So one would think now that school has started that I would have more time on my hands. I do, in fact. However, there is so much pent up energy and need to get out on my bike that I haven't been getting much of anything else done for the last week.
All this pent up bike need stems from only having ridden a scant 300 miles in August. Yes, you should laugh at me -- once again, I've diverged enough from the mainstream to be what Nimue classifies as "Odd Ma". Fortunately, I see this as a good thing :)
This urge to get out and ride in my newfound free time has intersected with the end-of-summer bike ennui that stems from having ridden all the usual hills many, many times this year already. It's clearly time to go out and explore!
So explore I have done. Recently you could have spotted me:
1) on the Dumbarton Bridge. I intended to do just a short ride to Shoreline and Palo Alto Baylands, but got carried away because I could, and it was nice out. After going over the bridge I got distracted exploring some dirt trails in Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, then got a little lost over in the East Bay, got mooed at by what sounded like some very disgruntled cows under a bridge, and eventually found my way back home having added substantially to my mental bike road atlas of the area. It's very fortunate that one can't get all that that lost following the edge of the bay.
2) on Sanborn Road. This is a dead-end stub of a hill off of highway 9 only a few miles from the house that climbs through sun-dappled trees up toward a county park. There's not much up there besides the park, so it was delightfully quiet. Amazingly quiet. Quite a nice little climb including a steepie bit at the beginning. I can't believe I had never bothered to check it out before.
3) going mountain biking from home without having to use the car -- at Fremont Older Open Space Preserve. Between the new Mary Avenue bike bridge and a patch of dirt along the railroad tracks near Bubb, I can get up to the preserve pretty painlessly, even on the mountain bike. Plus, I discovered another nice short road climb on the way up to the back entrance of the park -- Regnart Road is another delightful, deserted, rural-seeming, shady, short climb. Yay for avoiding boredom! Mountain biking at this particular park is fun for me, as it doesn't require much in the way of technical skills but still provides some good climbing. I zoomed out the other back way through Stevens Canyon County Park and rode straight to Nim's school to pick her up, dirty and hungry. The other moms probably think I'm nuts. Probably a good thing.
4) exploring dead end streets off of Montebello Road. I found a weird neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes with stunning views... of the working gravel pit below. Unfortunately most of the other little side roads I wanted to explore have forbidding "Private Road" signs on them. Grrr. I rode all the way up and took the dirt road to the top of Black Mountain instead, and then followed some relatively mellow singletrack along the Old Ranch and Bella Vista trails on my way down to Page Mill. (yes, it's at least sort of reasonable on a road bike)
plus the usual get Nim to school, ride to work, ride to the library, grocery store, etc. I've been heartened to note that there appear to be many more kids and kids+parents riding to school this year than last, at least so far. There seems to be an especially large number of dads with kindergarteners on trail-a-bikes, which is good to see. I've even seen (gasp) a private school student riding her bike to the Challenger school down the street from our house. This school was a bastion of car-infested woe all year last year. What is the world coming to? Something good, it seems!
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