paradise loop

Another slightly foggy morning out in Marin.  The clouds lifted as I dropped into Sausalito, and the weather was fantastic the entire time after the Golden Gate bridge.  I caught up to the school buses once again, which was untimely, but one of them dropped the flashing red lights as it was about to merge back onto the roadway, so I took my opportunity, knowing he’d have to stop again up ahead.  Timing is everything.  Especially when it comes to these school buses.

So after a rather quiet ride back through to the bike path, I snagged another opportunity to hit a light, and found myself riding back towards Sausalito.  I passed a woman riding a Trek road bike (or at least I thought it was a Trek), arm warmers slightly bunched down her arm, but not all the way to her wrists, and what appeared to be an 11-23t cassette.  Not even a minute after I passed her, she stomped her pedals past me as I looked on, baffled.  She continued to tear through the bike path, passing basically everyone heading in the same direction we were going.  I saw the BRITEsport boys heading out for their ride in the middle of it, too.  I arrive at the light, crossed the street, and tapped the pedestrian walking button – meanwhile, she was in the left turn pocket, waiting in front of a car.  The light turns green, and since I’m closer to the lane we’re riding towards, I reluctantly go ahead.  As soon as the slender rolling hill came, she flew by me once more, and continued to pass commuters all the way back to the bridge.  I wouldn’t have been so amazed, but she actually had a decent spin – her knees weren’t swimming out of her saddle, 65rpm style.  Kudos to you, token random decent cycling woman.

After having a rather lazy Sunday, I found myself eager to wake up this morning to ride.  I woke up at around 3am thinking it was time to get ready, and then again at 4am, itching for my alarm to go off.  And of course, all the times I found myself lying awake for a minute or so, I kept thinking, “Wow, I’ll be tired when I actually have to wake up.”  Disrupted sleep cycles are a bit of a downer, but I was lucky to have woken up feeling decent.  I had completely forgotten that the Bay to Breakers running race was yesterday too, so to see basically zero people out in the morning kind of made sense.  Though I did start seeing more people as the morning grew late, but not nearly the amounts of people I usually see.  Maybe it was that fantastic weather I’ve grown to love.  The slightly damp bridge, the thin, cooling layer of mist on everything, the droplets that form across the lenses, that peel streaks across your face, and the smell of wind.  Perfect weather.

I’ll cut to the highlight of my ride, since the majority of it was pretty boring and normal.  On my way back towards my house, I saw a guy waiting at a light in front of me.  CAAD8 (or possibly an Optimo), raw – guy was wearing a purple/white kit, backpack, probably commuting to work.  Yahoo?  No, but something just as cool: Cycling News.  I was baffled and mesmerized.  How/where…?  I must find out more…

Monday.  Yes.

With the weather getting warmer again, there are noticeably more people out and about.  They’re tearing up more portions of the Marina, again, making way for more walkways and sidewalk entrances.  As I was heading towards the bridge, there were about 5 guys standing near the start of the Golden Gate bridge in white jumpsuits, again.  More than the 2 I saw earlier this week, but still odd.  They had some signs and a box of flyers, but I guess they weren’t too keen on passing more stuff out, because as I rode by, they seemed surprised and unprepared.  On the plus side, I didn’t see them on the way back, so I’m assuming either some bridge police told them to get lost, or they didn’t see many people out.

Either way, as I made my way around Tiburon, I heard the labored breath of a cyclist behind me.  A couple seconds later, he came up right beside me and said, “Hey, I’m on your wheel.”  I looked at him and said, “Cool story, bro.  Good morning to you as well.”  Guy was in a Divine Electric kit, up positioned stem, and some other trinkets.  He dropped back for a second, and caught back up, somewhere in the next few miles.  I slowed through a turn and he made his move around me.  Hey, I’m not on your wheel.

The rest of the ride was fairly lackluster since I didn’t see anyone I knew, or have any amazing Friday moments.  Enjoy your day!

