41 Miles

41 Miles Lets GO!

Saturday was scheduled to be a 3:30 minute ride and amazingly enough David and I did just about that.  Ride time on Saturday was 3:35 minutes.  We did 41.27 miles of riding and 1,234 feet of climbing according to my strava.  While if you look at David's strava it would tell you we did 41.35 miles, and 1,131 feet of climbing and only 3 hours and 34 minutes of riding.  Which one is right?  Which one is wrong?  Who really knows.  Two different apps tracking the rides, two different satellites, it is one of lives little mysteries. It was a good ride no matter if it was a little longer or shorter.  What will be interesting is when he starts using his Garmin if we will get similar distances and feet climbed.  

Last Saturday was much better than the previous week just from a temperature standpoint.  Riding at 84 degrees is day and night better than riding at 94.  We had a nice breeze with us a lot of the day.  It makes riding a lot more enjoyable not fighting the heat the entire ride.  

David called out route the Tour de Burkle par Trey.  I guess we do a lot of Tour de Burkle's around these parts.  The route was pretty basic.  We heading out from my place, took the mile loop around the neighborhood and ended up on Laughlin. From Laughlin we turned left onto Northfront road by the freeway ramp and turned right onto my favorite road Greenville, or as it should be renamed GreenBill road. Greenbill has a nice little climb at the end.  Last year and before surgery this little climb was my bitch but since coming back, it has been a bit of a pain.  I get up and over it with no issue.  It is just going up for me isn't getting any easier right now.  This entire year each time the road goes up, I get slower and slower and lose distance between the Beaver and I.  It hasn't been the summer for climbing I wanted.  That is ok because my century is flat.  Got to keep things in perspective. 

From Greenville we turned right on Tesla and took that to the bike path off of Mines road.  One of these days I will take David out on Mines Road and we will attack Del Valle, but again training for a flat race, need more flat constant riding and not a lot of climbs right now.  Anyway, we took the trail that starts on Mines, probably should figure out what that trail is called one of these days since I ride it a lot.  Passed the Wente winery and wound ourselves up into the hills.  It was around this time that I started to hear something in my front tire that sounded like something was rubbing or air was leaking from my tire.  I asked David about it, and he said ya it sounds like something is rubbing.  Well that isn't really helpful and I was annoyed, because I already knew that.  I told him when we got to the park he was going to have to go into bike mechanic mode and check out my front tire.  

Getting to the park was a bit more drama than it needed to be.  It is an awesome down hill. Problem is you can't go down hill when there is a teenager walking his bike up on the wrong side of the road.  I could have kicked him, but that was only the start of the problem.  There was a guy who came shooting around me as I waited for the kid to get out of my way.  That dumb bastard thought he could out crank me down the hill. Little did he know about this thing called gravity and all his pedaling int he world couldn't get him to the bottom of that hill faster than me coasting my way down it.  I could have passed him at several points but I figured he would just try to crank around me again so I just sat on his back tire and enjoyed the decent.  David called out to me letting me know another guy was coming by.  The guy gave a weak little on your left and then said I don't have a voice like that guy.  I am going to take a moment to say, what the fuck is wrong with all the cyclist in the area.  Why is it so hard for you to call out and let people know you are coming around.  Has covid really turned us into uncivilized beasts that we can't simple say on your left or left?  It really is an issue.  People are so rude.  It almost caused an accident when I was turning into the park.  I signaled my left turn and I damn near hit this person trying to pass me on the left.  I literally told him thanks a lot for letting me you were there.  If I had turned a second earlier, it might have been a big pile up because mr not letting me know he was there came through with three other people.  It could have been a cluster fuck.  Doing that on a bike trail right before a left turn.  Man people are stupid. I told the guy thanks for letting me know he was there and he made a hand jester like whatever dude.  He almost got 300 lbs of pissed off Billy b turned into him.  Me and my titanium bike would have come out better in that exchange than his skinny ass.  

