Weekend rides….

Well, as I expected my two laps around Lake Chabot last Thursday pretty much destroyed me. The first lap, which was non-stop took Tracy and I an hour and fifteen minutes and left me totally wiped...the second lap, which thankfully had several stops to regroup, wasn’t as bad as I expected until the last climb up the road to the parking lot. By then, which is about 26 miles into the evening, I was totally spent and cramping.

The last climb is usually a piece of cake. It’s paved, not very steep and allows me to work the kinks out before I begin the after ride beverages...this past Thursday though, it was less than fun.
I was cramping to the point that I’d sit until my quads and calves would begin to cramp, then I’d stand until my hamstrings started to cramp, then I’d sit, then I’d stand...and on and on until I finally limped up to the parking lot...pretty sure that’s one of the best beers I’ve ever had.


Saturday, a bunch of us got together to ride China Camp again. I have to say this is one of my favorite, fairly local rides. It’s got fun, fairly fast singletrack, a couple of decent climbs and some long swoopy downhill that is designed perfectly for my rigid single speed.


We had a good group of people, perfect weather and a great day! Which is more than I can say for the guy we came upon that was climbing back up the canyon after tumbling over the side and down the hill.

He was actually only somewhat banged up but it looked like the canyon was covered with poison oak, so I have a feeling the sucki-ness of his ride was just beginning.

Sunday, after church, Deb and I took out the pepto-bike. We had planned on doing the Alameda Creek trail, but at the last minute did the bay trail instead. This is a gravel trail that goes from hwy 92 all the way to the San Leandro marina. It was kind of windy and completely flat which meant 8 miles in each direction with no coasting.

There were a LOT of people out enjoying the first weekend of Spring and it was a fun ride along the bay. Towards the end as we were coming back to the truck, a guy on a mt bike passed us...I had to explain to Deb that we (and by "we" I definitely mean "I")do NOT like being passed.

By the time she caught on that we needed to reel this guy in, he had a pretty good gap on us and we really had to put the hammer down in order to catch him.

Poor guy didn’t stand a chance. Granted he didn’t know we were racing, but we totally reeled him in and ended up kicking his...um...butt...yeah, that’s what I wanted to say.

16 miles on the tandem at an average pace of 12 mph...a pretty great ride and a new best to the pepto-duo!