THE ANTI CINDERELLA SELF SUPPORTED CENTURY-2007

(Marchl 2007) The Anti-Cinderella Self Supported Century-98.55 miles, 6800' climbing. First 20 miles great Diablo Cyclist Club Ride over the Bears--the w/ Kitty & CA Mike up Tilden, along Skyline, Down into Redwood Regional Park, to Willow Park Golf Course, up Palomaras, to Sunol and back via Danville.15.0 mph, mostly bs'ing miles

First Big Mike and Joe kicking my butt on the Pigs and Bears ( I missed every move/ jump) while Big Chris instigating the attacks and then dropped off (but he did pull us to the foot of the Pig, so all is forgiven.)

Then CA Mike--eyeing his 400k brevet, wanted to put in some endurance work so we split from the group and climbed into Tilden, joined by 2005 doubles stage race winner Kitty. Great way to end a wonderful cycling month--weather sunny and almost perfect (another 10 degrees on the Berkeley side and maybe 5 more on the Contra Costa side.) Forgot how great Palomaras is to climb from the northern side--while I still go down hill slowly I remember how scared shitless I was the first time I went down the south side of Palomaras in 2003.

Kitty, who never hammers, hammered on Niles Canyon (uphill/ tailwind) as the road full of cars with very crappy shoulders freaked her out. But they do have a "share the road" sign--a planners way to spend $3 on making a route "safe" for bikes. Otherwise we just rode at the pace of the slowest person--following the old Nick Salvador rule I'd circled back downhill to redo part of a climb with the slowest rider instead of being anise at the top. A few years back a 100 self supported miles with 7,000' climbing would have been the hardest ride I'd do all year--now it was the easiest Saturday ride for the month of March.