Bike Against the Odds (70 mile route)

This Saturday was the Bike Against the Odds charity ride, to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund. I reached my goal of raising $1000 in donations; thanks guys! Here's the official cfg ride report.


I began my Saturday morning by missing the BART train that I had wanted to take from my house to downtown Oakland. Not wanting to wait 20 minutes for the next train, I decided to go ahead and ride down to Lake Merritt. I took my usual commuting route so it felt almost like I was riding into work. On a Saturday. Yay! Anyway, I arrived at the lake, got checked in, and was on the road by 7:30. The weather was overcast and on the cool side, but that was fine with me. I had been hoping for nice cool weather for this ride. The east side of the Oakland hills can really heat up this time of year, and I was hoping to avoid climbing "the bears" in 90 degree heat.


First climb of the morning was up Old Tunnel Road to Skyline. This is my usual route into the Oakland hills, so it was a piece of cake. Up on Skyline (elevation about 1400 ft), the fog was hugging the hills and visibility was very low. Once I started zipping along the Skyline ridge (past first rest stop at Sibley park), I briefly wished I had brought some of my winter gear along. It was cold, people.


From Skyline, the route took us up and over the Oakland hills into Moraga, then a few miles north to Orinda. For the local cyclists: Skyline > Redwood > up Pinehurst > Canyon > Moraga Way. I arrived at the next rest stop, at the intersection of Bear Creek and San Pablo Dam Road, at 10:15am. At this point the folks doing the 50 mile option turned up Wildcat Canyon to climb back into the Oakland/Berkeley Hills. I was doing the extra loop around the reservoirs, so I continued straight down San Pablo Dam Road.


The loop around the San Pablo and Briones Reservoirs is a popular cycling route and is often referred to as "the three bears loop", because there are (at least) three main hills to climb on Bear Creek Road. I usually ride this loop counterclockwise, so this was a little different hitting the climbs in the opposite direction. There were very few cyclists out on the road at this point in the ride. Maybe most riders did the shorter 50 mile option. Losers! At any rate, I was back at the intersection of San Pablo Dam and Bear Creek a little after noon for more snacks and a water refill. At this point I had done about 50 miles and still felt strong.


The route then crossed San Pablo Dam for a climb up Wildcat Canyon to Inspiration Point. I figured this would be the toughest climb of the day for me, being a bit steeper and coming 50 miles into the ride. Luckily the temperature was still comfortable and the road is relatively shaded, so I made it up that climb without any problems. Then I quickly zipped through Tilden to the other side of the hills, overlooking Berkeley. Then it was up Grizzly Peak for the last climb of the day. At this point fatigue was starting to set in, but fortunately Grizzly Peak is a relatively gentle climb. And I knew that once I got to the top, it was going to be all downhill for the last 12 miles back to Lake Merritt. There was one cyclist on this final climb, let's call her "Anna", who had a bit of hard time and came very close to climbing in the SAG car about 1/4 mile shy of the top of the hill. She held on though and made it to the water stop at the top where her Team in Training cohorts were waiting to cheer her on. Good job Anna!

From the top of Grizzly, route back was Skyline > Shepard Canyon > Snake > Mountain > Park, etc. I pulled into the start/finish point just before 3pm. Pretty good ride!

Total distance: 74 miles
Total time in the saddle: 6.5 hours
Total elevation: 6000 feet
Animules: one deer and one wild turkey along Bear Creek Road

Holstein Hundred, more or less

Today was the 14th annual Holstein Hundred century, which begins and ends in the tiny town of Tamales and does a couple of strangely-designed loops through Bodega Bay, Occidental, Valley Ford, and the general countryside around Petaluma. I had planned on doing the full century, but in the end I only did a metric. Not their metric, but a metric nonetheless. There are many reasons for this, but mostly I think it's the ride organizers' fault for giving me an easy out.

I woke up at 5am to drive up to Tamales, got there by 6:30, and was on the road by 7. One thing we lucked out on was the weather: it was sunny and clear, no marine layer at all. This was especially nice when we got out to the coast near Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed The Birds if you didn't know). It's always nice to actually see the ocean when you're riding on the coast, as opposed to peering into a deep fog bank. Things were going quite nicely through the first 20 miles or so, until we turned inland again and began a climb up Coleman Valley Road.

I've never climbed this road before, and come to think of it, I didn't really climb it this time because I had to walk my bike up half of it. It's only about 1200 feet or so, but it's steep almost the entire way. Someone on the internets claimed that the grade was 9.5%, which is about 5% more grade than I generally enjoy. This climb was featured in one of the Tour of California stages, and it does afford some lovely views which I was able to appreciate during my long walk up to the summit.

Once we got passed this climb, the route mellowed out a bit and took us through parts of Occidental and Valley Ford that I had traversed on my Petaluma ride back in May. At this point I ended up latching on to some women from Livermore who had a little paceline going. I pulled for a while and they invited me to ride with them, but honestly their pace ended up being too much for me. They were going about 25 mph, and I just couldn't sustain that, even hooked on to the back.

At about mile 45 we turned west and that's when the headwinds began. Those lasted for about 10 miles until the route took us east again, past the starting point at Tamales High. I mentioned the strange loops that comprised the route.. basically we did a big figure eight, then passed by the starting point before beginning another loop to the south. Earlier in the morning I had thought, I can stop by my car to deposit my arm warmers, leg warmers, etc. But then after all the climbing and headwinds, and with the knowledge that another 40 miles and 3500 feet of climbing lay ahead, I was thinking, I can stop by my car, have some lunch, and call it a day! You see how this is really the organizers' fault? Because let me tell you, I wasn't the only one who had this thought. At any rate, I actually continued on a few miles passed the high school, spotted the next climb, and then backtracked to the start. So, I ended up with about 65 miles total. I'm sure I could have finished the course, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it. And as one of the volunteers said at the post-ride lunch, It's supposed to be fun, not torture.

Miles: 65
Time in the saddle: about 5 hours
Route for the Holstein Hundred: portion done and portion not done

Giro di Peninsula (metric)

This morning I woke up at 5:45(!) to drive over to San Mateo for the Giro di Peninsula ride. I only did the metric century, which was plenty for me, with about 3000 feet of climbing overall. The principal climb was up Page Mill Road in Palo Alto. This is a popular climb on the peninsula, but it's very inconsistently graded with some steep portions. And although that's the only major climb I remember, I had the distinct feeling of going just slightly up hill for the majority of the ride. At the finish, the guy handing out t-shirts asked me how the ride was, and I said, "hilly". He gave me this look like, Duh.

I have a theory that I'm working on that roads on the peninsula are more inconsistently graded than the roads in the east bay. I have to do some research on that.

Anyway, the ride was well-supported, with an abundance of rest stops. There were FIVE rest stops for the metric route, which is a bit of an overkill in my opinion. I skipped the last one and probably could have skipped the first as well. I will say that the rest stops had delicious home made cookies, but not enough toilets. One rider at the third stop noted that the number of porta-potties were decreasing with each stop: first three, then two, then one. Strange to have so many rest stops but so few toilets.

Then at the end (at Bay Meadows Racetrack), the organizers hosted a real nice hot lunch, with different pastas, meat balls, sausage, lots of good stuff. Did I mention there was an Italian theme? Naturally, for the occasion I road my Dolce.

Animules: one deer standing in the middle of Crystal Springs Road; lots of horses
Distance: 62 miles
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours, 10 minutes