Barely any wind meant that the whole ride seemed to go by in a flash.  For the first time in months, I actually beat the school buses around Tiburon as they were making their initial stops on Paradise drive.  Oh, and of course, my story telling ability is all backwards…prior to this, I was descending Camino Alto and saw a deer in the middle of two lanes, just standing there.  There was enough space to pass behind in, and it was actually facing in the direction of cars coming up the road.  Hopefully no cars or cyclists had any trouble avoiding the deer…I’m glad it was clear from the other lane.

So after that, my derailleurs started feeling a bit…loose.  The front derailleur began throwing chains under the chain-catcher which confused the hell out of me.  I stopped at one of the lights to fiddle with it, and getting it back on by hand wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.  It dropped a couple more times after that, but I was able to coax the chain back onto the ring with the front derailleur, oddly enough.  I guess I’m a bit overdue for some mechanicals, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon.  Time to set up an appointment at the shop.

Oh, and shout out to Travis, who I saw rolling through Sausalito as I was coming back towards the city.  And to Percy, who now appears to be riding for Webcor?  Congrats!  Hopefully, I’ll see you out racing soon!

With the majority of the learning curve over, I’m able to safety say I can walk straight now.  Running stairs with my co-worker has proved to be a challenging task, and with her planned schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday stair sessions starting this week, it’ll start benefiting my riding.  There’s definitely a lot more coordination that goes into stairs than just running flatland, but it’s fun to mix it up.  Anyway, I figured a morning ride was in order.

Nothing notable happened until the ride back towards the city, starting from the bike path in Mill Valley.  A Gary Fisher 29er commuter was chilling at the light across from me, and I was in the left turn pocket, waiting for the light to change.  As the path started, he jumped behind me and stayed put in my “draft”, though I don’t quite know how much energy it was saving him, considering he was 6ft tall riding the bike with a stack of spacers, an upright stem, risers, and a backpack.  Either way, I pressed on, just riding towards the city.  My most successful token random drafter guy to date, though.  He followed me to the edge of the climb leading out of Sausalito, and said, “Thanks for the tow, I appreciate it,” which I thought was pretty nice.  Most guys would ride right past you at that point.  And just as I thought he was going to drop back, I think he came to the realization that I was spinning towards the bridge, he latched back on.  He dropped back once, more, and as I took the photo above, he was no where to be found.  But as luck would have it, I slowed because the construction workers on the bridge were trying to figure out how to back up 2 mini-trucks at the same time, and he caught back up.  So he stayed on my rear wheel through Crissy, the entire duration of the Marina Greens, and even up to the start of Van Ness as I rode towards Columbus.  He turned down on Bay, I think…

Nothing like some 29er action on a Tuesday morning!

Firstly, big thanks to Travis for truing my wheels yesterday night.  I left work a bit earlier to take the wheels to the shop so Dustin could work on them first thing today, but Travis was nice enough to just give them a glance while I waited.  With both wheels perfectly true, I rolled out this morning and noticed the difference immediately, mostly on the rear wheel.  It could’ve been the combination of shoddy front tire pressure yesterday, but whatever it was, the bike rolled smooth.  And then I saw the same skunk in the same spot this morning while cutting through Fort Mason.  If the guy (or girl) is going to keep running across the path to collect stuff for its nest, I’m going to have to find a different route to get to the Marina.  It’s sketchy…and I don’t want to smell for days and days.

I guess it was a bit more quiet than usual, and though I found myself ahead of the school buses, one caught up to me from behind, which was a first.  One thing about school bus drivers in Marin though, they wait until the path is clear before attempting to pass, and they always leave at least 4ft+ when doing it.  After all, safety first.  The legs felt more or less like jello the entire ride, mostly because I ran some stairs with my co-worker yesterday.  Good way to opening up the lungs, that’s for sure.  And it breaks the seemingly endless cycle of work, so thus far, it seems to be a great routine.  Oh, and shout out to Percy, who was at the edge of the bridge as I was coming back in.  Hope you had a good ride!

Good stuff, Wednesday.