Wine Country Century

I keep signing us up for stuff. I sure hope we actually like riding enough to do all this stuff. There's the ride in Gilroy, the Waves to Wine, perhaps Seattle to Portland. We getting pressure to do the Grizzly Century . Tricia is doing the Cinderella Classic and I'm headed for the Davis Double (gulp...) and now we're signed on for the the Wine Country Century. Is this getting out of hand? At least I didn't spring for the jersey. That's got to be some sort of progress, right?

Tour of California

What a blast. Cyclists everywhere, and bike swag galore. There were amazingly fast and cool pros. There was nifty free stuff. There was even great weather. I couldn't have asked for more that at the prologue of the Amgen Tour of California of at Stanford.
I went with Joyce. We were going to leave early, but kept saying "one more rider" until it was such a short time till Levi was up we waited for him.
Here's Levi zipping by with Joyce in the background. We had so much fun I talked Tricia — who didn't go Sunday — into joining my NorCal Bikeforums.net friends for a ride into Point Reyes Station to see stage 1.
We drove 1.5 hours, rode 10 miles, goofed off. Watched cyclists scream by for 20 seconds, rode 10 miles, drove 1.5 hours and had a great time no matter how stupid it sounds.
Here's the peleton going faster than fast. Real time. It's what we waited for, then we went home.

Tricia does Diablo

Kestrel in the Cold
Originally uploaded by ccorlew

It was way to cold Saturday morning. Or at least colder and more wet then we expected it to be. But that was OK. Tricia and I were at least going for a ride with our friends Joyce and Dan. And our ride was going to include Mt. Diablo.

Tricia had never been on Diablo. I think I made it sound to hard, so she just wouldn't go. Now, after doing Seattle to Portland (back to back centuries) and Waves to Wine she was finely up for it.

After a chilly foggy start the weather warmed up and it was a cool, but beautiful day. Tricia just rocked, of course. Easy up, fun down. Just a blast. We went up Northgate, down the South, through Danville, out Pleasant Hill Road to Releiz (a pleasant climb indeed) and back through Pleasant Hill. I wasn't at all surprised she road so strongly, and I don't think she was either.

Tierrabella Century plans

I signed up Tricia and myself for the Tierrabella Century (www.tierrabella.org) on April 19 somewhere near Gilroy. One hundred miles seems like enough, but now I have friends pushing to do the 200K route. Tricia just gives me "the look" so I'm thinking that won't be happening. But the important part is that the jersey looks really nice. That's gotta be more important than the actual bike riding part, right?

BikeForums.net Marin ride

I went on a NorCal Bikeforum.net ride on Friday, a day I surprisingly had off due to weird scheduling at the college.

I drove through too much fog to get to the Marin Civic Center to meet up with two other riders, Pete and Sean of BikeForums.net. Once I got to the start the weather was stunning. We sounded like some bad tape loop most the day, constantly telling each other "Is this great, or what?"

The new bike was just perfect. It feels both light and solid at the same time. And it just looks so cool I can hardly believe it.

We had a pretty mellow ride... That was until Pete took offense when a T-Mobile pink jersey clad dude zipped by on a steep climb. He jumped and matched him and together they went off into the distance. Thankfully the testosterone wore off and he waited for us at the next turn.

We had very tasty sandwiches in Point Reyes. I think they cater to cyclists, and may be putting something special in the fixin's. We felt so good the rest of the ride is was almost weird. I'm hoping they open a sandwich branch somewhere closer to home so I can feel like that more often.

Around mile 55 when our brains just started blurting out random noise, Taxi and I discovered that all the women we aren't married to but have crushes on are gay. We don't know what that means, but we figure it's best for all involved it worked out like that.

At the top of the last hill when we stopped for that rock photo my phone rang. It was Tricia
"Where are you?"
I Explained.
The phone rang again.
"Where are you?" she started.
It was out friend OrbeaJ proposing a ride.
Then, I swear this is true, it rings again.
"Where are you?"
It's my 17 year old daughter.
While I'm on the phone I can hear Taxi explaining where he is to his wife.
It's great to be missed.

Tricia knew we'd started at 9:30. I think she was figuring "OK, 22 MPH, no stopping. Less than 3 hours for these studs. He'll be home by 2, even counting the drive afterward."
But in reality, 14mph on bike average and lunch made it a longer day (but don't tell anyone. We like to lie about our amazing speed.)

Here's a link to the route.