Coulda gone off-roading…
Sorry had a team ride today out to Tracy 
Would any East Bay folks like to ride a couple hours on the road this Sunday (13 Dec)? Maybe meet up at the Gateway Emergency Preparadness Center (aka the gazebo thing at the foot of the good part of Tunnel Road) around eleven, give Skyline-Redwood-Pinehurst a try?
If people are interested, I can coordinate a group text to keep everything on track (or road, as it is).
Dang, I’ll be in Santa Cruz this weekend. Any tarckers down there?
[quote=iwillbe]Would any East Bay folks like to ride a couple hours on the road this Sunday (13 Dec)? Maybe meet up at the Gateway Emergency Preparadness Center (aka the gazebo thing at the foot of the good part of Tunnel Road) around eleven, give Skyline-Redwood-Pinehurst a try?
If people are interested, I can coordinate a group text to keep everything on track (or road, as it is).[/quote]
Give it a try? Have you ever ridden Skyline-Redwood-Pinehurst?
Come on, don’t scare him. It’s a cool ride.
Well, cold more than cool. Wet too.
[quote=Face]Come on, don’t scare him. It’s a cool ride.
Well, cold more than cool. Wet too.[/quote]
That, and there’s the off-chance he (he?) drops off on Pinehurst off of Skyline, in which case, there’s a very strong likelihood of a crash, especially if it’s wet, which I imagine it will be.
Yeah, I’ve ridden it a few hundred times, and every time I go counterclockwise (?) and thus downhill on the main section of Pinehurst towards Canyon, I come in too hot off of Skyline. Every single time. I’ve never crashed, but inevitably its “crapcrapcrapokayoffcamberturnlineupthesupertightnextdrop” in the first 2.5 seconds of the road.
It’s not any worse in the wet unless there’s sharp shale gravel freshly deposited from little rockslides brought on by soggy dirt. Which, of course, there almost certainly will be, because it will have been raining. I’m really not selling this as a fun ride, am I?
Clockwise, you mean.
Just checking if you’ve ever done it before and yeah, I’ve have that same experience every single time coming off Skyline. It’s a bit better now that they’ve repaved it. There’s also two hairpins that’ll get you. The hairpin that gets the little rockslides and the next one under the tree that’s kind of muddy and damp even if it’s dry out.
I nearly took out a nice lady once in the first hairpin. She just kind of watched in awe as I locked everything up in an effort not to smash into her as she was riding uphill. She was very amiable about the whole situation.
speaking as someone who’s crashed on the second hairpin, it’s very painful and I have the scars to prove it. you don’t get penalized for going slow, take it easy out there tarckbros. 
fyi: I descend like a sack of potatoes, take what you will from it
The whole east side of that hill range has those perma-muddy turns wherever there’s a channel for water and some shade. Wildcat Canyon has two or three that stay damp through summer, which is just some serious nonsense.
I usually ride the Redwood-Pinehurst loop counterclockwise to get the long drop from JMP down to Redwood down to the start of Pinehurst. Not technical at all, just quick.
Speaking of a danger fun fusion, anyone wanna smang jmp dirt weeknights? I know a few groups that start around 8p, I’d like to head up tunnel from South Berkeley by 5:30 or 6
[quote=iwillbe]The whole east side of that hill range has those perma-muddy turns wherever there’s a channel for water and some shade. Wildcat Canyon has two or three that stay damp through summer, which is just some serious nonsense.
I usually ride the Redwood-Pinehurst loop counterclockwise to get the long drop from JMP down to Redwood down to the start of Pinehurst. Not technical at all, just quick.[/quote]
I used to hold the Strava record for the JMP descent. Then I moved and now live at the bottom of Redwood Road going the other direction. I’ve tried to get that record a couple times, which involves getting down from JMP as quickly as possible, nailing the right hander off of Skyline at something like 35MPH, and then springing really hard out of the turn until you spin followed by some hair-raising lane splitting.
I got close, once, but then I realized that I have a kid. That and it means fuckall, because I’m fat and I can’t actually climb for shit.
Oh man all this talk of Canyon/Pinehurst is getting me pumped for when I’m back in the Bay Dec 16-30. I’ll be on the Briones side of Lafayette (right by Oogens) but all my big days are out to Berkeley.
Gonna try and knock this guy out at some point: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/11434056
Oh man, tempted to join you, I need to work on my climbing
And I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that i’ll never hold a down hill KOM. I’m happy with top 25% though.
