This morning I went on a nice 4 hour ride with my teammate Dave and our adopted teammate/riding partner Jeff. We ended up linking up with a couple of different groups and made some friends while enjoying a clear but chilly day outside San Francisco. After riding, I went over to Mill Valley to pace my old friend Preston for the last 6 miles of the Northface Endurance Challenge. This is an epic 50 mile trail running race through some of the most beautiful areas of coastal Marin County! This was Preston's first 50 mile race and he said that it was even harder than the Ironman he did last summer! With over 10,000 ft of elevation gain this is not an event for the weak.
It is so cool how many people are into cycling out here in Northern California. After meeting up for our ride, the 3 of us quickly encountered a number of groups and decided to tag along and make some friends.
As we rolled towards the coast the views started to look good!
We got a flat but were quickly back on the road.
Thanks to a helpful attendant at the Olema Deli I found out today that "Mexican Coke doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup like American Coke but instead that good sugar stuff"... Hmmmm, interesting, Team AC powered by Mexican Coca-Cola.
Preston on mile 44.
Preston on mile 48 running down towards the finish. Spending the last few miles of the race with Preston was pretty cool and although I don't think he was paying attention the views were out of this world. Check out the Golden Gate Bridge sticking through the fog in the background!
The fog was thick this morning as we rode through Sausalito towards San Francisco.
After passing under the Golden Gate Bridge we started to climb towards the coast.
Cruising through Fort Cronkhite the fog started to clear.
After Fort Cronkhite we did some nice climbing along these awesome cliffs!
As we made our way home we quickly realized a very high tide had come in and flooded parts of the bike path.
After putting in a good first week of training out here in San Francisco, I took a nice day off and played my first game of golf. I have never played golf before because I typically play more action packed sports like soccer, basketball, tennis etc. Never the less, I gave it a shot and had a blast. After zipping around all week on my bike it was nice to slow things down a bit.
I like the driver! Go big or go home.
Olema from Mill Valley.
The sky was pink as I left my house a little after 7am and rode to the shop to meet Chad and Dave for our ride. Here you can see the morning sun as we stopped to take off some of our layers.
After warming up for about an hour we picked up the tempo a bit and started to climb towards Olema.
Once in Olema, we turned inland and rode through Samuel P. Taylor park and back towards home. Dave on the left, Chad on the right.
The weather was really warming up as we finished our ride. Just another beautiful December day in Northern California.
As I set out on my ride, I saw this women painting on the side of the bike path. It made me pause for a second and realize how unseasonably nice it was out.
After climbing over Mt. Tam I headed straight for the Point Reyes National Seashore...aka heaven for a cyclist.
After doing a nice loop around Olema, I headed south again on Highway 1. After passing Stinson beach I started to climb and when I looked back I saw this amazing view.
As I headed home I kept checking out the huge waves that were rolling in. I didn't see many surfers in the water although I did see a ton of cars with boards on their roofs. Check out the huge Vulcher in the top left of the picture ; I saw a bunch of these guys today.
The sun started to set just as I made it over the mountain.
Did I mention it was nice out today?
After the ride, I jumped in the car and headed to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to watch the AC juniors tear it up in a cyclocross race. Now I say the AC junior team but a more accurate description is probably the ACR U16 terror squad. Despite the fact that none of the juniors has a valid drivers license they seriously took charge of the race. ACR's Spence Petterson won the mens B race and the rest of the team also had strong showings. There were probably over 100 riders in the field and the junior team seriously represented with all the riders in the top third! Good job boys!
It was a beautiful day here in Northern California. I stopped to take this picture as we crossed Alpine Dam around 11am. Not a cloud in the sky!
ACR's Sklyer Taylor, age 14, looking pro warming up before the start!
ACR's Bob Siegel(16) and Spence Peterson(14) warming up before the start. Bob and Spence had some sort of crazy warmup routine they were doing, but it apparently works well as Spence went on to win the race with Bob a solid 7th!
This is a video of the start of the men's B race that the juniors were in. A huge field!
Check out all the people cheering at the run up. Gotta love the energy out here!
Here's a good pic of Blair Peterson, Spence's dad, flying up the run up in the singlespeed race. Blair is a super nice guy and it is cool that Spence has his whole family, mom and sisters included, cheering him on at the races. Side note - Blair is riding a super sick Potts singlespeed cyclocross bike. Steve Potts is a legend in the frame building/mountain bike world. He personally helped me out as a junior and it was cool seeing Blair race such an awesome machine.
