riding

content about riding

Sunday’s ride.

April 22, 2012 in riding | No comments

Look closely at the photo above.  Then look at this next photo:

That’s the remnants of the rear derailleur cable.  It sheered off at the head of the shifter.  Justin and I made it to the top of Camino Alto, and up until that point, things were going swell.  The weather was foggy/misty on the bridge, but sunny in Marin.  It was going to be a good day.  As I started the descent on Camino Alto, I shifted through some gears and plated myself in the drops for the short downhill ahead.  Suddenly, my rear derailleur slid itself all the way to the end of the cassette, the 11t.  I tried to shift it back up, but the shifter was slack, and the cable was dangling down the down tube and drive-side chain stay.  We pulled over at the bottom to inspect.  Sure enough, the head of the rear derailleur shifter cable, the one that has the metal ball at the end of it to prevent it from being sucked into the housing, had sheered off.  All that was left was a frayed end.

Short term relief, I was glad that it hadn’t happened to one of my brakes.  As a reminder, these are Gore Ride On full sealed cables – they’re installed on the brakes and derailleurs.  Looking back through the archives, it appears that I bought them in November 2011.  They’ve seen a handful of miles, but this isn’t the way I predicted things happening.  I was planning on getting all new cables and housings soon, but I guess it’ll be sooner than I thought.

We opted for half paradise.  I was stuck in the 11t cog, so needless to say, riding all the way back home was a bit of a pain.  It was practically a sprint interval on the slightest of gradients, which wasn’t ideal…but I made it back into the city, and Justin split at the bridge.  Since Freewheel is closed, I guess I’m either headed to Big Swingin’ Cycles or Pacific Bikes.  Or Mike’s Bikes…I want to get it fixed today so I can at least ride while I wait for Freewheel to open up on Tuesday.

Tags: , , , , ,

Saturday’s ride.

April 21, 2012 in riding | No comments

Something’s up with my rear derailleur.  I have no idea why it just completely lost its crispness overnight, but I guess I was due for some mechanical issues sooner or later.  I’m still running the same Gore housing I had the shop install from…I don’t even know when.  I stopped at the edge of the Golden Gate bridge to tighten up the barrel adjuster, which seemed to do the trick for a little while.  And then on Camino Alto it felt horrible again.  More on-the-fly adjustment made it feel a bit tighter, but the cable was probably in need of replacing.

Besides that, there were tons of people out, many of which were doing another AIDS LifeCycle group ride.  Others were in huge packs of Saturday morning group rides, many of which looked familiar – Mission Cycling, Dolce Vita, and some other ones I’m forgetting.  I’m glad to have made it back on the bridge before it became too crowded, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow.  Earlier leave time, longer ride, and more stellar weather, I’m predicting.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Friday’s ride.

April 20, 2012 in riding | No comments

Foggy mornings are the best.  No one’s out, the Golden Gate bridge is a little misty so you get a bit of water on your face to wake you up in the mornings.  And everything is this opaque white, the light is soft, and the clouds block out the sun momentarily.  Of course, in Marin, it’s sunny and clear almost 100% of the time.  Not always though, but I’m enjoying it while I can.

Interestingly enough, I hit every single red light today, which was a game killer.  Luckily, I caught a break when I made it ahead of the school buses, though one of them was very close to catching up.  It had to stop to pick up a bunch of kids though, so I gapped him a bit more before he turned off the road.  I’m a bit surprised I didn’t see anyone I knew for the last half of the week, but I’m pretty sure everyone is either a bit ahead of me, or farther behind.  Or doing other loops closer to the Headlands.  Either way, I’m excited to be heading into work – the design pod is going to the Academy of Sciences.  I haven’t been back since their recent renovation (like 3 years ago…), and prior to this, I hadn’t been there since I was about 10.  So many cool exhibits, I hope they stayed true to the awesomeness that is/was the Academy of Sciences.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Thursday’s ride.

April 19, 2012 in riding | No comments

More spring time weather is here.  Foggy mornings giving way to perfect weather in Marin, no wind, and barely any cyclists out.  The bridge is the best this time of year – there aren’t any huge crowds on summer vacation walking across (not yet at least), and just a handful of runners.  I even caught a break and saw no school buses today.  They must’ve been a minute ahead of schedule, because their bubbly parents were still talking it up at one of the stops.

I guess that was pretty much it.  I didn’t see anyone I knew out, but I did have a token random drafter guy for about a minute.  Unfortunately, he split off somewhere on the bike path, and soon, and I was alone again.  Now I’m off to work.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday’s ride.

April 18, 2012 in riding | 1 comment

The fog must’ve burned off because this morning, it was perfectly clear out.  A bit warm, too.  I think I was passed by 2 cars total on Camino Alto, and had the descent all to myself.  Then some crazy woman jumped into the street out of no where, but luckily was far enough away to not cause any problems.  There was no bus behind me, and barely any cars, so I have no idea what the hell she was thinking.  Anyway, I tailed the school bus as it made it’s way around Paradise Drive.  The driver ended up catching me on the descent towards the highway, and I caught a stellar draft even from 30ft back.  I don’t think I’ve seen 40mph in a while…it felt fast.

I didn’t see anyone I knew riding, but I’m sure some people were looping around just as I was heading out – hope everyone is enjoying this weather!  Hump day is here.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Tuesday’s ride.

April 17, 2012 in riding | 3 comments

This is the spring time weather I remember – semi-dark mornings with the sound of the fog horn humming from afar.  With spring break somewhere in the mix, weekends are bound to be more crowded than usual, but weekday mornings?  Quite the opposite, to say the least.  A bit misty, kind of wet, but perfect in every way.

