I dunno to me there’s something about the combination of perfect weather, sunshine, lack of transit and often social services that some cities (Chicago, NYC, maybe Boston?) have, plus the more recent entrenchment there of settler colonial whites that makes me feel a little queasy. Oh and the tech industry up north & entertainment industry down south I guess. The logical end of the American dream as I’ve said to you before.
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Until all of the flooding started, I felt like this place was a bit removed from all of that. Now, especially with election season ramping up, not so much.
California is gross and I hate it.
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I went for a ride here is a video https://youtu.be/34ILWSH39xA?si=tHqUEcjWV2skFjEj
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Nice! I rode the C&O and GAP last summer and the “no turns” ease of navigation and lack of worrying about traffic that you mention really stood out to me.
It was also surprising to me how remote parts of the C&O feel.
I love the shot you got riding along the bottom of one of the aqueducts looking up at your buddy riding above on the tow path. I saw that and immediately said, “oh that’s great…why didn’t I think of that?”
I hope the condition of the porta-potties was better than it was when we rode the trail last summer.
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OT but Bay Area has pretty good transit, between Bart and Caltrain. Programs like medi-cal, PFL, etc. are funded well, like how they should be in populous rich states. The main problem is housing/homelessness followed by cost of living. Even their solution to homelessness is spending $3300/month per homeless person which is absurd (quick search Here’s an update LA’s Inside Safe homeless housing effort – NBC Los Angeles). The state has so much money because CA is rich AF
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Don’t know. My body is so efficient that I don’t use the bathroom anymore
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No bathrooms but you still use barns right?
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Having lived in DC for the past 12 years this really hit me during COVID/when I had kids. Or maybe it was the white house occupant from 2016-2020. Dunno.
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Wait till you check out the trails in Pacifica and Santa Cruz, some which are doable on a gravel bike
Less of a ride, more of a race. 2nd CX race with the Growtac levers. They went well. Glad I raced B as the skies opened up for the A race.
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Cool bike. Very Wisconsin.
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It’s a fun bike.
Went for a jaunt on the colorado trail and some nearby dirt roads. It looks way more epic than it was, because we only rode like 5 miles, but it was definitely really nice to be up at elevation and escape the heat.
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I went for a group ride. Maybe my first since baby #2 in Jan. Local guy scouted a bunch of access paths and powerline cuthroughs. Ended up being a lot of grass fields. But DC has virtually nothing inside the beltway that isn’t paved, so that was cool. All new stuff for the 20 or so of us that rode.
This is my only drop bar bike and it still felt dialed even after like 8 months of no riding, so that was neat. I tried to mount the Conti Terra Hardpack recommended by @endpointbraden but ran out of time before the ride. Lots of spots where my rear tire lost traction climbing lose stuff. Not sure if the tread would have helped, but it wouldn’t have hurt.
All I got was this crappy pic while I waited to start.
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