muir woods

the air is becoming more crisp everyday, with overnight lows that hover around 45* (7*C).  I’m sure the temperature in other places in the world are much more severe, but for san francisco, that’s “cold”.  riding in the fall weather isn’t any more technical than any other time of year, however layering up is definitely helpful.  I put on my gore-tex paclite shell today, and to my surprise, it was the perfect barrier against the chilling wind.  my feet stayed toasty inside some windtex shoe covers – they’re definitely not waterproof, but against the wind, they’re perfect.

there were some cyclists out today, but only singles and doubles, all layered to their faces with various fleece and warmers.  I saw a road cyclist at the end of the bridge as I was heading out that looked awfully familiar…I think he was wearing a previous generation mashsf kit.  and then on my way through mill valley to get to 4 corners, several cyclists that also looked familiar caught up to me.  they kept going straight as I made a left, and I thought they would catch a later turn down into the residential road, but I never saw them behind me, or in front.  maybe they were just riding through mill valley, who knows.  it bothers me that I can’t pinpoint where I’ve seen them before.  oh well, considering they’re out on a brisk tuesday morning ride, chances are I’ll see them again on another morning.

the rest ride went well, there was a sharp bite of wind behind muir woods, but past that, the weather was sunny and a bit warmer.  I headed home with a big smile on my face.

enjoy the ride.

has it really been almost 2 weeks since I rode muir woods?  sure seems like it.  I actually rode the first half of it climbing up to the ranger station on sunday, but didn’t do the descent or the climb out of muir woods, so I guess it doesn’t count.  the southbound wind was strong again, which made for a grueling ride to say the least.  there was a low-laying fog that covered most of marin the entire duration of the ride, but it wasn’t cold.  it was thick and humid at some points, I thought the sky was going to start pouring rain soon.  but thankfully, it didn’t.

I had the road to myself for a majority of the ride, there weren’t too many cars or cyclists out.  I think I counted about 6 heading in my direction, and not too much more heading towards san francisco.  I do have to say that attempting to count the people I see on the road helps distract me from some of the more boring aspects of riding alone.  singing or humming songs also seems to help.  the hardest part for me is zoning out the pain, but still maintaining a keen eye on the road.  I wasn’t thinking about riding, while I was riding.  I was thinking about the food I was going to eat afterwards, how the rest of my day would pan out, and how nice it was to have the road to myself.  ah, riding!

on the backside of muir woods, heading towards mill valley, I saw two road guys ahead of me.  they were wearing bike nook kits, and I instantly remembered the conversation I overheard a few weeks back.  the “firemen, what do they do?” conversation that came from the bike nook crew.  they might’ve been joking, and I probably shouldn’t have listened in, but its affected how I see them now.  not in a good or bad way, it just makes me think back to that conversation they were having.  I passed these guys, said ‘hello’, and they said ‘hi’ back.  at least they were friendly.

hoping for no rain this weekend, but according to weather underground, it’s coming on sunday.  still not completely sure what I want to do tomorrow, I was thinking about doing bofax or alpine dam.  we’ll see how my legs feel tomorrow morning.

I hit up muir woods today, as a replacement for paradise loop.  they’ve been working on repaving the surface around paradise drive, so it would’ve been the same scraped asphalt ride as last week.  minus the rain, of course.  it was sunny out, but a bit windy.  on the backside of muir woods it was miserable, lots and lots of headwind coming from mill valley.  but at least it wasn’t wet out.

on my way back from muir woods, I spotted two guys on road bikes, both wearing backpacks.  they were heading towards sausalito from the bike path.  I was slowly catching up to them, when the guy in the back doing the drafting turned off.  when I came up to pass the guy in front, I’m pretty sure he thought I was the same guy that was drafting off of him, because he instantly jumped on my wheel.  and he stayed there.  for miles.  he rode on my wheel through downtown sausalito, along side the waterfront, on the initial climbs and the climbs up to the bridge, all the way across the bridge.  I really should’ve said something.  free rides aren’t cool, but who’s really benefiting from it in the end?  it sure isn’t him, he’s saving a ton of energy.  at least I got a good workout in.  a couple of points along the way, I heard him drop back a hair.  maybe it was because of that backpack he was wearing.  I should’ve dropped him…oh well.  it wasn’t worth the extra effort.

his isn’t a race, bro.  you’re commuting.  chill out.

spotted riders outbound: 9+ (I lost count, wasn’t paying attention…ha)

spotted inbound: 4