By time I dropped into Marin, the asphalt was completely dry, and the wind was minimal.  I was jetting around and caught the school buses just as they were leaving for their next stop.  And then on the bike path back around, I saw Travis and Connor (BRITEsport) heading out for their ride.  Along Crissy fields, a car was pulling out from the parking lot – their dog’s face was hanging out of the window, smiling, looking right at me.  As I rode past, the dog’s smiling face kept following me and I just about busted up laughing.  Made my morning, for sure.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Sunday’s ride.

April 15, 2012 in riding | 4 comments

I’ll preface this report by saying I wasn’t actually planning on waking up really, really late this morning, but due to circumstances outside of my control, it was so.  I remembered that there had been talks about doing a group ride to Alpine Dam on SFFixed – I still had time to make it to the panhandle.  So, with that route in mind, I headed out, planning on hitting Paradise Loop on the way back, depending on how the riding was going.  I showed up to see a bunch of guys already at the bench – I’m not going to attempt to name everyone, since I only knew (left to right) Jim, Alex, Brandon (in the back), Nathan, Zach, and Ben.  No idea what the names of the other guys are…

A couple more people showed up, and soon, we were off towards the bridge.  The Golden Gate was packed, to say the least.  Somewhere along the way, I saw Rustie coming back from his ride, smiling in the slew of tourists and rent-a-bike cyclists.  Hope you had a good ride, good seeing you out!  It took basically forever to get across, but once we were, we dropped into Sausalito.  But not before passing the remnants of a bike crash, of sorts.  It was unclear what had happened, but there was a firetruck blocking the whole lane, protecting a tourist with their bike, ambulance, etc.  We rode together towards the fountain behind Mike’s Bikes and a new ride plan had been tossed into the mix.  Jeremiah, Zach, Ben, Brandon, and I opted to just ride Paradise Loop.  The pace we were keeping was a tad on the slow side, and I didn’t want to stay out too long.  Clearly, the empty Sunday mornings were long gone, and the sunny, path-jammed days of spring were now here.  I should’ve woken up earlier…

That being said, the 5 of us had a pretty stellar time just riding.  I hadn’t seen the upper part of my heart rate in such a long time, at one point after Tiburon, I thought I’d have to take a breather, or something.  But, that never happened, and shortly thereafter, we were back to the mess that was the bridge.  Short solution being, open up the west side walkway for the cyclists, but that’ll never happen.  Ben opted to take it easy out of Sausalito, and the 4 of us split at the edge of the bridge, San Francisco side.  Good seeing everyone out, I forgot how fun it was riding with other people.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Saturday’s ride.

April 14, 2012 in riding | No comments

After a rather rainy week, the weather cleared up yesterday, giving way to some of the best weather of the season.  Minimal wind, clear skies and an early morning sunrise.  Somewhere along the way, I also realized I should bring the bike back to have the wheels retensioned.  The bike felt a bit too plush, which wasn’t completely horrible on the bumpy sections of the bike path in Marin.  At least it shifts well, still.

As I made my way around Tiburon, I saw Connor (BRITEsport) out doing his ride around the half loop.  And shortly thereafter, I started seeing tons of people.  More than half of which were going to the AIDS Lifecycle group ride which was meeting behind the Mike’s Bikes at the edge of Sausalito.  At the edge of the Golden Gate bridge, a 20+ person group ride was flying off the path towards the highway.  2 breast with riders leaving no room on the edge of the highway – needless to say, I was yelling/slowing down to make myself known in front of the oblivious riders.  That was enough adventure for me today, though.  After hearing about that cyclist losing control of their bike and killing a pedestrian here in the city, I’d prefer to say safe.  Keep those eyes up!

Tags: , , , , ,

Monday’s ride.

April 9, 2012 in riding | 1 comment

Well, I forgot to take a picture of the conditions on today’s morning ride, but there’s a shot from yesterday of a guy painting Chinatown.  I shouldn’t say I forgot to take a picture, because in reality, I was caught up in a conversation with Matthew – member #350 on Stava, if you remember Wednesday’s ride, March 7th.  Anyway, I saw him swapping out a tube on his rear tire right near the highway off-ramp near the Golden Gate bridge.  He caught up shortly thereafter on the swing through Crissy fields and we started talking about the America’s Cup.  Apparently, Matthew is into sailing as well, so that made for a very informative conversation, to say the least.  Thanks for the info, September 2013 is going to be crazy here in the city!  The building I saw a couple days ago on the Embarcadero is completely torn down for the announcement/information booths for the race.  It’s going to be bringing a lot of much needed infrastructure changes into the city – better roads, more walking/riding paths, new street lights, etc.

Most informational morning ride, ever.  And with Marin kids off for spring break/Easter, roads were quiet the whole time.  Perfect!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Saturday’s ride.

April 7, 2012 in riding | No comments

It’s definitely spring.  I must’ve seen at least 200 riders on the way back home this morning, many of which seemed like they were doing AIDS Lifecycle group rides.  Luckily, I seemed to have avoided the worst of the crowd, which was nice.  Though there were a couple tight squeezes on the Golden Gate bridge with riders 2-3 abreast with runners/pedestrians hugging the rail.  But with the weather holding up, for the most part, I can see why a lot of people were out.  Clear skies, barely any wind, and stellar views from Marin were all I saw the entire ride.  I saw Marc, Fergus and a couple other Chica Sexy riders heading down into Sausalito as I was riding out.  And then shortly after, I saw Rustie riding across the bridge – good seeing you out!

Now I’m going to eat some food, do a ton of laundry, and hang out for the rest of the day.  Actually, I forgot I needed to swing by the shop to pick up some stuff, so maybe later I’ll do that…

Tags: , , , , ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »