Tour of Vacaville

Tricia and I went to Vacaville to ride with a bunch of folks I talk to on the NorCal forums of Bikeforums.net. The weather was grand, the 40 mile route up toward Winters had few cars or stop lights but did have smooth roads. But best of all was meeting a bunch of really nice people. I haven't ridden in a pace line in ages, and it was a ball to be flying at over 20 a lot of the time. My average was 17. Not bad considering for a lot of the ride I was just... riding.
We stopped at Precision Bikes on the way home and didn't buy the Orbea Orca and Diva on sale, even though we were assured there would be a price break if we bought both. Maybe in the next lifetime, or after we win the lotto.

New cables

After I broke a spoke on the rear wheel on my commuter bike I figured when I had that fixed I'd get new shifter cables as well. I had some Jagwire cables and was just too worried to install them myself. I had the The Wheel Peddler do it. After watching I'm glad I did. It seems they're a bit different than the 1975 version I'd last installed. They're Teflon and have some sort of magic sleeve and weird ferrels.
The upside is my bike shifts better than it has in years.

Riverbank Cheese and Wine Ride

Tricia and I did the Riverbank Cheese and Wine ride on Oct 14. Sixty miles of Northern California fun. Cows, goats, horses, fields, small towns and Boy Scouts feeding us white bread, Velveta and sliced processed ham. The homemade cookies were great, though.
The ride folks, despite the name of the ride, had no wine, so we dropped by the downtown Cheese and Wine Festival where I met the Dairy Princesses. They reminded me about the importance of great California milk and milk products. We could have paid $35 to go to the wine tasting tent, but we passed. We didn't buy any meat-on-a-stick or lawn sculpture either. I did, however, have a fine Sierra Nevada beer that really hit the spot.

50 plus jersey

On the day that everyone else road the Diablo Challenge I didn't. I had a great ride through East Contra Costa with Tricia. You can, however, see Diablo in the background. She shot this photo so I could show off the 50 plus jersey I designed for the over 50 forum on bikeforums.net.

Curtis the commuter

I arrive at Los Medanos College long before the students and sometime before the sun is up. My commute is only 8 miles, but I wear my full-tilt road kit just becaue it's comfortable. This semester I'm added the baskets, which allow me to carry lots and lots of junk. In this photo I'm hauling a large photo in the tube, a heavy camera bag, my laptop, clothes and lunch.

Waves to Wine

We made it! Waves to Wine was harder than Seattle to Portland, but the scenery was worth every bit of uphill and suffering. It was a blast. I made digital recordings along the way and hope to have a small segment on the Fredcast podcast I'll post a link when (and if) it happens. There are more photos than will fit on this blog, but here's one more. Please be kind enough to note that I'm modeling the new 50 plus bikeforums.net jersey I designed!
Need more? Try this link to the mp3 audio report of the ride