My favorite ride in pictures

Happy Saturday!! It's a gorgeous spring-like day in northern California. A ride was on the schedule today... awesome. The sun's out and it's mid- 60s.  My assignment was to find a flat route for some HR training. A flat route... really? I live in San Francisco. So I drove about 30 minutes north to start my route. Overall the ride was great, but grueling. Here's the best way I can explain my ride in pictures:

Yeah. I need a LOT of "butt in seat" time. But let me back up...

Before I left this morning, I finally figured out how to install the quick release kit for my Garmin. While it's now super-cool that I can snap my Garmin off my wrist and onto the bike in 2 seconds, the wrist band is really unattractive. The original band is a very cool orange/grey that matches the Garmin. The quick release band now on my wrist is a cheap black band that doesn't even look like it goes with the watch. Hey Garmin, at least make it grey to match! Oh well... it's not like I'm out to win fashion awards with this thing. 

Anyway, I took off to an area north of Marin county which is beautiful and relatively unpopulated. After a nice flat 10 minute warm-up, you hit the one hefty hill on the route. My leg strength is pathetic right now, so I just ground it out at something like 5 MPH. When you get to the top, it's all farmland (and green! once summer hits it will be brown; we don't get rain between March and November.)

This downhill is a blast; not too steep, but fast and curvy. And then you hit the flatter but still fast and curvy part that takes you through some redwood groves.

Which then takes you out to Nicasio Reservoir. Now it's a fabulous flat road with a very wide bike lane, so it's time to just put your head down and hammer.

Riding with a HR monitor is new to me; I didn't realize how low my HR (and cadence) are on my rides. So today was mostly an exercise of remembering to downshift, increase cadence and increase HR.

There were a TON of other cyclists out... and a lot of triathletes. You can always tell the tri guys, all alone in their aero bars. Like me. Ha.

This road actually takes you out to the ocean; there's a little town called Pt Reyes that's very quaint and a good pit stop when out riding in a group. But alas, I didn't make it all the way there. Made a u-turn a couple miles early and headed back.

I always like riding by the horses.... (and by now coach is wondering if I got in a good workout or if I just lollygagged around taking pictures. Never fear, I saved most of the picture-taking for the return route. My legs were thrashed by the time I came back to the horses!)

Then one more climb... this is the backside of that first hill and fortunately isn't as steep (although it's longer.) By now my legs, back and shoulders are plotting mutiny. And I'd only been on the bike for 2 hours. But then again, last year I never rode for much more than 30 miles, since I was only doing Olympic distances and primarily focusing on swim & run. So I can't really be too hard on myself.

Here's the view at the top of that climb coming back to the car:

This pic doesn't really do it justice. I got a second wind on the way back down; as sluggish as I am going uphill, I love riding down. Especially easy grade and curvy. The final few miles are a false flat downhill, so a good way to end a ride. Fun and fast.

Coming back into San Francisco from the north is always a treat. Driving over the Golden Gate bridge on a sunny day like this one, you see the city sprawled out against the water and all the sailboats out in the Bay. Wanted to take a pic but too unsafe. When I can start running again, I'll take some pics on my GG Bridge route.

Happy Saturday everyone!

 

Comments

[Molly]

OK, you have to tell me where you rode, as I'm always looking for more flat routes for power interval training and IM AZ training! I'm even eyeing Silverado Trail for some long rides this year. I totally understand how hard it is to find those up by you...even in my area I have to work to get the right kinds of routes for different training days (and almost always have to drive just so I can start outside of city traffic). Great photos and great job on your ride!!! We all have a long way to go right now, but who the heck wants to be in their best shape of the year in January anyway? :-)

[Michelle Simmons]

Beautiful! And tell Molly I know Silverado Trail... I used to live in Santa Rosa you know... You should go ride that with her sometime!
Those pictures of the green hillsides bring back lots of nice memories.