jamesdak 

Well, this morning I took the newly built up Raleigh Team USA out for it's maiden run. Swapped out the tubular road setup for the "gravel" setup today. The ol' girl did just fine on a mix of surfaces to include some light mud. Superbe parts all worked just fine and the brakes proved good enough to get the job done.


Pretty comfortable even on the washboard dirt road surfaces. 700 x 38 tires at around 40/50 psi helped as did the old suspension saddle.

Hardpacked dirt

Spring is trying to come

Not much runoff for this time of year

Storm coming, it did catch me before I got home.

More runoff, this should be twice as deep and flowing fast.

Yeah, this whole area should be under water.

We need about twice as much snow up on the MT.

Wildlife management area is back open. Elk winter here when the snow gets deep up top.

Another shot of the 37 year old bike.

majmt 

Nice write up and very impressive to come from near sea level to around 7,000 ft and put in nearly 100 miles and I’m guessing about 5,000 ft of climbing. The day you rode was one of the nicest of the few weeks to ride - the next day was a little windy but still very nice. We haven’t had decent weather since, in fact, the Park road opening to vehicles was delayed a bit after a storm rolled through. If you do the ride again next year or this fall, send a PM.

I’ll add that this place you rode by near the Bunsen Peak Trailhead near where you mentioned that you had a feeling of insignificance is very significant for me. Back in 2007, I took a ride on my perfectly tweaked Ducati on a beautiful October day and turned around after coming to some snow drifts. The first photo shows the last shot of my motorcycle before I totaled it and myself on the way home. The second shot shows the “modifications” I made to it about an hour later. Had to be air lifted to Billings and nearly died from multiple injuries and the subsequent infections (I had near death visions while unconscious for several days). I had five surgeries and I couldn’t walk for about five months and then I was only lurching around. My wife had to do everything for me as I recovered - literally everything (like taking care of a grumpy infant that outweighed her by 60 pounds). So, it’s a special feeling to be able to return to that spot on a bike on a beautiful day with my hero.

rccardr 

Matt, just another notch on your belt of incredible picto-graphic bike experiences.
You, sir, are clearly MFP.

gaucho777 

^Awesome pics all around.
--
More Eroica prep on the Colnago this afternoon. It rained lightly in the morning, but then cleared up and turned into a beautiful day--low 70s with a light wind. Before the ride, I installed a new lower inner chain ring, going from 32t to 30t (53-42-30 x 13-28). I rode just short of 40 miles and about 3800' feet of climbing into the Berkeley/Oakland Hills. After hitting a wall around mile 50 on my last long ride, I forced myself to eat earlier in the ride and it made a difference. I felt fresh the whole way.

My ride map had a barbell shape to it: two loops with a 2-mile connection in between. For those who know these parts, I left Berkeley and headed up Tunnel Road to Skyline and Redwood to Pinehurst before looping back to Skyline. Then I headed back to Berkeley along the ridge of the Berkeley hills via Grizzly Peak before returning to the flats via Euclid.

Only a few pics today. A panoramic view from the summit of the first climb.



Here's the first stretch of redwood trees along the top of Skyline in Oakland near Joaquin Miller Park.



Here's another nice stretch of redwood trees along Pinehurst Road. This is one of my favorite local streches of road. It's nestled in a serene little valley amid redwoods, gurgling streams, amd lush undergrowth.

rccardr 

W & OD Trail East, down to DC and looping back through the Custis Trail to Vienna, including the Seven Big Hills of Arlington.
Thankful for the friction shifted triple!

IMG_5433 by Doc Mertes, on Flickr

obrentharris 

Beautiful photos of beautiful countryside @jamesdak!
What part of Utah is this?
Brent

jamesdak 

Northeast of SLC by about an hour. Unfortunately the beautiful countryside is being ruined. In Utah, realtors and developers have taken over the government from the local level all the way up to the state level. So in my valley the developers run the local committee, the county committee are realtors, and the whole area is being ravaged with growth. Years ago before moving back the General Plan for the area acknowledged that there was limited water, infrastructure, accesses, etc and that growth had to be limited. Then the greed took over and growth is rampant. Water is now like gold but the greedy SOB's just keep filling their pockets by approving more and more development despite the pushback from the locals. Money wins in this country unfortunately. How you can be the developer and still sit on the council that votes for approval of development is beyond me. When you are in power, conflict of interest just doesn't exist. Last summer our water was so precious that we made national news. If you went over your allotted usage in one month you had to pay a 400% fine. Yet they are still approving thousands of new homes up here and filling their greedy pockets at our expense. Anyway...I'll quit ranting.