I totally forgot this bike ride was the anniversary of my concussion.  I was totally wearing the same bike jersey and everything, that was a coincidence but still.  A year ago, I gave myself my only known concussion by hitting the side walk at a bad angle and following off the bike and of course I planned the route to take us right by the scene of the crime because I had the route taking us from the park to Pleasanton.  Then coming back on Stoneridge which puts us near the outlets and the outlets where were I wrecked.  

Luckily, there was no wreck Saturday and it was not from a lack of trying, but we will get to that later.  We took Vineyard to Bernal, which takes us from Livermore to Pleasanton. It is a pretty nice little ride.  You have one hill you have to get up.  It isn't bad.  However, like every hill, I lose all inertia and can't quit get up easily.  As I was coming up some cyclist were going the other way and they started cheering me on, telling me to keep going.  I thought that was pretty cool. I am sure they are the nice type of cyclist that would have told you they were on your left.  

I was able to pass the spot where I wrecked last year without incident.  I did stop get off my bike and walk it to the trail instead of trying to ride onto it like I did last year.  That was always the plan because I didn't want a repeat of last years fall.  

The ride bak into Livermore was pretty uneventful.  When we got to Portola we stopped for some water.  It was nice at that point having some water that was infused with electrolytes.  I know I need them. I take a lot of them in.  However, sometimes, I just need water.  

From Portola we headed back out towards Pleasanton and crossed over 580 so that we could start our accent up Collier Canyon Road.  CCR is my favorite hill to go down.  What a great decent.  It is also my favorite to go up.  However, every time I go up it, I tend to forget how long it is.  It is a long accent.  Not to steep.  Never felt like omg this is to much but it is longer than I remember.  I kept telling myself to keep pedaling because if I didn't I would never get home again to see my Kona.  So, pedal I did and eventually after what seemed like an eternity we came to the top of CCR and then things got a little dicy going down Manning. 

Manning on the downward slope is great.  It is fast but not too fast.  It is a much needed downhill after coming up CCR a good break.  I was modocking down hill and having fun.  I came to a flatter part of the road and luckily a flat part with a very wide area and a bee flew into my helmet.  I am not going to lie at this moment, I freaked out.  Instead of being calm and just slowing and stopping, I started shaking my head to get the bee out.  I could hear it buzzing around in there.  I kept shaking my head and that is when I realized I wasn't on the road anymore.  I was on the side of the road in loose gravel.  My first instinct was to lock up the breaks and stop but I thought better of it, because I might just topple over right then and there.  So, I finally calmed myself and let the bike lose momentum and I eased myself very gently back up onto the road.  Then I brought myself of a complete stop and ripped my helmet off and... there was nothing there.  Whatever had flown in had flown out.  I was scared I was going to get stung but luckily, that did not happen.  All was well.

We road on.  WE turned off of Manning onto N. Livermore.  I was pedaling along and another big bug flew into my helmet.  I didn't panic this time.  I just calmly took my helmet off and shook it out.  Nothing was there.  Then I handed my helmet to David so I could bring my bike to a stop and put my helmet back on.  What the f are chances that I get to bugs in my helmet so close together?  What the hell man.  Stupid bugs.  I think I need to create a helmet that has most in-between the openings in the helmet so that the bugs can't get to me.  Perhaps that is my big idea.  Probably not.  

After the bug incident we made it back home with out any more issues.  It was a really good ride.  I wasn't as worn out at the end as I was the previous two weeks.  Don't get me wrong I was tired.  I just wasn't as zapped as the prior to weeks.  

Next week we were supposed to do the Civilized Century ride but I gave up our registrations.  We weren't going to do the 75 miles we signed up for because of my gallbladder.  Jumping from 41 to 60 seemed like too much of a jump right now and paying to ride 30 miles on flat land just didn't seem worth it.  So, we are going to ride another tour de burkle next weekend.  Probably hit 48/50 miles.