Saturday, February 24, 2018

Cambria with hill and headwind

Our good friend Glenn (at least he was...) suggested the during our trip to Cambria we ride up Santa Rosa Creek road. It was beautiful, and away from auto traffic. But Glenn failed to mention that there are sections over 20%. Holy smokes. It was so uphill that in spots I didn't think I could get another pedal crank in. But Tricia and I made it, and it was wonderful.


I'm about 50 yards ahead of Tricia, and look how far below me she is.
That little sliver of blue on the left is the ocean!

The downhill afterward was wonderful. We ended up in descending into Cayucos and looked forward to riding up Highway 1 along the ocean back to Camberia. Alas, there was a huge headwind that made our 14 mile-ish ride back take forever. Maybe even longer. But at least it was cold as well.

For me, one exciting feature is that I made my Strava Climbing Challenge or 7500 meters.  Yep, a website made up a random number and then awarded me pixels Yet I'm thrilled. Pavlov in action I guess.

BONUS HOTEL ROOM PHOTO 

A post shared by curtis corlew (@cccorlew) on


Monday, February 19, 2018

Tiny bicycle planet, tiny bike lane


I gave my  photo class a panorama assignment, and just for fun we used them to make "tiny planets." I figured I should make one too, so here's Tricia on her own tiny planet.
Ad long as we're talking tiny, how about a bike lane so tine that the word "bike" doesn't fit. It's a "lan" Go Antioch!

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Old La Honda Road Tunitas Creek loop


Thanks to Glenn, Dan and Steve, Tricia and I got to ride a classic Bay Area loop this weekend. Not only was there an ocean view, there were redwoods, narrow roads and climbing. Lots of climbing. 5800 feet in 52 miles, which is pretty epic for us this early in the year.

I have video, but I realized after I shot it that a front mounted camera gives good butt shots of my fellow riders and not much else. So, no video.

I also had reinforced the idea that the more climbing there is the fewer photos I shoot. Plus, gloves and my iPhone don't play well together. Hence, guest photographers are saving the day.

Once again, Glenn was too fast to show up in any photos. Except when he hung back to climb the steep parts of Tunitas Creek with us. But then I was too busy not falling over to drag out my camera and shoot him. Next time, I promise. I'm going to have to make some special device to capture him.

Dan, suitably heroic. Photo by Steve.

Steve at the Bicycle hut on Tunitas Creek before the climb.
Tricia and Curtis slog up Tunitas Creek Road. Photo by Glenn


Curtis and Dan roll toward Pescadero and the Ocean. Photo by Glenn

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Morgan Territory Road — Both sides

Mr. Lance Oldstrong sent me a text inviting me to climb Morgan Territory Road with him, Steve and Glenn. Then, after we climbed it, to turn around and climb back. Morgan Territory Road is a classic East Bay ride, but is generally done as a loop, climbing from the North side, descending the "plunge" and circling back through Danville or climbing Diablo.

Coming back over it is not unheard of, but not as much of a "thing." And there's a good reason. The road up is silly steep, and one lane. The descent is a really crappy road that you don't notice climbing, but really do on the way down.  On the plus side, at least it was also very windy and the sun disappeared behind the clouds.  Still, a delightful time was had, though I'm not completely sure why. Must have been the company.

We ended up with 4882 feet of climbing and 62 miles. I ended up with my highest Strava "suffer score" in ages.
I wore my very-swell East Bay Regional Parks jersey because we'd be getting water at the Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, an East Bay Parks site.

I'm a member of a Facebook group — Look at my bike leaning on stuff — where recently someone asked for photos of the car your bike leans on. I managed to stop on the way to this ride to shoot this. Yep. That's a car photo on my bike blog. At least there's a bike too.

Sunday, February 04, 2018

Great ride except for one jerk

Tricia and I had a wonderful ride up Pig Farm and out the Three Bears. We had great weather and a delightful day. We even discovered a new-to-us bike shop with a great jersey and swell folks in Pleasant Hill: Frame Up Bikes.

But there was a pimple on the day: A jerkwad driver near the Lafayette BART station who apparently doesn't need to yield on his right turns. At least Tricia was on it and managed to swing left. Didn't bother him at all. He did at least pause long enough to respond to Tricia's shout of "You're supposed to yield!" with a loud "F*#K off." For those keeping score at home, that's black Jeep Grand Cherokee plate 6 SQY 228.