^ I’ll be working my way up to that. Most of my shorter rides are a couple laps of the 3 bears, either direction of Wildcat/Grizzly/Pinehurst/Canyon, or out to north gate Diablo. I’ll be trying to ride every day, taking the first few days easy then ramping up to 2hr/day avg.
Sun 20 (and 27 if people will be around) I’m planning on heading up to Winters for the Sunday Big Breakfast Rides - led by two of my friends who race for Airgas Safeway and Herbalife MPS, these are long steady state rides with a lot of climbing (from their email advert: "We are aiming for ~250W on flats and ~290W on climbs. No attacking). Route for the 20th is this, out Ink Grade: https://www.strava.com/routes/3706821
Two years back they would get up to 20 or so, last year I made the one right after xmas and there were 5 of us, the other 4 all P/1/2. If there’s a big group it’s doable to sit in and it’s like sitting in for a 4-5hr road race.
Holding the KOM for anything in the Bay Area is pretty impressive, hell, even being in the top 50% of riders who use Strava is pretty fast.
Semi-related: does anyone have recommendations for a good route north around the Berkeley hills? most of my rides out towards Martinez (starting in North Oakland / Berkeley) wind up taking Wildcat out and back, but I’ve been curious if taking Pinole Valley road / Appian way - San Pablo Dam is a fun alternative. Strava heatmap suggests that it’s popular, but most of my rides through the north end of the East Bay have been a mix of suburban streets with lots of stop signs or industrial access roads with lots of broken asphalt. I don’t mind climbing Wildcat when I can get out on a weekday, but on the weekends it’s pretty slammed with car traffic; if I’m going to do lots of miles on crowded roads, I’d rather they be fast and flat.
[quote=Roundabout]^ I’ll be working my way up to that. Most of my shorter rides are a couple laps of the 3 bears, either direction of Wildcat/Grizzly/Pinehurst/Canyon, or out to north gate Diablo. I’ll be trying to ride every day, taking the first few days easy then ramping up to 2hr/day avg.
Sun 20 (and 27 if people will be around) I’m planning on heading up to Winters for the Sunday Big Breakfast Rides - led by two of my friends who race for Airgas Safeway and Herbalife MPS, these are long steady state rides with a lot of climbing (from their email advert: "We are aiming for ~250W on flats and ~290W on climbs. No attacking). Route for the 20th is this, out Ink Grade: https://www.strava.com/routes/3706821
Two years back they would get up to 20 or so, last year I made the one right after xmas and there were 5 of us, the other 4 all P/1/2. If there’s a big group it’s doable to sit in and it’s like sitting in for a 4-5hr road race.[/quote]
Is that 250w on the front or 250w in the bunch? If the former, I may be interested, if I can make time for it. Latter would probably be a bit much for me for that sort of distance. I’m planning to do the coast ride this year so I want to get some longer rides in.
Any plans of riding anything on the peninsula? Getting out to the east bay, especially up towards oakland/berk, is a bit challenging with my work and errands schedule.
So here’s Strava data from one in 2013 with a big group (~15). I’m 74kg. Avg power 191, normalized 226, 223 TSS. https://www.strava.com/activities/97943603
And last year’s sufferfest. 211 avg, 240 normalized, 314 TSS. Admittedly we all tried to kill ourselves on this one, definitely would have gone easier had it not been just us good, fast friends. Still can’t believe we did a century with that much climbing so quickly. https://www.strava.com/activities/234034755/segments/5518933524
I would love to get out and do something Peninsula, I don’t know much of those routes but have done enough riding towards Pacifica/Pescadero to know I’d like to do more.
Okay, I had suggested an open meetup and ride tomorrow, Sunday 13 Dec at 11 am from the base of Tunnel Road (in Oakland / Berkeley). The weather forecast for there then is definitely rainy, with added bonus of 25mph winds (gusts at 50? really, weather dot com?). So that I didn’t put fenders on my spare bike for nothing (two years ago, at the start of the really bad part of the drought), I’m planning to ride unless the East Bay hills are literally underwater.
In the event that anyone, come ten am tomorrow, realizes that they are just altogether too warm and dry, and that their bike’s drivetrain doesn’t have enough grit packed into it, feel free to meet up, maybe pm me your phone number to facilitate doing so.