkill state. As usual, the group was extremely friendly and inquisitive about the riding back here in NY. I found Russ and Joey just as they were finishing up and we headed back to Stockton.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful riding-wise. I did have to get a Turlock Plant shop guy to use a pipe wrench with a cheater bar to get my right Speedplay pedal off so we could have the bikes returned by Shelly on Friday. When I left the message about needing the bikes returned for us, she thought that "Kurt Russel" left the message, according to Rob. At first she was excited, then she realized this was a chore and Rob reminder her that he has to deal with this stuff the other 51 weeks out of the year.

We had a decent flight back, but when we returned to Albany the weather was still winter-like. Going from a week of 50-low, 75-high, no precipitation to snow, wind and 20-low, 40-high weather was not pleasant. On Saturday Donna and I took Alix to the airport to go to Ohio for the week. I picked up the CX wheel I needed to get spokes replaced on at Saratoga Bike and Board and later in the afternoon went on a hill-climbing 28 miler over some of the B-R course. I stayed pretty warm for most of the 1:30 ride, until the very end when the feet started to numb up. Hopefully my fitness and the weather will be suitable for the race next Saturday.