Scenes like this will be nowhere in the valley in another 10 years I bet. In fact a bunch of this field is currently being taken for a road project.

LucasHartong

My oh my, what do I see here?! A great Pinarello! Family of mine?

nlerner

Birthday ride!

Today is Easter Sunday and the third night of Passover and a couple of weeks into Ramadan. It’s also my birthday, so therefore I needed to ride my age:




It was kind of a cold, blustery day here in the Boston area, not unusual for my birthday ride. I also discovered that most things are closed on Easter Sunday.

curbtender

Happy Birthdday!
Easter Ride with a friend down from Winthrop. A newt and a stop at the John Muir house...

BFisher

Happy Birthday, @nlerner!

jimmuller 

Happy birthday, nlerner!

A bunch of us rode the CCRT yesterday, 22 miles each way, Dennis to Wellfleet. It was great, but windy!

Check out the CCRT thread for more pics. Here's a sample.

jamesdak 

Cool and windy again today and I didn't feel like fighting it trying to go at speed on a road bike. So I took out the Guv'nor for a lazy two hour ride with lots of stops to grab some snapshots.


This beast is just plain fun to ride.

House in one of the small towns.

Really old building in town that's seen all sorts of businesses over the decades.

Ummmm....barn.

Fields are starting to green up a bit.

Newer hay shed.

So, this is the newest section of path that traverses the valley. One of the better sections. I don't ride most of it on a road bike because it's in poor shape and unsafe to ride at speed.

Reservoir is so low already. Normally all the beach areas would be under water this time of year.

Heading into the small town I live in.

Wildwood 

Everyone in the Seattle area with a bike should be reporting in. Full sun, mostly calm, mid-50*s.

Spent most of the morning sitting in the sun weeding in the garden. Bike ride. Then back to the gardening. Found no eggs.


New green, now that blossoms fell

The Zeus hasn’t been out for a while.

SJX426 

Like seeing all the triples! This thread has really been inspiring!
Did a repeat of the last reported ride on Saturday. Felt a lot stronger this time around. Wishing I could do it every other day.

ascherer 

Happy Birthday!

Andy_K 

You're 100? Or do you ride your age in miles? Happy Birthday (a day late).

nlerner

You’re likely thinking of @squire_Black, who seems to need to put a K after most measurements. Or, wait, is that K for Kaylor? Will we need to measure in Kaylor’s moving forward?

Andy_K 

Still trying to whip the body into shape for Eroica, yesterday was a planned ride up the Crown Zellerbach Trail from Scappoose to Vernonia and back. That was the plan. The CZ Trail is a rails-to-trails path that's been left entirely unpaved. Google Maps is currently labeling part of it as the Crown Zellerbach Logging Road, but I can't see how a logging truck would be able to use this road. Some of it, including parts that are labeled as a logging road, isn't wide enough for two bikes side-by-side, and it's currently got a lot of fallen tree branches intruding into the path. I don't have pictures from most of the trail portion -- just the obstacle that finally stopped us and forced us onto the mostly parallel main road.





Beyond this point it didn't look passable. You're probably looking at that snow in the middle of April and wondering what kind of elevation we were riding at. At this point, a bit under 1000 feet. It didn't even occur to me to wonder about snow still on the trail from last week's freak snowfall, but there it was. The downed tree didn't help.

On the way back down, during a stop for a flat tire change, @gugie and I compared our bikes and contemplated the benefits of fenders. Mine is the one with fenders and clean water bottles.



It wasn't all bad though. I'd ridden the CZ Trail before but never the road next to it. It's a bit more climbing but the reward is some great views.



Here's @SquireBlack pointing out an eagle.



Here's me failing to get a picture of the eagle. (It's in the picture, but you'll need to use your imagination to see it as an eagle.)



