Riding bikes. Riding bikes.
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I brought a little point& shoot along today, but the battery didn’t like the cold. I was going to do a half grav/half singletrack ride.
Never made it to the singletrack. I was going to need skis or a hambiek.
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big damn ride yesterday
retry of the ride three years ago that broke my bike - a 90 mile loop from north San Jose up to Summit Road and back again.
We started with 6 riders at the Barryessa BART, picked up two riders in Santa Clara, and then two more riders in Los Gatos - pretty good turnout! We lost one rider fairly quickly; I guess the group was just too slow for him. He took off up ahead climbing Old Santa Cruz Highway, and by the time the rest of us got to the Summit Store for lunch he’d been there for a while and was already getting antsy to keep moving. Down to 9.
(this is the second time this particular person has done this on one of our groups rides. dude, you know how fast (slow) we are, and that this is a social ride rather than a “lead a breakaway” ride, chill the fuck out or find a different group)
Joe mentioned offhand earlier in the day that it was his birthday this weekend so i bought a slice of cake at the store and we all had a forkfull.
Daniel has been up here more than me, he took a look at my route and suggested that after the lunch break we should climb up Loma Prieta Ave to Loma Prieta Way, rather than Highland Ave to Mt. Bache. Unknown to us, there was some construction at the top of LP Ave. The construction crew was nice enough to take a quick break and let the whole gang hike around.
Right after this photo was a sub-one-mile fairly shallow gravel descent back down to the top of Mt. Bache Rd. Most of us had a ton of fun, but Rory - a novice but strong rider, and a budding randonneur - had never really ridden on gravel before, and took two spills in under half a mile. Including an OTB crash, when in response to the rear wheel locking and skidding, he grabbed the front brake and locked the front wheel as well. Fortunately another rider was kind of pooped at this point, so both of them turned down Mt. Bache together to return on pavement back the way we came. This was probably for the best, Rory would NOT have enjoyed any of the gravel ahead.
Down to 7 riders.
Just past the turnoff towards the Loma Prieta peak, on this weird bit of moonscape pavement pocketed with potholes. I was grinning ear-to-ear through this whole section.
Fun will now commence
Historical “no bikes” and “private road” signs up on Summit Road with no legal force behind them
We had zero issues with the locals, even got a few friendly waves. The road is FANTASTIC, a real gem of a cycling route.
We also leapfrogged this guy on a motorcycle at least three times.
Exiting narnia on the other end
Every single one of us forgot to bring stickers but it’s good to see that someone already tagged the sign with a Paul sticker.
Ground score! Literally. We had to dig it out of the road. Yes I took it home.
At Mt. Madonna County Park we had another parting of the ways - one of our riders was on a one-way ride out to Monterey, while the rest of us were looping back home. Down to 6.
BQ-article-from-Japan moment descending Mt. Madonna Rd to the north.
saying hello to the free range chickens on Uvas Rd
Final parting of the ways - two riders back to Los Gatos, while the remaining four of us were heading north into San Jose
Sunset over The Cube
The C U B E
20+ mile slog back through San Jose was tiring but i got corndogs
Vincent was happy I was home
almost 12 hours door-to-door, hard to think of something that i’d have rather been doing
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I wanna be this guy when I’m 70
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i never got a good picture of it but his motorcycle was appropriately a weirdass semi-recumbent thing with sci-fi shaped hard saddlebags
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It’s an NM4. Never spotted one IRL but they look pretty wild:
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Went for a rare ride to the beach yesterday. In the space of a couple of km it goes from rugged cliffs to super calm bay. Was pretty nice apart from the headwind.
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haha yes! that’s definitely it.
what a weird machine, especially to find up on a gravel road deep in the santa cruz mountains
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Love that gif so much.
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And more (source of the gif I think…)
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Good reminder, I need to hit up the dumpsters in the new development by my place.
@capn_FANCYpants @EuroJorch what is the deal with the houses in arkansas? why do they all have such tall roofs? it looks like a ranch house that someone decapitated and stuck a normal house roof on. is there some purpose for this or is it just the regional style?
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