Summer's Almost Gone...It is....

Been kinda quiet for the last few months--its is "the end" of the season in a few regards. After the great self supported Sierra Century, most of our Club avoided the $$$$ mediocre rides offered at the end of the year--so we've been quietly winding down. And my youngest daughter moves to Southern California to go to school in a few weeks. I'm pulling old photos and scanning them for a digital frame, I'm amazed how much stuff I had forgotten and how time has gone by so quickly.

While we've given up real long rides the Club has done some good (mostly out of town) metrics. We did a Lexington Reservoir to Santa Cruz and back ride in October--after endlessly climbing a crappy road back towards Lexington Reservoir the road suddenly closes-barricaded and with "no trespassing--including bicycles, danger, danger, danger" signs. The prospect of going 15 miles downhill on cracked pavement and then going back and starting another climb along the road we took into Santa Cruz was a sucky prospect--luckily a mountain biker suddenly popped out from behind the "no trespassing" signs and said the road was only graveled/ sanded for 500' or so. So luckily after walking our bikes across the chewed up portion we could continue on and didn't add to our 75 mile course.

We went to Windsor--a nice downtown town in the middle of suburban hell and did part of the Santa Rosa Wine Country Century. Many of the regular roads are almost as bad as the one closed near Santa Cruz--but the lousy roads seemingly never bother the locals.

My favorite was one where we go up to Marin and hit Nicasio-Pt Reyes Station and Mt Tam, all bringing back great memories of the Mt. Tam Double--albeit putting on 8 pounds had me climbing like shit. We start from Kentfield instead of San Rafael so parts of the route were "a little different than normal for this metric. Nice warm day and enjoyed the handcrafter stout at the end of the ride--4th beer of the year.

Other weekends we hung close to town and did metric+ going to Calavaras, Palamaras or Altamont. So far real lucky, only one weekend day of riding rained out.

Even coming down Mt. Diablo on Thanksgiving morning (before the traditional meal of lasagna and potato pancakes) wasn't terribly cold--Ward, Professor Dave and I stayed together for the climb up--I had the bike stereo and "When the Music's Over" coming on by Juniper was perfect--and so was the "Robocop Theme" for the ramp.

Luckily Ward wasn't on the Santa Cruz ride--no doubt he would have gotten scores of incriminating photos of us climbing over the "road closed" barriers--with our buffs covering our faces. He did get the Windsor multicolor Snoopy joining us in front of the Adams Family vineyard. Earlier on the ride one of the locals wants to join our group, but we told him he'd have to give up cigarettes. A few weeks later Ward got a nice shot of me climbing above Stinson Beach. Lastly a photo from the archives--with my baby daughter on the Sacramento Bike trail years ago. She gave up cycling because a helmet messes up her hair.