By the time we got to Vernonia, my knees were aching and I didn't think I could go back the way we came without seriously slowing down the group. I had carpooled to the start with Gugie, and after a nice stout and some food at the Black Iron Grill, I convinced him to go a bit out of his way and pick me up at an alternate finishing spot, so as my three traveling companions made their way back to Scappoose, I took the much gentler Banks-Vernonia Trail to Banks. I covered 5-10 fewer miles and finished my ride at about the same time as the others.

The BV Trail is paved and maintained by the state. Leaving Vernonia, it climbs around 600 feet over the course of 10 miles before a nice descent into Banks.

nlerner

With Eroica coming up at the end of the month, I thought I should take a shakedown cruise on the bike I’ll be bringing, my 1973 Wes Mason Gold Medal. I haven’t had this bike out since riding it at Cino at the end of last summer. Another factor today is that I needed to stay south of the route where a fairly well known road race is happening, so I opted for an amble through Arnold Arboretum. Here atop Peter’s Hill, you can see the Boston skyline in the distance and imagine those runners crossing the finish line in Copley Square.

non-fixie 

Last week our sailing boat was launched for the summer season, and we spent the better part of Easter cleaning off the muck it had accumulated over the winter in the parking lot.



It was really dirty up top and the effort we put in cleaning it resulted in our bodies being pretty sore when we woke up this morning.

But, Easter Monday is a national holiday in my area, the weather was nice, and a ride was just what we needed to get our ailing muscles sorted. We cruised the local polders for a couple of hours, and it was quite enjoyable.

This is how the Cow Poo Path got its name:




Did I mention the weather was nice?



In this area there are several DIY ferries:



There are instructions. Max speed is 80kph:



In a couple of weeks it will be the King's birthday, another national holiday, and the towns are already gearing up for the occasion. Note the orange flags:

gugie 

@Andy_K has some great pix of yesterday's CZ trail ride. Here's a few more with commentary.


Even on the highway that parallels the trail we found snow. This ditch next to the road had more than a foot of if where I stuck my rear wheel in. Deep, soft snow makes for a great kickstand


@VRJAKE checking out his bike, probably removing some of the flora and fauna we picked up on the trail. We're checking out the rooster tail up his backside from the wet and muddy trail we were on just a few miles before.


@Andy_K and I have ridden to Vernonia from many directions, but never from the north. The route from Scappose approaches Vernonia from that direction. We found this front yard bike shop just outside of Vernonia. There were maybe 100 bikes there, the nicer ones had an awning covering them. That upper tier of bikes has a couple of LeMonds, an Alan aluminum bike, some Specialized and Trek bikes of quality, and others. I'm expecting @ Andy_K to drive up next week to look at some of the 57cm models

The ride back from Vernonia to Scappose was "easier" than the other direction. We gained 600' net from Scapoose to Vernonia and got it back on return trip. I use quotes around "easier" as we decided to ride more of the trail on the way back. From the outskirts of Vernonia proper the Holce Trailhead goes straight up with loose gravel for about half a mile before it becomes rideable. That was the hardest part of the ride. After that section the gravel became much nicer, but we still had to stop a few times to navigate around fallen trees. We got back on the highway when the trail ahead was snowed in, got up andn over the top of the climb, then were rewarded with 10 miles of downhill, some at terminal velocity, other sections pointed down just a bit.

Gorgeous ride on the one day window from rain that has been persistent.

AJI125 

All these awesome rides inspired me to get out there. It's been dry and windy here in the front range region of Colorado. Red flag fire danger alerts almost daily. Hope we can get some rain soon!

23 on the Fuji over through Chatfield State Park after lunch since work was slow today (might as well use some PTO!). First ride in a while - was sick with something all last week and the weekend before. Happy to be riding along the road to recovery.



The trees behind the bike looked more picturesque but there was a dumpster in the parking lot - can just see the edge


Here comes the dam hill - reservoir is full for now but not much snowpack to be seen in the foothills


Found some warmer gloves for these cooler days - been getting a weird cold hands issue where my fingers go numb after (Raynaud's?)

gugie 

Having ridden with @SquireBlack yesterday, I can confirm that he's still 10k Andrew.

bironi

Today in Olympia.