May 7, 2007

  • Saturday, May 5

    I went down to Palo Alto to do a 94 mile ride down there.  Palo Alto to Calaveras Dam to Pleasanton and back.  I was really excited about it because it involved a trip across the Dumbarton Bridge and I'd never even been over that in a car.  I was a little late getting there because I got a little lost and then the high school we were starting from was hosting an SAT exam that day so there was a ton of traffic.  But I managed to get there eventually and we delayed the start so that everybody had time to show up.  It was a small ride, only 17 riders.  The ride organizer was good enough to bring snacks which amazed me to the point that I made one of the riders pose next to them:

    Instead of donuts all we get on Ben's CAT2 rides are more hills.  Not that I'm complaining.  Because I don't eat donuts and I do like hills.  Here's our ride organizer Chris explaining the route:

    We set off heading east.  The ride was totally flat for the first twenty miles so we moved along at a pretty good pace although we had a few mechanicals.  Here's Jerry fixing his flat in record time:

    After the first stop we started to climb and climb and climb up to a ridge overlooking Calaveras reservoir.  it was so beautiful up there because since we had rain on Thursday and Friday it was pretty green:

    But you could tell the water level was down a little bit which is a bad sign at the beginning of the season.  From the Dam, we dropped down into pretty Sunol and then continued up to Pleasanton for lunch.  From there we went to Dublin and began to climb again before dropping into Hayward.  Hayward was very, very pretty but I heard two distinct gunshots as I was biking through followed by screaming tires and gunshots.  Here's some pics from the top:

    Jerry coming up the big hill on Crow Canyon

    Here's Nancy coming up behind the guy whose name I didn't get. 

    We stopped again in Hayward and then started heading back to Palo Alto.  One of the riders was having some pretty serious knee pain, which is a very very bad thing so I stayed behind and rode with him as the others continued.  He didn't want to stop, so we got some Advil in him and very slowly made our way back to Palo Alto.  Ever wonder what it's like being a sweep??  Here's the view from the back:

    There are all these beautiful marshlands around the Dumbarton Bridge.  It's really pretty down there.

    And the bridge is a lot easier to cross than the Golden Gate Bridge because it doesn't have enormous piers you have to go around.  Here's a view from the top looking South:

    We finally got back to Palo Alto around 6.  I hope the rider with the knee problems heals up quickly because that's not a good injury to get this close to the ride.  Jeff made me an enormous dinner and I went to bed very early. Cinco de Mayo is a bittersweet holiday for me because it made me miss my poor departed poodle Ashley and his very favorite holiday "Cinco de Meatball" which was the day he got eat five meatballs.  Also known as "Tuesday".  His other favorite holidays included  "Ham Days" and "Porksgiving".  Total mileage: 93