A day of climbing & exploring with Joe Prichard

Well the exploring/climbing ride with Big Joe went as well as I could have hoped for on my last day of vacation. As tomorrow I have to put on my Brown Santa suit for the month of December and the 11-14 hour days begin.
As we anticipated, the climbing was plenty, with just over 6500 ft in 52 miles of beautiful scenery. We started at the corner of Hwy 29 & Redwood Road in Napa at the commuter parking lot. We headed out Redwood road giving us a few miles to try and warm up a bit before we started climbing up Mount Veeder. We rolled along pretty well all the way to Dry Creek Rd with just a short difficult spot along the way on Veeder. We turned left and headed up Dry Creek Road which turns into Trinity Grade and goes up to the summit. Things got fun here because there is a section that runs between 11-17% for about a half mile, I even saw 19%  down low in one of the hairpin corners. We stopped at the summit intersection where the is a fire station and nice cold water! After a short break and bottle refilling, per Joe's recommnedation we headed down Trinity Road into what I think is Glen Ellen/Sonoma till we hit Hwy 12. We turned left and headed down Hwy 12 for a short while and there were a few narrow spots here. For a club ride I would suggest crossing 12 and going down Arnold drive to stay off the highway as much as possible. The extra miles would well worth the safety. Then we again turned left and started up the biggest single climb of the ride, Cavedale road. 2100 ft in 5 miles, and it wasn't long that I understood why Joe recommended going up this road at the slower climbing speed than bombing down it as it was narrower and rougher than trinity road was. Views along this climb were wonderful and before we knew it we had circled back up and around to the fire station for another break and more water. As we headed back down Trinity grade towards Dry Creek, we decided to turn off on Wall road to add a few more miles and yes, some more climbing because we hadn't gotten enough yet at over 5000 ft already ridden and another road to explore. Near the end of Wall road, there were some great views and reluctantly I didn't take any pictures, a great excuse to do it again. We turned around & headed back down to Dry creek and continued down to turn right onto Mount Veeder and rode it backwards all the way back to the truck. At this point we finally got to let those wheels really spin out for a while. We really enjoyed the day as time flew by on us and caused us to cut out a couple other roads we were going to climb and sight see.
After loading up the bikes, we decided to have a late, well deserved lunch at the Habit Burger Grill!
In summation, it was a great day of riding, filled with the incredible scenery, good conversation, story telling, and the shared appreciation of being apart of this wonderful sport we all here love, cycling. Thanks Joe for enduring all the climbing with me today, I had a blast and look forward to doing this again! 

Kenny Leduc (The Van Man)

Craig Elstins Memorial Ride

Many turned out for the ride and the weather was perfect. Thank you to all that made it a success.

Club TT

We will have one more TT before we shut it down for the year.

Goodyear Road. Thursday 10-18. 5:30 pm.

Joe.....748 1413

Waves to Wine 2012 - BBC will be there!

This MS Society fundraiser takes place this weekend, and BBC's Steve Bahr is the captain of the Air Splitters.  BBC members Nancy Lund, Rick and Sherri Mickaels,  Riva Flexer and Stephen Harrison will be riding  distances from 75 - 100 miles on Saturday and 50 - 75 miles on Sunday. Other members have sponsored them, and some will be volunteering at this event. You can still sponsor the Air Splitters  at http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/CANBikeEvents?pg=team&fr_id=17854&team_id=272499

BBC member Martin Worsdall is also riding, and you can sponsor him at http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/CANBikeEvents?px=5196555&pg=personal&fr_id=17854

Way to go BBC!

Riva Flexer

Ride Around Lake Tahoe, 9-15-12

Our Tahoe weekend was a great time.  Riding were Ross Schaefer (Ride Leader), Joe Pritchard, Scott "double wide" Overfield, Kenny "I'm faster in my Van's gym shoes" Leduc, Sherri Bortolazzo, Eri Moshina, Darryl "I'm way faster than I used to be" Bruce, and Bob "low rider" Sansome.  We all arrived on Friday night.

