nlerner

Late winter ramble on the BMC Road. A bit below freezing at the start, a bit above at the end. The sun is definitely offering more warmth in March.

Kdogbikes

Chilly ride along Lake Erie.

Wildwood 

Dry. 40*s. Let’s roll.
No standing puddles of water but wet spots, lots of grit , etc. Conti tires for the crud.



AD Olympian wanted to ride the Ridge. My legs did not.

Nice background, I thought

Partly sunny

Back near home, up to the vineyard for a final pic

Sir_Name 

No thanks on the snakes… One of the things Indy and I have in common, I suppose.

thinktubes 

First ride of the year.

It was 32 degrees yesterday, today it was 70. The North Shore Channel didn’t get the memo and was still frozen.



No ice on the lake - didn’t freeze up much this year.



I always like to kick off the season with a visit to the North Shore Sanitary District Tower before it disappears into the woods. Built in 1931, it’s basically a fancy vent for sewer gas.



5000 mph headwind coming home. Storming now, snow comes back on Monday. Lousy “Smarch” weather…

smontanaro 

Yeah, January was tough. I got more mileage in February. March has been okay so far. Made it to Lake Forest yesterday. I was kinda wiped out by the headwinds on the return to Evanston. Trying again today, just to Highland Park.

ascherer 

First road miles since I tore my meniscus in November. Only one lap around Central Park on the International. It was over 60 and glorious. And I am out of shape, but I’ll get there.

SwimmerMike 

Took the new Bianchi out through Los Altos Hills and the Cupertino hills. A lot of rollers and "Sprinter's hills" 30 miles and about 2000 ft of rollers. I have my clincher set up on it right now which has a "bail-out" gear of a 44-19. I'm glad my tubular order came in, I'm looking forward to getting back to a 24 in back.

Wildwood 

I enjoyed my day. Again. 48* (9*c) was the high.
I love my winter bib tights - with a front zipper. Endura.


What looks like a distant ridge line is Cougar Mt. from the south side. My ‘hood.

Lake Boren from one of the nice overlook spots

Lk Boren Park has tennis courts (busy), large kid’s play area (packed), volleyball sandpit (occupied). Only the fields were open. Lovely. Lots of families with kids out.

The hilly Newcastle Historic Cemetary survived development

Close-up of the marker. May be fuzzy.

Andy_K 

I was one of apparently many people inspired by the recent thread @gugie started on the Columbia River Gorge. I road the historic highway (and a couple of side roads) from Troutdale to Ainsworth State Park and back with @gugie and @SquireBlack. Here's a pic of them at Crown Point, probably wondering how long it's going to take me to get up that climb and rejoin them.

gugie 

There's a curve on the route with a cutout of a cliff. The cliff overhangs the road quite a bit, and doesn't appear to be a stable rock formation - sedimentary rock on top of igneous?

@SquireBlack coming around the corner.


Sheer dropoff on the outside of this corner.

@Andy_K at the same spot.


Temps in the Gorge were a bit lower than in nearby Portland, and we were in the shade most of the time. It was nice to hit some sunlight on the way back - the Gorge is an out and back ride. There are a few options to parallel Hwy 30 to avoid car traffic, but the tradeoff is a bit more climbing. @SquireBlack was feeling frisky and suggested the "less traffic, more hills" gambit. We took some of them, but decided to skip the hilliest one as Andy's and my legs were getting tired. Somewhere past Women's Forum the traffic changes from tourists to locals, you see fewer electric cars and more pickups. The tourists often sit behind you, I'll peek around the corner and wave them around when it's safe enough on slow moving climbing sections.

Even on a nice, sunny day in March where the Multnomah Falls parking lot was at capacity the traffic to and from the falls was fairly light.

Spaghetti Legs 

Signs of Spring - Andy losing the beard?

Feeling a little smug today in that we got temps in the upper 70’s but tempered by gale force winds - sounds like jet planes in the trees above as I type this. I drove up to Shenandoah NP Skyline Drive where it was a nice 70 degrees. I gambled that the curvy roads and hills would shelter from the worst of the wind and it paid off as it wasn’t too bad. Took the Ritchey out for a test ride before next week’s trip to Arizona and all a tanto, squared away. Storms tonight and chill weather is back tomorrow for the remainder of the week.



Motorman River/Sugar Hollow Reservoir, looking toward Charlottesville barely visible to the eye but not in the pic.

One of the few areas with cell service at my turnaround. Radar showed this, so I hoofed it back to my car.

curbtender

Looks like volcanic columns.

Drillium Dude 

Gave my new old saddle a go today; my posterior appreciated the padding, to be honest. I may retire the carbon Flite simply for the comfort benefit of a padded saddle:



More weirdness on the trail today:





Power lines:



DD

northbend 

Some fairly mild, sunny days this past weekend. Out riding with my wife on Moon Valley Road the other day.
Robin on Moon Valley Road by Matthew Pendergast, on Flickr

On another ride out on the Iron Horse Trail, stopping for a quiet lunch on the Mine Creek Trestle and appreciating the machine that brought me out here.
Lunch on the Mine Creek Trestle by Matthew Pendergast, on Flickr

Spaghetti Legs 

Jeff, your pic of tow truck on bike trail reminded me of a sight on one of my rides along the Blue Ridge Parkway several years ago. People do the damndest things

curbtender

Did the bridges ride, Benicia/Carquinez, and left my phone under this plaque. Still sitting there two hours later. Thank you Pete.

malcala622

A few days off from work to take care of my dog post surgery I headed out for a ride. Made a few stops along the way to visit friends.

obrentharris 

A beautiful day to ride around Mt. Tamalpais yesterday. 37f when I left home, 67f when I returned.



The western slope of "Mt. Tam" in the foreground. Stinson Beach and Bolinas in the background.

Brent

northbend 

The Middle Fork Road was closed recently due to a landslide. It was nice today so I went out to check on it.
Turns out the road is back open to traffic. The road is in decent shape, A little muddy in 2 unpaved sections but other than that, pretty good.
Garfield Mt by Matthew Pendergast, on Flickr

Drillium Dude 

Another finger exercise, out 'n back on the New River Trail.

My newly-arrived brass adjuster screw ends stayed where they belonged after being epoxied in place last night:



Today was the day for finding things on the path; land shark:





Door pull - or hate crime in progress? You decide:



New River Trail seen from one of the flyovers:



DD

rumrunn6

good job! is it safe to assume you got it scoped?

rumrunn6

is it too late to add this nature preserve snake moment from a cpl years ago? felt a little guilty letting it strike a hard plastic camera at the end of a stick but I hope it didn't hurt itself. I think they are pretty flexible. pretty sure it's a common "Northern Water Snake" or a "Black Rat Snake" after it decided it had enough of me, I watched it swim away

ascherer 

Yup. The other knee was done a few years back and took a lot longer to recover from, there was more arthritic gunk to deal with on that one. I was walking on this one the same day. My surgeon is a cyclist, so he gets my goals. During the initial exam he asked if anything had happened, and I explained that it happened on a commute when someone tried to go through a red light onto 6th Avenue and that I was pissed. He promptly rolled up his pants leg to show me some road rash and told me that he was rolling into Central Park to do laps before work one morning and he got hit by a guy on an electric scooter! Then when I was checking in at the surgicenter desk, I heard someone next to me say, "there he is!" and it was him in a hi-viz commuting jacket, rolling his Brompton in. My kinda guy.

rumrunn6

haha that's awesome