Saturday started out with breakfast at the motel, a quick overview of the route (which went something like, "keep the lake on the right side and you can't get lost"), loading the team car with water, a pump, and some goodies, and starting off.  Mary Schaefer and Barbara Wood drove the "team car" and supported us on our way around the lake.

Heading out around the lake clockwise form South Lake Tahoe (our motel was basically at the state line), we made our way through town and avoided a part of Hwy 50, taking Pioneer Trail to Al Tahoe, and then out to Hwy 89 for the long climb to Emerald Bay and a stop at the overlook.  I really loved the part of the climb where Emerald Bay was to the right, way below us, and Emerald Lake was on the left, way below us.  We were all pretty fresh at the start, so this climb, which would have been grueling later in the ride, wasn't all that bad.  A little past the overlook our team car met us for the first planned rest stop at the parking lot on the right.  After the long climb a water bottle refill and some dates hit the spot.  We descended down to the west side of the lake, and made our way along the water and past the boat docks and pretty cabins around Tohoma.  There was one spot that was just too pretty, so we pulled over, walked our bikes out the boat dock, and had a group photo taken.  The day was completely sunny, around 80 degrees, and the lake was uncrowded.  

Continuing on, we made our way around past the bustle of Tahoe City, and continued riding around to Kings Beach for our lunch stop and the next meeting with the team car.  By this point everyone was ready for a break- we were about 45 miles in, or about 10 miles further than we guessed lunch would be.  We got sandwiches from the Safeway, and ate at the picnic area next to the beach.  The wind had picked up by this point, and there were waves hitting the beach- a bit of a change from the glassy water in the morning.

Setting off from lunch, we were in the trees for a few miles, did a tough little climb, rode through the immensely large homes of Incline Village on Lakeshore Blvd, and then rejoined the highway right at the waters edge.  Civilization left us completely at this point as we were now in the state park, and we hugged the edge of the water.  Spectacular!  The whole lake was just off to our right, beyond the boulder-strewn shoreline.

After several miles along the water, loving every minute of it, we began the climb into the mountains and away from the lake, on the seemingly endless 5-6% grade to Spooner Lake.  It felt like it took about 16 hours, though in reality it was a lot less.  The thin air in the mountains makes everything more challenging.  Right at the top of the grade at the intersection of Hwy 50 (pull off just to the right and come around), our team car met us yet again.  We were really glad to see them!

Leaving the rest stop we were on Hwy 50- a four lane, busy, fast road.  The descent from Spooner Lake was screaming fast.  Some gravity felt really good after that ridiculous climb.  It really felt like we were back to civilization after we hit the highway.  That portion was around 10 miles, and we made an impromptu stop when a traffic accident occurred and Ross had to call 911, and Ross, Sherri and Joe waited while the sherriff's deputies came to the site.  No one was injured, but it was sort of weird, the bicyclists summonning help for the motorists.  Way better than the other way around though!

Arriving South Lake Tahoe, we took a right on Lake Pkwy and avoided the casino traffic, wiggling our way back to the Big Pines Mountain House.

75 miles, 3,800 feet of climbing all told.  The thin air made it feel longer and higher in my opinion.

Some of us went out to MacDuff's pub in SLT for beer and rich pub food (bangers and mash, shephard's pie, fish and chips, mmmmm good).  We met Bob the rottweiler, the pub dog.  On Sunday morning there was a ladies sprint triathalon that started from the private beach of the motel, and the running portion actually came down the street in front of the motel.  Several of us made our way to the beach to cheer the competitors on as they began the swim portion.  About 600 ladies competed, and it was good fun to watch the competition.  We really had  luck that the Iron Girl event was happening right there.  We cheered them on as they came past.

Thanks to all the riders for making it an outstanding ride and a great weekend away!  Mark your calendars for mid-September 2013, this is worth doing again.

-Ross Schaefer